Santa Says Congratulations

What a lovely recital!
Congratuations to all the performers and parents. I'm so proud and full of love for all of you! All the solo perforances and the duets and trios with students, parents and me were so fun and expressive.
I'll be posting videos on youtube--mostly private links so shoot me an email and I'll give you some links with parent permissions!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you!

The Storm is Coming

Caramel Corn is a great gluten free vehicle for butter, sugar and vanilla

This little one is already an appreciative audience

Hold your horses, girls!

Yes, that would be a lit steering wheel heat icon

Each loop is a perfect repetition! 

A sample of duets and trios

The reality. 

The storm is coming! That would be literally and figuratively. It's our big weekend. The children have been working so hard. This year, along with our classical repertoire we are featuring holiday duets and trios. I love Catherine McMichael's arrangements because they are intended for different levels so you can pair elementary and intermediate students. We are also doing a few of Jennifer Eklund's duets and the standard Alfred and Faber.  Each pianist will play one classical piece and one holiday selection. I've been lifting weights so that I can handle the stage managing--I'm borrowing extra adjustable chairs!

A couple weeks ago I started paying Mary a buck a day to be sitting in the chair with her hands on the piano at 6:45 a.m. Calvin says if I'm gonna go there I owe him $4272 in back pay. Note to parents and children everywhere, fair does not always mean equal. Some of us are not morning people. There go I but for the grace of an auto start coffee maker.

A glance at the weather is a little off putting. In light of Saturday's recital and Sunday's open house, I made Bill call the plow guy 13 times. Tell him I'm not psycho but we really need plowed out by 10:00 a.m. or I'm gonna blow a gasket. Tell him again.  Leave him another message. Tell him again--the part about how I'm not crazy but it's really important. DID YOU TELL HIM?!?!?!?!?

I'm guessing if it's really a high of eight below sledding will not be very much fun at the open house on Sunday. Except maybe Solomon and Nehemiah. They will probably ice fish. Minnesota boys.

Joyful haste is in the air. There are glass plates to bring up from the basement and chairs and drum sets and marimbas to move. Candles to light and programs to print. I have an extra printer in the trunk of the car sshhhh, not really. It's a good idea this time of year--it lets the printer under the desk know just where he stands.

Sand and salt.  DID YOU GET SAND AND SALT?  Honey, when are you gonna get the sand and salt?

Kris and I made all manner of fussy little Christmas cookies last weekend--chocolate thumbprints and wafer sandwiches--you know the kind--that take ten minutes each?  I whisked them away to the freezer. They are so special that no one can eat them. Ever. OK, maybe one on Christmas Eve.

To counter that I made three batches of caramel corn that we can stuff ourselves with.
I'm off the sugar free thing. In case you didn't notice.

God bless us everyone. Keep us safe on the roads and warm and toasty in our homes and hopefully at recitals and parties!

Merry Christmas.

The Light Shines. . . well. . sometimes it's actually just a little too dark to see

True Love

He Doesn't Do Anything Half Way

Cousin Robin's Photo of the last of my Grandma's dated muffin cups and  her other grandma's pan

Christmas Tea Girls

The Entertainer

Finished

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Except occasionally, like when you are playing a simple accompaniment for the guest speaker at the Christmas Tea and there's a background slide show and as soon as the slide show starts and she takes her first breath you realize that it's completely dark behind the piano and you can't read a single note of the seven page "Breath of Heaven" music.  You could stop and holler--hey--somebody turn on the lights back here, but since that might ruin what little ambiance you had going, instead you limp through, channeling your five years as country music starlet and thanking God that you are a Christmas music junkie and have actually heard said carol 1, 347,239 times, relying on your very own out of shape ears.

Every year I say it's the last year. This year, is really the last year.

Read my lips. . . no more tea. Instead I'm having an open house party. Yep. That will be much simpler. (Sunday 12/18 from 3:00-6:00 if you are in town--please stop by. . . no tea will be served.)

Calvin was a hit as usual and gently entertained us with his own internal library of Christmas music. He sold out of CD's, I haven't counted the cash--but it's gonna feed a lot of children for a year.

