Twenty-five Days of Christmas Music

Goodbyes were hard in those days of Texas

Mother and Child 

My Grandma Hope with a Tree of Life Charm--because it was the first year without Grandpa. I wear the charm at Christmas now. 

Sleigh Ride Crossing Sign 

The best seat in the house!

Yes, we were like that. 

Cody and Cheyenne with Bill and Calvin

Sharing Cookies with Grandpa

A New Hat!

Toyland

Nobody asked me. . . but in celebration of Calvin's senior year I've decided to share 25 of my favorite Christmas CDs on the blog.

The first one is Sweet Music of Christmas from the University of Texas Chamber Music Singers. My favorite track is "Of the Father's Love Begotten."  Check it out.

Of the Father's Love Begotten--youtube


https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-UNIVERSITY-CHAMBER-SINGERS-MORROW/dp/B000V8LQUE

https://itunes.apple.com/sv/album/sweet-music-of-christmas/301447875

Photos from 2002.

Wabi-Sabi and the Art of Piano Panic

Once a Bunny, Always a Bunny

Snowflakes for the Snowflakes

Calvin's Media Productions at Work

Trouble, Right Here in River City

Grandma Hope's Chairs All Repaired and Ready for Kotrba Life Again

At the Feed My Starving Children Gala

Kitten Kisses

November 5, 2018
The days are getting shorter and the clouds are getting Novemberish. I'm feeling an overwhelming sense of peace, because I love the upcoming season. I've started putting the pre-advent lights around the house and last week I repaired and hung the snowflakes. No Santa Claus or Jesus yet but the Christmas recital is early this year and the days are ticking by at record speed. So we listen to the Messiah and start to do the November things. The kids have accused me of getting ahead of the scheduled Christmas music, i.e. Josh Groban on 12/1, Carpenter's on 12/2 etc. . . I don't care. I resemble that remark.

Calvin is seventeen, which means our house is seventeen. The house feels tired to me. The wood floor is tired, the upstairs carpet is tired. The paint on the walls is tired. The finishes on the furniture we use are tired. The kittens aren't helping. Well, they are helping, they help me with everything. The laundry, watering plants, practicing. Everything. Everything comes with a little extra mess. But, still, the list of capital improvements that could be done to the house is growing. Where the line is between well-loved and just plain needing some repair?

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese idea of the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Beauty that is imperfect.

My friend Sandi told me she hated to refinish her kitchen floor because the place that was worn was where she stood to cook her family dinner.

It's true. The house is real. It's full of little children's finger prints and cat scratches and blueberry stains and little smudges on the walls going upstairs. Don't ask what they are and don't think too much about it.

But. . it's smells like a fire in the fireplace and homemade pizza and pine candles and hopefully not too much cat litter.

Seventeen years ago when we moved in and everything was perfect, while I was beyond ecstatic to own a real home that we designed and built, there was something missing from it all.

Life.

It took two babies, a bunny, seven cats, 100 recitals and seventeen winters, springs, summers and falls with their dirt and pine needles and sunshine to temper the house into a home.

I'm not in a hurry to fix it all. There are woodpeckers living here and there around the siding and we probably should take care of that.

We will get to it. It's the non-dual acceptance of simultaneously taking good care of things while also using and enjoying them. It's the little things, that make a house a home.

November 12, 2018
Yesterday, I had a pretty major performance panic attack during the concert at Easter. I was well-prepared and excited enough for our six anthems, four of them with substantial accompaniments. There were however some extenuating circumstances.

The beta blockers.

I've been on the beta blockers for my thyroid for a good eight weeks now. They help control your heart rate and keep it from racing, which is one my symptoms. Coincidentally they are also the prescription drug of choice for performance anxiety. Four days ago I decided I was feeling pretty darn good, probably on account of the quart of celery juice I've been consuming (don't think about it too much) and I went off the beta blockers.

When the Easter Choir collaborative concert moment arrived, there were just a few things that triggered the attack--the guest choir and their accompanist (new people) --the distance of the piano from the choir, (Barb and Bev's soprano voices are my security blanket) distance from the conductor, (my eyes can't change focal points that quickly) and God knows what else. The tipping point of the fragile ego and the pulse and the little voices of judge and jury quarreling in my head. The irony of the medicine that could have put me back together being at home in the bathroom drawer. The guilt that I was not mentally strong enough to wrestle my own mind and heart rate. Not completely being in my own body during those four anthems. For shame.

