At the beginning of each new school year, I feel like I need to justify my existence to my students, or perhaps it’s their existence in my classes. I teach the final three semesters of a four semester music theory and ear training sequence. Most musicians, unless you are super nerdy like me, probably would not take music theory if it weren’t required to get any kind of degree in music. I explain to my Theory II class that…
Last Monday marked my fifty-first first day of school. Some of those years were as a student, some have been as a professor, and the years in graduate school were both as a student and a teaching fellow. That is a lot of years of school! Most days I still love it.But, having not taught summer school for the first time in many years and thus having a peek at what retirement might look and feel like, I have to…
Yesterday, July 10, Weber and I celebrated our seventh anniversary. Sometimes it feels like we were just married yesterday and then there are times that I can’t remember my life without him.. The geek in me particularly loved this anniversary because it’s date is a palindrome,, 7-10-17. This is a once in a lifetime occurrence…unless we live to be 155 and 160. So how did we celebrate? A few weeks ago Weber and I started asking each other what…
Here is what my June looked like in a picture a day… June is a few hours from being over. We are now halfway through 2017. And we are also closer to Christmas 2017 than Christmas 2016. You have 177 shopping days. The word that comes to mind when I look back at my daily photos from the month and I think about all the experiences that June brought with it is growth. The biggest event during this month is…
I was standing in the closet looking for a t-shirt to match my workout capris. We all know that time on the treadmill feels much better when your clothes match. Since tomorrow is laundry day and I’ve done my time on the treadmill 7 out of the last eight days, my clothing choices were limited…as in I had one pair of clean capris. And as it turned out, my choice of a matching t-shirt was equally limited. I pulled out my Human…
No fifty-something year old woman with no children or grandchildren around and who is fairly competent in the kitchen should be making a special trip to the grocery store to buy cream cheese, pretzels, Cool Whip, and Jello, all to be used in the same recipe…and be excited about it. But, this is exactly where I find myself today. I partially blame my Sifted Together blog buddy, Tracey, for this predicament in which I find myself. She gave me a…
It’s been a whirlwind of celebration and good times around our house for the last five days or so. I know how blessed I am to be able to say that as there are so many people in the world who have nothing to celebrate and not much to call good in their lives. My hope is that I’ll never take any of the gifts of this life for granted. A good friend flew in last Thursday to spend a…
If you ignore the weeds, eventually they will take over. Just as if we allow people to make the same mistakes over and over and over again, the wrong or hurtful or dangerous ways will take over. Why is it socially unacceptable to point out the error of one’s ways? Why is it wrong to acknowledge that making mistakes is natural. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, even you! When did it become a sign of weakness rather than a sign of humility to…
I said yesterday that I am a minimalist. I don’t like to be surrounded by a lot of “stuff.” I also said that the one exception to my own “if I can’t use it right now then get rid of it” philosophy is books. I like books. All kinds of books. Weber likes books too. This is good for our relationship and bad for our bookshelves. When we got married, we had limited shelf space. We agreed that we would…
My dad was raised by a single mother who grew up during the Depression. From this experience, he learned the importance of hard work and to not waste anything. Dad would save anything and everything and repurpose it. Plastic soda bottles with their bottoms cut off became mini greenhouses over pots containing cuttings that were rooting. He had an unending supply of rubber bands collected from years of morning newspapers. We won’t talk of the many collections that were safely…