I don't want to ruin the tea for anyone else--the room is beautiful, the tables are beautiful, it's a moment of grace and fellowship. It's just time for me personally to move on.

Speaking of Christmas music junkies and playing by ear--we run across old random videos a lot--from the kids' cameras or old phones--we found one of Mary at Grandma and Grandpas on Christmas Day, she was four and Calvin was seven and she's singing Santa Claus is coming to town and Calvin is on the piano way in the background. She's cute as a bug of course, putting it on for the camera. I'm listening to Calvin's seven year old accompaniment and I hear the exact licks from Fred Waring's Christmas Magic CD, which I've been known to overplay, just once in a while for the past 40 years.

I don't say this to brag. . . though just like your kids, my kids are awesome. I'm just telling you this so that you can be very careful about what you let your children listen to. For example if Wee Sing Christmas is in the rotation--I highly recommend just passing that one on. Well. . . come to think of it, all kids deserve in tune Christmas carols. Never mind. Throw it away. Just be careful what you listen to.

And. . . carry an itty bitty book light in your briefcase. There's enough darkness in the world without trying to read those increasingly small black dots without light.

Merry Christmas.
Sara

The Mysterious Christmas Thing

Something mysterious happened. I seemed to have stumbled on to doing something very right. I guess after fifteen or probably more years of pulling the long Christmas train, we seem to have come full stop.

Well. . . at least manageable stop.

A lovely Thanksgiving was had by all up in Nisswa with Bill's folks. We also had a wonderful chance to meet up with friends. What would we do without our friends?

Upon our return I started getting out the Christmas. Those of you who have a Christmas closet will understand. If not. . . well just read along.

As usual I printed out the calendar for the remaining four weeks of the year. On cheerful red paper. Usually this resembles a late Beethoven sonata, a lot of black ink on the page. I studied it. I looked again. I went through the stack of papers on my desk. Nothing missing. No oversight. What? What? The pages are inexplicably blank. The Christmas train is only pulling a few light cars up the mountain.

I'm not saying we are only sitting here getting pedicures and eating bon bons, but we really just have the Christmas Tea, three choral services, a Christmas studio recital and two Christmas Eve churches. Totally reasonable normal activity level.

I've been having coffee with friends. Talking on the phone with Doris. Hanging my stockings with care. Yesterday Bill baked bread.

I guess last year between eight weeks of bronchitis and the broken tailbone something sank in. No dentist. No board meetings. No Nutcracker tickets after a nativity play. I guess I actually did it. Jesus took the Christmas wheel.

Saturday night we were able to take a last minute invitation to the Augsburg College Christmas Vespers at the Central Lutheran Church downtown. And there wasn't even a jazz band concert right before it. Christmas choral music is always moving to me, but this time it was the spoken words of my favorite author tucked between the orchestra and the organ that brought the tear.

God did not wait till the world was ready,
till. . . nations were at peace.
God came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time.
God came when the need was deep and great.
God dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

God did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours,
of anguished shame God came,
and God's Light would not go out.

God came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
--Madeleine L'Engle, First Coming

We cannot wait for a perfect world, before we are joyful. We cannot till we are all perfect to love each other. God is with us, we are with each other, right here, right now.

Sunday the choir sang a cappella. I wish I had captured their singing at the 9:30 service, but here is the St. Olaf substitute. I love this anthem.

O Light Everlasting (link)
O Love never failing,
Illumine our darkness,
And draw us to Thee.
May we from Thy spirit receive inspiration
That children together Thy wisdom may see.
Make known to all nations Thy peace and salvation,
And help up, O Father, Thy temple to be.
(Christianson)

It's right here, right now--that peace that passes understanding. That salvation. The grace that somehow cleared the calendar. The light everlasting that can illumine our darkness. I don't know how it happened this year, but whatever it is, it's filling me with light--light that isn't just from the 37 strings of white incandescents I have strung around my house on every tree and wreath. Not just from the pine scented candle on my stove. It's a mystery to me how this happened, but, Christmas itself is a mystery.