If Wabi-sabi is the beauty of imperfection then I truly achieved that. . .
The recovery steps? Cry in the parking lot. Call your husband to confirm that somebody still loves you. Weight the pros and cons of completely leaving the music industry for 12 hours. Prepare for teacher training the next day and remember that you do really love most of the pieces from Book Five. And most music. And most children. Decide that maybe you are still of some small value even after a sloppy concert. You think I'm joking. I'm not.

One of my favorite authors, Brené Brown, talks a lot about "the shame storm" of our failures and imperfections. How we recover is really the whole deal, because sooner or later we will all and our children will all, and our students will all, survive some big or small mistakes.

So like my house, I'm considering myself wabi-sabi today. My performance had a few boogers on the wall, but we can clean that up and the house still stands in warmth and love. Even some beauty.

Here's to wabi-wabi.

Kittens, Thyroids, Birthdays, Workshops and Marching Band

Those are about the best five words to describe the last few weeks.

Charlie never came back. It's a strange grief--to just disappear. You don't really know when to cry. He was the best cat ever. Even Bill loved him. Not to be dramatic but I still expect him to run out in front of the Jeep when I pull in the driveway. That was his way of saying welcome home. He trusted me that much. . . I figured the best way to have him come back was to get two new kittens. It didn't work. Still, we picked them up from a farm outside the town of Stacey. The orange one is Oliver and the grey girl is Melody.  They are God's perfect kittens. They just run around terrorizing the house and then crash and sleep for hours.

Mary turned 14 last week. I can't believe it. She was ill for her birthday. But. . . we had some good celebrating on the weekend. She is an amazing teen. God's perfect girl.

It's the pinch point of Fall. The SAM workshop is this weekend. I'm only helping with the piano stuff and the honors recital stuff. . . but that is enough. Of course, state marching band finals are the same day. Lucky for me, the U and the Vikings Stadium are almost walking distance.

I couldn't possibly describe the day I had yesterday. . . from a doctor appointment to teacher training to Chick-fil-a to Eastview to Brooklyn Center to school board meeting in Apple Valley for the National Merit Scholar thing to marching band. Calvin changed from school clothes to a suit to athletic clothes in three hours. Everyone has these days, but I actually was really there because it was the last one. The last running from piano to marching band. Cue the mama tears.

I don't know if I'm really crying over the end of marching band.
They might be tears of joy.

I had the second doctor appointment this morning. Yesterday I took the radioactive pill and today they did the scan. The thyroid scan. I've been feeling pretty cruddy for the past ten weeks. I'm okay mostly during the day but my heart races and my temperature is completely off and my tummy is pretty mixed up. All those things added up to the thyroid and today after the scan they called it out as thyroiditis. A virus on my thyroid. I take that as good news because it will pass in a few months and I'll be back on track. I have an excellent endocrinologist who happens to be a mom in my studio. How lucky am I? I'm feeling better already just knowing this.

I'm going upstairs to get ready to teach and I'm getting out the Christmas music. It's eight weeks till the recital. There is a lot to do between here and there. And it's all good. How lucky am I to help the piano kids pick out Christmas music?

Nothing too profound here today, I'm mostly just full of thanks. I'm thankful for my family and my new kittens, my friends and all the piano kids. And I'm thankful for all my SAM folks--and how hard they work to make workshops. I'm thankful for Christmas music in October. And bodies that heal.

With love,
Sara

Academic Accolades

I thought we were saving so much money by Bill taking Calvin's senior pictures. . . then I remembered about the camera collection. . . .

Congrats to Calvin, that is John Calvin. . .
Did you know Calvin's full name is John Calvin Kotrba. He's named after my grandpa, who was an Iowa farmer. At this point, Calvin has his blue eyes and his dimples, but that's really about all they have in common. I kinda remember when my grandpa earned his GED--to graduate from high school. He must have been in his fifties. Then along came my mom, and she (and my uncle) were going to college. That was a really big deal. Iowa farms girls didn't have a ton of options to study at that time. They could be a nurse or a teacher. My mom graduated from Iowa State and became a home economics teacher. Bill's folks grew up around Chicago and advanced education was a little more of a given. Now Calvin and Mary have a suburban education, myriad options for college and advanced degrees are pretty much expected. Time marches on.

