totally thankless project (240/365b)

i can't give anything to do with otto siegl a rest, so i decided for some unknown reason to spend my entire morning recording piano parts, and then playing the violin along with "myself" so that i could upload the music so people could hear how these little teeny tiny pieces meant for students sound. i used theodore's little violin, and the piano playing was quite tricky, and i recorded myself for better or for worse, and i know nobody cares, but i just had fun doing it anyways. plus eventually i have to give the music back to the library, so i might as well have played it all once through. i'll never forget drew naming me the "queen of good enough"

exciting pieces in the first position for growing violinists with piano accompaniment

felix asked me "WHY are you making SO LONG musics?" he wanted to invite people to a tea party. he wanted a tea party RIGHT NOW. i finally convinced him to ask people for tomorrow.

and then off theodore and i went to a christmas concert with thomas' student orchestra. i had to send theodore home by himself, he had an earache and was crying... he had seemed fine and hadn't complained before we left. the concert ran very long, and i came home to find theodore still crying softly in his sleep, so we moved him down next to our bed.

we watched "The Male Animal" because i had found it when looking up books by James Thurber. I am looking forward to the 1952 remake with ronald reagan (does he sing??)

because businesses need advertisement (239/365b)

mein shop. felix: verkäufer
nüsse, knochen, federn, steine, muscheln
zum verkaufen

Felix is a born entrepreneur. He opened up his feathers and stones and bones and shells shop a while ago. He noticed he is always asking if people will come buy something, and then he has to open up his boxes of things, and then people don't buy anything. of course, both his target audience, and his passive audience are both extremely small, limited to close personal friends of his mother. regardless, he decided there needs to be a business card he can show people, and if they are interested he can invite them to look through the things. that cuts down on extra work too.

more fiddling tonight with phil. maybe soon we'll figure out an efficient way to work together. or start a contra dance.

weird new fact (238/365b)

lots of sorting through old papers and other such things today. among other things i found a postcard of a chicken that i had found somewhere randomly, that i had wanted to send to tira in germany a while ago, but had kind of forgotten about. then i decided to look up the chicken, and discovered that it was actually a coffin. which is a kind of strange thing.

apparently they are called "fantasy coffins"

They are built by the Kane Kwei carpentry workshop in Ghana, and apparently they are a (very niche) thing. i guess you learn something new all the time.

then tonight, manuela came over and spent the evening with us. st.nick banged on the floor while we were downstairs rolling beeswax candles. that was a very excited moment, after which it was hard to calm down. after bedtime we had a nice long chat downstairs huddled near the heater.

yuck stravinsky (237/365b)

played some solo stravinsky today, and didn't please my ears or my brain. very last concert in the officially named salon erfurt before the owner quits, hands over the reins and the name changes.

maria had a fever and dropped off gabriel to stay with us for the afternoon.

pre-show: kids show
they told a story about a bear who wanted to travel
but nobody wanted to travel with him
but he didn't want to always travel alone
(some travel alone was ok)
so santa claus asked if he would keep him company sometimes
because he got lonely in in sleigh sometimes
and didn't like to always travel alone
(sometimes it was ok)

post show: tired and alone

un-useful stress(236/365b)

unused to so much stress and anxiety that comes from nowhere.
actually, today was so much easier than a normal monday, and that was all well and good, except i felt like it was extremely 10x harder than normal. not so fun.

the nice thing was was that everyone around me was relatively laid back and relaxed, and after some parent teacher meetings (where we found out our kids are often late, and each one always blames the other) i didn't have anything left to do. we made pasta for dinner (i found whole grain pasta shaped like cars/planes/trains and motorcycles which convinced even felix to eat some pumpkin)

and we read the kids to sleep
and then i edited pictures after pictures, uttering the phrase "i can't believe it's already november" to which brian cheerfully and confusedly replied... "it's already december"

bedtime stories by candlelight

i did NOT go out today (235/365b)

i didn't go out at all today, and i was so happy with that.

brian did, he left with the kids to go skating, but i didn't, although i kind of wanted to. i also just wanted to just BE.

other than that, most of the day, we were all together, doing crafty things, writing letters, and playing games.

advent advent, ein kerzlein brennt
felix is wearing a christmas stocking on his arm.

and we had corn meal waffles and cranberry sauce for breakfast

felix's face is still covered with cranberry sauce.

and we made cookies ... remind me next year, no sandwich cookies for henry's class... it means instead of 50 cookies i have to make 100, half of which i spread carefully with jam, and press together. ugg. after about 10minutes of rolling, cutting etc, everyone was bored and i got to do it myself.

theodore got me coffee, with the lighting of the wreath

henry and felix carefully cut orange peels with the big knives

extra special nice was singing "es ist ein ros entsprungen" with centa and all the kid voices, and brian's voice is getting stronger too! yaaay!

adventkranzsegnung and family saturday (234/365b)

9am bright and early with bus-bahn-bim-bech (pech) and a great quintet rehearsal.

phone needed new monies, so i went to hofer. except first it was such a nice day that i forgot my winter coat, and that had my wallet in it, so i had to go all the way back. 

seemingly embarrassed to be seen with a violin

we played around all afternoon, and then we had a joint gig... for the adventkranzsegnung. theodore and henry sang beautifully. and felix sat very calmly with brian (i was surprised!)

from my quintet music at rehearsal this morning
pretty much the new life motto i think

then barbara and i went on a date for chinese food. i squeaked when i saw her get out of the bus. graz downtown was just a sea of people, and i figured she would recognize my squeal. she didn't even hear me, but a lady near by asked rhetorically if there was "something wrong with me"