I can take it.
Peace to you.

An Abundance of Thanks

An Abundance of Practice

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

I'm thankful for a God who has the whole world in his hands.

I'm thankful for a husband who loves me unconditionally.

I'm thankful for Calvin and Mary who light up my life and teach me something new everyday.

I'm thankful for my family and Bill's family. We are blessed with family. My mom, my sister and Sam, Bill's folks and his sister and brother-in-law. There's just a few of us--we've got to try to take care of each other.

I'm thankful for our home and that we can share it with people we love and fill it with music, light, good food and a glass of wine now and then.

I'm thankful for my friends--Lord, what did I ever do to deserve such good friends. Laughter. Love. Light. Really they are angels.

I'm thankful for Doris's piano this year. It's getting played around eight hours a day. It sounds so beautiful. God's perfect timing. I'm thankful for Doris and all the teachers I've had. I'm thankful for the new teacher in our life, Paul Wirth and the love of music that he's sharing with Calvin. God's perfect timing.

I'm thankful for the piano kids, old and new. Driving out to New Ulm for their workshop on Saturday, I did a lot of thinking. A lot of thanking. I was thinking about the group lesson right before the Christmas recital, I don't know what year, but I had to stand in the back and pretend I was listening to the sound back there because I was so overcome with love, and tears--Knoplohs were moving, Jonelle was leaving Tom, and Tammy had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. All these years later she is cancer free--thank you God. Cassy and Stefanie did Grown Up Christmas Wish. . . and Waldrons did a quartet of Oh Holy Night. It was a sacred time.

All these years later. We have new families, and I love them just as fiercely. I teach them and they teach me. Everyday. There's gonna be more sacred times at this Christmas recital when you see these little ones playing duets and trios together. I'm already sniffly.

Abundance. Of love. Of Thanks. Of joy.

God bless us, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving to you--and if you are reading this, you know that I love you and I'm thankful for you.

Sara

Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is darkness, light; and
Where there is sadness, joy.
Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
--St. Francis

There is so much post election hate spilling out of the news and Facebook. Some of us sensitive folks absorb all that hate. Families, communities. No one is immune. People are behaving badly. I have even gotten sucked in to fighting with the people I love most. I can't even remember what the fight was about. I'm ashamed.

Perhaps there is one thing conservatives, liberals, people of all races, religious people and non-religious people, gays and straights. . .could agree on. Maybe, maybe, perhaps we could agree to love the person, even when we differ about the ideas. I haven't felt loved this week. And I haven't felt very loving. Personally, I can't go on like that. I need my family. I need my community.

To me love wins is not a political platform or a religious theology, it's just what's gonna have to happen if we are gonna make it through this life with any sense of joy and participation.

Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me. My grandma Hope's leitmotif.

Can you love me if my ideas are different than yours? Can we love each other through this?

I vow to protect everyone I know from hate.
I vow to love each person I know, tenderly and forever, no matter what they think, say or do.

Create in me, a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. 
Amen

Post Election Thought

I'm writing this for me. Not really for anyone else. I'm not going to boost the post on Facebook. In fact I'm quietly signing off Facebook for a week, maybe more. Calvin invited me to do this and we are doing it together. My "friends" are making me feel isolated and lonely.

When did politics become religion to people? Are you really governed by the POTUS? I'm not.

Yesterday morning at 7:45 a.m. I watched the good people from the City of Eagan public works remove black spray painted election night graffiti from the walls at the corner of Yankee Doodle and Blue Cross Blue Shield roads. This on my walking path. Suburban hate. Thank you, Eagan, for not letting those words see the light of day.

Lord, above, don't we want to power wash us all?

News flash: hating haters is still hate.

This morning I'm going to run a SAM board meeting. Later today I'm going to start piano lessons with a little five year old girl who speaks Hebrew. Tomorrow I'm going to go see young friends sing in a play. Saturday we are going to have a chamber music workshop here and fill the house to the brim with music and pizza. Saturday night we are taking the family to the Feed My Starving Children Gala. Sunday the choir is going to sing two services and then more chamber music and then we are going to see the From the Top concert, of the cream of the crop young people at the Ordway.