Just a note, our public schools in District 196 rock and the opportunities for the kids are unbelievable. All of this is mostly to say thanks to all the teachers we know but also to give Calvin a moment of congrats.

Calvin is a Semifinalist in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program.
How come he is so smart when I have to run spell check on my blogs?
I don't know. I'm just thankful that every generation gets smarter.

If I had to voice an opinion about why kids do or don't test well, I would credit Calvin with two habits. The habit of voracious reading. Calvin reads everything. Conservative publications, liberal publications. Fantasy novels that are a million pages long. The Wall Street Journal--almost everyday. The second thing I think I would credit is piano. The ability to focus on a task for a given amount of time. The development of concentration and creativity in music.

Reading and music. The perfect storm.
Congrats Calvin--Bill and I are proud of your academic success and I'm happy to celebrate you in my blog today. We are also mostly proud of your heart and your faith and all the things you are off the testing page.

Love you,
Mama and Daddy

http://www.district196.org/blog/2018/09/12/district-196-seniors-recognized-by-national-merit-scholarship-program/

A Noble Creature

Charlie is missing. Since Wednesday night. He was last seen by a choir member coming into our house for the gathering. We've been doing the lost cat thing. Calling animal control and the local vets. Posting signs. Sharing on Facebook sites.

Charlie is ten years old. He came to us on a snowy night in April of 2008. I had fallen in love with a picture on the web and Bill and I drove to some god awful farm down south in a snow storm to get rescue him. It was the worst place ever with monkeys and lizards and no floor. We laid down the cash and snatched the cat and got the heck out of there. He is a Napoleon but I didn't give a hoot about the breeding papers I just wanted those white whiskers.

He fit in my robe pocket and practiced with us at the piano every morning. When he ran across the floor to chase a toy his back side got in front of his front side and twisted him about.

There is still hope that Charlie will return--it's only been three days. Garfield was gone for nine days. Still, I don't do well with lost things, let alone lost pets.

The pity party in me is crying that I've actually lost the two cats that I love and now we are left with Rosie, and I'm not so connected with Rosie. She was just Garfield's sister who came along for the ride.

Charlie is actually the best cat ever. Even Bill loves Charlie and he has spent the best part of three days combing the ditches and the ravine behind our house looking for that black and white cat. That's what good husbands do.

Charlie was like a bad boyfriend to me. He is known to bite and scratch when things didn't go his way, like if you pet him wrong or for one moment longer than he tolerated. I have the scars to prove it. The piano kids are instructed not to pick him up.

Then he comes around later all sorry and wanting to make up.

He sat on my lap every morning listening to Calvin and Mary play the piano. Until we got to the Chopin Scherzo. That was too much for him. Come to think about it he wasn't very fond of Op. 90 either.

He's noble for a million reasons. He lets the other cats eat before he eats. Even though he could take any of them down with a swipe. He waits at the foot of the bed for my alarm to go off before sticking one claw into my neck to wake me up. He would never wake me up and that was part of the deal. Same thing with all the doors. Never cry at the door, just wait patiently for Sara to finally walk by. He expected very little and never asked for much with his voice.

In 2009 we got Lilly from the shelter, to keep him company. She was a tiny little tabby. He adopted her and protected her and they were ying and yang. Him the huge long haired black and white cat and her the tiny short-haired tabby but something worked. He couldn't protect her from the coyote when she snuck out during a recital. I'm sure he would have tried and he sat on the screen porch for days looking for her.

In 2010 we got Garfield and Rosie from the Picket Fence house in Burlington Iowa. Instead of loving his new friends he was completely annoyed with the two fluff balls we brought into his life. They were not Lilly.

That's the story of Charlie. Lost pets are the worst because you never know at what point to cry. When Flopsy died we said goodbye and laid him in the garden to rest. Now I just have some black fur on the carpet in the hallway upstairs--and I'm not ready to vacuum it up.

Forgive the drama, please, but I am a crazy cat lady after all. It was part of Bill and my marriage vows actually.  I would move to Minnesota and he would deal with the grand pianos and the cats.