I think I'm gonnna have to listen to the Messiah this morning, "and He shall purify the sons of Levi."
That's what I'm needing. An offering in righteousness.

I'm  holding on to the good part of that scene with the city men in neon yellow vests power washing the concrete--wash it away, Lord, wash it away. Leave the love. Purify us all.

Election Day Thought

"Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our views on others, we are committed not to force others, even our children, by any means whatsoever--such as authority, threat, money, propagnada, or indoctrination--to adopt our views. We will respect the right of others to be different and to choose what to believe and how to decide. We will, however, help others renounce fanaticism and narowness through compassionate dialogue."
Thich Nhat Hanh

Buying Time

You probably know who my favorite cat is

Sunset Cabin Weekend

You probably know who my favorite man is

And. . . my favorite girl

He's like a bad boyfriend. . . sneaking around and then bites you like it's your fault

You probably know what Mary's favorite animal is

Over MEA, the Minnesota Fall school break, Calvin went to St. Louis with the EVMB, Mary went to camp Grandmommy's in Iowa and Bill and I went to the cabin--hold your breath--all by ourselves. Best weekend of my life.

If you are married, I highly recommend this. You can even use our cabin. Sitting comatose in front of the fire for 48 hours? You can feel the life seep back into your bones. If you are single, you have to give this love, this time to yourself. Somehow.

Life is a process, an ebb and flow of growing and evaluating. Sometimes we slip back into chaos, hopefully temporarily for projects, like the workshop. Sometimes it feels like that chaos becomes the norm. Even after the workshop you still wake up at 4:30 a.m. and run the list.

For me, when the flood creeps closer and closer to the door, I stockpile. I better get seven gallons of milk from Costco, because who knows when the water will recede and I'll be able to get the car back out of the garage. Better order Mary's senior prom dress too, and Calvin will be needing cheese. If you have opened my fridge drawer you will know that there have been moments where there have been twenty bricks of co-jack. . . just waiting for the apocalypse. There are upwards of five pounds of coffee beans in my freezer at any given moment.

I've given a lot of time to SAM and to the SPTG and that is a complete privilege. Little by little though, I've got to balance things out a little. I've got to save time to plan my own studio events, and budget time to be gone for my own guest teaching. I'm going to New Ulm in November and out to DC in January. Someone else gets to stay up all night wondering who will pick ME up from the airport.

A couple weeks ago I asked Mary Lynn for more help. Over the last eight years she has been our baby sitter, turned friend, turned chauffeur. Now I'm buying a little of her time. A little of my own time.

Hopefully now, when the flood rises, Mary Lynn can take the life raft to the pet store. I don't have to stuff a thirty year supply of kitten kibbles into the laundry room cabinet. When Flopsy died, I gave an entire trunk load of bunny litter, bunny hay and bunny kibbles to neighborhood bunnies.

Buying time. Window washing. Leaf blowing. That's one kind of time.

Piano lessons for Calvin and jazz piano for Mary? That's another kind of buying time. Investing in someone else's knowledge.

Where your money goes, there goes your heart. My pastor reminded me of that verse when we were celebrating my least favorite holiday, Halloween. By the way, on Halloween I gave up refined sugar for 30 days. This is day five. This is a physical abstaining from the gluttony that has been the last few months. My thoughts on Halloween are a different post and you can probably go into the archives of this blog and you will see the same pattern. . . how three days after Halloween both kids get sick and run fevers and stay home from school. Mary throws up. If Halloween celebrates the dark side--for me that dark side is sugar.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Luke 12:34.

This year a lot of our heart went into Doris's piano. That is a good thing. God's perfect timing.

It's not in my value system to buy more than I need. Food. Clothes. Toys. I'm not a hoarder, my house is probably pretty high on the tidy scale, but when I hear the lightning and thunder, I batten down the hatches. I buy more blueberries than an army can eat. . . stress requires antioxidants after all. . . and then. . . we throw them out when they spoil. Ditto for kids' clothes. What if I can't do laundry for forty days and forty nights? We've got to have enough undershirts to survive that kind of tragedy. Exaggeration alert. . . 

This entry is a really long and honest way of me saying that we're reevaluating. I'm reevaluating. Where is my heart? What is my treasure?

Family, church, friends, our kids' music education.

Our time.

Way back when I was taking Book 1 from Doris, I asked her how she managed to balance teaching and family life. She told me she had a good husband and a lot of help. I've got the good husband part. I'm upping the help part.

I'm on a self imposed spending moratorium, and I'm putting my money into my time. My sugar eaters anonymous program is a physical reminder of that. One other facet for me, is to use up the stockpile of everything that I have in my possession, before buying anything new. For shampoo, that means that I'm really hopeful that Mary's grandchildren like the smell of Paul Mitchell. I guess we have this much because you never know when things could get really busy, or terrorists could attack, and we might need to wash our hair 37,454,281 times. And conditioner of course, because in tough times you can't have snarls.

Much love to everyone. . . you are my treasure too!

Calvin's Confirmation

Sunday was reformation Sunday and it was also Calvin's confirmation service. It was a very lovely service. Our church had 80 confirmands and about 30 were confirmed in Calvin's service. The choir sang and at one point in the service all the people of each child were invited to come up and lay hands on him or her while the pastor offered up a personal individual prayer. Thank you, Pastor Kris, for your love of Calvin and everyone there.

One thing about being Lutheran, our faith tends to be a slow and steady burn. Like the coals in a campfire. There isn't always a burst of flame, like a born-again moment. Each person's faith evolves over time and works itself out. Still, these landmark occasions are important and special.  There isn't very much I'd rather be doing than celebrating the faith of my kid.

If there was a born again moment perhaps it was farther back. . . I don't know.  In 2008 I visited the little Catholic church, St. Michaels, in Záhori Village, where my great, great, great, great, great, great--well I don't know how many greats--grandparents worshipped and took communion in the Czech Republic. My mom and my sister and I took communion there at that same ancient rail. I felt the true meaning of the communion of saints. Generation to generation.

Calvin had eight great grandparents and four grandparents with a legacy of strong faith. He has two parents with strong faith. Aunts. A sister. A cousin. Pastors. A church. He has a cloud of witnesses, that is for sure.

God bless you Calvin, today and always.  Let your light shine. You are a blessing to me, to Daddy, to Mary, and to so many people!

Here are Calvin's verses:

Jeremiah 29:11

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Phillippians 4:13

I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

And here is Calvin's prayer:

Dear God, thank you for the divine giftss of life and faith and for the people around me that help me develop these gifts. Help me to live my life to the fullest, according to your plan for me. Let me always bring joy to those around me and guide me as I continue on my journey of faith. Amen. 

S.A.M. Workshop Weekend 2016

Creative Ability Deveopment in Action

Collaboration

My Honors Recital Kiddos 

A Moment at the Tour Group Recital 

Rhythm Machine

The little ones in class

SAM's Creative Ability Development Trainees-- minus me

A selfie of the trainees and Alice

Part of the workshop committee and Alice

Last night I slept for eight full hours. This morning I consumed a reasonable amount of caffeine. I went to yoga and had something healthy for breakfast, as opposed to a pumpkin waffle with whipped cream, brown sugar, pecans and maple syrup.

I'm doing all these healthy things again because the workshop is over.

We had an amazing, amazing weekend. Our guest clinician Alice Kay Kanack, arrived Thursday night. We did teacher training in Creative Ability Development on Friday. We went to dinner Friday night. We had 41 kids and 30 teachers at the workshop on Saturday. All the kids got a mini institute. They got a masterclass, a group lesson, an origami class while parents soaked up info from Alice, and each child got an improvisation class with Alice. We had our annual SAM meeting.

We had a lovely faculty and student honors recital after lunch, and a creative ability development concert at the close of the day.

Here's the story. Creative ability development uses improvisation, but that's not the total deal. The end goal is kids and adults using both sides of their brains to meet their potential.