So--here's to Charlie. Here's to all the pets. Thank you for the joy they bring to our lives. Charlie if you are out there--make your way home safely.  If your life is done--thank you for being the most noble of creatures.

Humble Heroes

Everyone Needs an Expensive Frustrating Hobby, Don't They? 

Mark Humphrey is My Hero

Restringing in Progress

Second Day of Eighth Grade

Shiny New Strings and Pins and Bright Red Felt

Good to Go For Another 50 Years

Aren't They Shiny? 

Still Some Work to Do 

No More Teflon in the Under Levers

Somebody Hand Makes This 

Did You Know You Can Dust Under the Plate with an Air Compressor? 

Friday Night Football was Played Before and After the Half Time Show

First Day of His Senior Year 

We are off and running. School started Tuesday and I start teaching this next week.  It's a good idea to start lessons a week after school starts. For the children and for me. It gives us all just a little breathing room.

Life moves at several different paces. Highs and lows? A twelve-year-old brought a loaded gun to the junior high I grew up in, where my mom taught for 30 years and where my sister currently teaches. He attempted to shoot my sister's friend Dawn Spring. He fired the gun but the safety was on. Then she said, quote of the year, "it looks like you are having a really bad day, lets go talk to someone." And she accompanied him to the guidance counselor's office where they disarmed him. Sometimes the angels show up at the right time. We didn't really want Eldridge on the map. Dawn is a humble hero.

My friend Kris is in the hospital with viral meningitis and Ramsay Hunt disease in her ear. That's shingles. She's been very, very ill and the church is postponing her goodbye party. We hope she will come home as soon as possible. More room for angels, every kind nurse and creative doctor is appreciated.

Mary is making jewelry out of the old piano strings and pins. Mark has been here all week putting new strings and dampers on the Steinway. He is an artist and the hero of my pianos. The piano was built in 1970 and has the original strings and dampers. The next time they get replaced it will not be by me. Isn't that something. Pianos are something else.

Everyone seems to be in the right place at the right time. Isn't that all we really need? I'm teaching teachers Suzuki Book Five this Fall and believe me, it's a little intimidating. Who would really want to take this from me? I've taken the class from Doris Harrel and just having her Steinway does not qualify the teaching. Still, I didn't do this because I think I'm worthy. I did the teacher training thing because I believe in the mother tongue approach and talent education.

In The Book of Joy, Archbishop Tutu says on page 210-211, "Sometimes we confuse humility with timidity, this gives little glory to the one who has given us our gifts. Humility is the recognition that your gifts are from God, and this lets you sit relatively loosely to those gifts. Humility allows us to celebrate the gifts of others, but it does not mean you have to deny your own gifts or shrink from using them. God uses each of us in our own way, and even if you are not the best one, you may be the one who is needed or the one who is there."  I'm clinging to that. . . we don't have to be the best one to be of value. Whenever we are at the edge of our ability and experience there will always be doubt. The author goes on to remind the reader that it's not about me. It's about the message, in this case the joy of teaching book five. Except the Haydn. . . I'm not quite getting the joy of that first movement yet.

Back to The One Thing and I'm sorry you are victims to my current reading list, after the blog you will not need to read the actual books. . . but, in keeping with the goal of blocking time for my one thing, I'm committed to practicing two hours a day this Fall. I'm off to a very good start and it feels very good to play. The author says you need to block fours hours a day to your one thing, but he doesn't have two kids and a studio and a home and garden and a church job. I humor myself.

Other heroes of the week? High school calculus teachers who buy the textbooks THEY want with their own money.  Middle school GT counselors who sneakily get readers the right English teacher. The entire Eastview Band department. Husbands who run errands on Saturday morning so wives can blog. Pretty much everyone one who goes to bat for someone else, sacrificing something of themselves along the way, is a humble hero.

The Penultimate Kotrba Family Summer

Lucky me to teach these dolls at MacPhail

Lucky Mary to learn from Fay

Mr. Red Pants was amazing as always

I started this blog in 2011. Calvin was ten. Mary was seven. For better or worse it's been a family journal. Before that, I used to scrapbook. I took Bill's precious photos and cut and pasted them with pretty papers and coordinating stickers and a few glasses of wine later I had something physical I could hold and touch and turn the pages of. After my dad died, and my grandma, and Bill's grandma--I guess I stalled out. I couldn't hold the people and I guess I didn't want to hold the photos either. I picked up blogging.