Alice has a music school in Rochester, New York. It's a whole program. Her kids are graduating to conservatory and music school, but also doing amazing work in everything they do. Great doctors. Creative lawyers. It's undocumented but fabulous success.

A bunch of those kids came from New York and a sister program in Chicago, to show us what it's all about. It's everything Shinichi Suzuki wanted. Good kids with good hearts playing expressively with good tone and good intonation. Connecting together with music, through improvisation. Their whole hour concert was improvised.

The kids stayed for pizza and what else? A brief trip to Nickelodeon Universe at the MOA. Thank you to the families who hosted them!

On Sunday, we continued our teacher training with Alice.

We all got a wealth of experience and ideas to take back to our studios. I also got 17 new friends. Well--to be honest a few were already friends--but you can't sit in a room with your instrument and go round and round the room doing improvisation exercises for ten hours without gaining some love and trust. We were all on the high wire. Alice's rules? There's no such thing as a mistake, applaud everyone and be quiet for everyone, and never criticize a friend.

There's no way to completely say thanks to everyone, but here's my best shot:

Cindy Uhlemann --Workshop Chairperson--my best friend during workshop season. She gives and gives and gives.
MJ Glawe --  all the website info and the registration tool. All the email blasts and communication, the poster and registration desk.
Carolyn Borgan -- checks for clinicians and food and everything.
Beatriz Aguerrevere -- the amazing workshop program--the booklet with EVERTHING! (My dream).
Cherie Bjur --day of registration checklists and name tags--totally pro and clear and wonderful.
Randi Kvam Hellman and Jill Thomas --food, food, and more food.  And coffee and God bless you, half and half. They planned all the food.
Meredith Vaughan--staffing the volunteers in her usual fashion.

Karen Stiles, Mary Gustafson, Cheryl Mahin, and Jill Thomas for hosting kids. And waiting up for them and getting them to and from the airport and their rides.

Beth Turco and Linda Trygstad for judging the honors recital kids and providing such lovely feedback to all of the children.

Our clinicians: Alice Kay Kanack, Lisa Hirschmugl, Erika Blanco, Susan Crawford, Wendy Tangen-Foster, Suzanne Greer, Annette Lee, myself, Alan Johnston, and Adrianna O'Brien. Special thanks to Annette for accompanying the recital with late notice.  Pianists don't need accompanists so you can maybe see how I forgot about that. . .

Rochelle Mazze, Julia Bartsch, Jill Thomas and the origami helpers--you know who you are and you know what frogs you did or didn't practice making ahead of the class. We survived. I used to have an anxiety dream that I was playing a jury in front of the professors and I hadn't practiced enough. I now have the dream that I'm in a room with 40 kids and I have no idea how to fold a piece of green paper into a frog shape. I'm joking, it was a very fun hour. Which seemed like 20 hours.

Keyboards--thanks for bringing keyboards, Calvin, Mary G, Jill and Mary Kay O'Neil.
Calvin--for helping out with the keyboards and every other random thing on Saturday.
Adrianna and David Holmes for the loaner cellos.

A special thanks to Karen Stiles and of course Cindy, who stayed till the bitter end on Sunday. I have a special appreciation for folks who stay till the very last juice container is out of the fridge and every chair is stacked, every keyboard loaded and every room locked and the little half and halfs are collected and the miscellaneous stuff is all loaded into the car. We did it. Every last napkin and program.

It seems like people are always saying there is no growth without struggle. Alice preached it this weekend. We have to work out our own salvation. I'm not sure I can ever do another workshop like this again, but I must say I grew. Everything we do we learn--how to be organized, how to communicate with folks with different communication styles. A million ways we learn and grow. I'm sorry for the moments I was grouchy, but I think we did pretty darn good.

God bless everyone for their help and work to bring this weekend to our students and teachers. I have nothing but love, love and more love for this group. My kids loved it--I hope all the kids loved it. I loved it, I hope all the teachers loved it.

Amen. See you next year. I'm not even entertaining those little thoughts of who we should have and how things should go. . . really.