Tonight I went back and read a few early blog entries. I think I used to be funnier. Life with littles has a certain laugh or cry moment to moment mentality.

Since January I've been using the bullet journal system for my planner. I've always used a blank notebook for my position as C.O.O. of the Kotrba household. That is. . . chief operating officer. But before the Leuchtturm 1917 (the most highly recommended "bullet" journal) it was messy. I was a Moleskine girl. But. . . alas, the Leuchtturm has numbered pages and an index, making it easier to look up my notes from the SAM workshop in 2014. The little dots force you to write neater. I have my dad's left-handwriting.

August 

A week in the life

I have the old Moleskines in a shoebox. It may not surprise you that I can look back and tell you the menu and grocery list for each and every birthday party we've had, every Christmas and Easter dinner, and well--pretty much anything I've done ever. Every event I've planned. It's all there in seasonal colored ink. I guess I'm a hopeless historian. Handwriting and O.C.D. get better more refined with age.

What's happened in eight years? My kids grew up. A year from now Calvin will be leaving for college and Mary will be starting high school. Nothing puts the fear of God (i.e. being in the present moment) in me more than that. We seem to all be growing into pretty good friends. Calvin especially is mostly cooked. I try to make sure there is food in the house for him and I stay up later than I'd like to chit chat when he gets home from marching band cause well. . . I've got a teen who wants to chit chat with me. By God you better drop everything and chit chat. Mary has become very particular about her room, reminding me not to project every developmental stage into a hoarder's intervention. If I was gonna get a tattoo it would have said, "This Too Shall Pass." And it did. It all mostly does.

Speaking of growing up. . . ten inches of hair cut off and donated

I've been reading two most excellent books this summer. One is more contemplation and one is more action. I'm still working my way through The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. And I started The One Thing by Gary Keller. I picked up the latter in the Calgary airport because it looked like a corollary to Dr. Suzuki's one point lesson. I was right. It's an excellent book. Life changing I might say. I can't make decisions all at once, but it's flushing out some ideas little by little.

Wayne Barrington, my esteemed French Horn teacher from UT used to say, "Gerber. They make baby food. They do one thing and they do it right." He didn't like me playing piano and jazz piano and playing in a rock band. Well. R.I.P. jerk. Turns out all the things we do, and all the things we love are woven into the fabric of our lives and ultimately make up the complex and interesting people we hope to be. Including the experience of studying with mean French horn teachers.

There is a price to pay. There is a meme floating on Facebook that says, "Spread yourself thick." Excellence does not come in moderation. Sooner or later we have to narrow our focus.

What is my one thing? Child of God? Wife? Mother? Daughter? Sister? Friend? Piano teacher? Homemaker? Gardener? Teacher trainer? Accompanist? Leader of Music teacher organizations? Pianist? Writer? Traveler? Cabin host?

That was exhausting to write and it's even more exhausting to live. There are some changes coming.
But! At the moment I'm filled with JOY! Everything I did this summer brought me joy. Piano camps, travel, entertaining at the cabin (more recital photos to come) and a little time at home teaching. Time in the garden--Bill tells me we are allowed to have a a hobby--and a couple weekends, like this, alone at home. My myself.

Years ago people like Doris Harrel and Chris Liccardo would tell me--'ya got great kids. I believed them, but all I saw was what needed fixing. More discipline, more practice, better table manners, less iPad etc. etc. etc. Now, I see parents of littles doing the same thing. Kids are kids. It all looks a little clearer through the rear view mirror. Now that my kids have turned out mostly amazing (they are not 100% angels. . .and they read this blog so I don't want any big heads ) I've got so many reflections to write about. Things we did right. Things we crashed on. Time I wasted. Things we are still working on. But--turns out all these parental experiments ultimately help make up the complex and interesting people we hope our children will be. We don't have to be perfect to successful. In fact probably our failures help our children to be resilient. That's another blog. I don't have all the answers. I only love the questions.

It's the penultimate Kotrba family summer. It's been a good one. God bless you all upon the last week before Minnesota school starts.

Emerald Lake

Sisters? 

Top Five Travel Moments

Look Who is Eighty

Rocky Mountain High