Monochrome season
No one talks about it, but there’s a fifth season. We all know spring, summer, fall, and winter. But there is a fifth, stealthy season that we all know exists but no one acknowledges. Today starts monochrome season. It’s the …
Everyday Life
United in Orange…and Super Bowl Bread
It’s finally here. Super Bowl weekend. Usually I don’t give a damn and might maybe situate myself near a TV to catch commercials, but this year it’s different. The Broncos are playing, it’s permission for me to crash and not …
Don’t make your monkey fling poo…and other things I never thought I’d say to get my kid out of bed
When A was an infant, he wasn’t the greatest sleeper. No, wait, let me rephrase that. He avoided the sweet blessed release of slumber like I avoid inclement weather…with a lot of screaming and making others miserable if it’s forced …
When everything is a battle, which ones do you choose?
“Pick your battles.” Every mom has heard that piece of advice, starting from the very first time her precious snowflake uttered the word “NO!” with a vehemence not to be believed, in a volume rivaling that of an F-16, with …
The Long Winter…field trip
Did you ever read the Little House series? Remember The Long Winter? That one was always my favorite of the bunch. It reads almost like a kiddie horror novel for mollycoddled suburban children. It starts off so innocently, with a hot …
How to survive a Chicago winter polar vortex without losing your mind
Oh, who am I kidding? My mind is half gone on any given day, and now that I’ve been imprisoned by the PolarVortexPocalypse it’s toast. I haven’t set foot outside the house in roughly 72 hours, the boys even longer. …
Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits
And sometimes I sits and curse whatever knocked my blog offline in the middle of NaBloPoMo. And then I sits and thinks some more and eventually just say “screw it,” because I was fighting burnout anyway and this was obviously …
My chameleon life
I am a flutist. I want to practice and improve. Watch YouTube videos of masterclasses and recitals, attend concerts every week. Focus on my pedagogy, so my students can benefit from what I learn and share. Write a method book …
I’d give up but then I wouldn’t be writing this
Unless I get a time machine, a full-time home-educator, a live-in maid, or another dozen hours a day, this is very likely my last NaBloPoMo. I can’t take the ratio of crap to non-crap here this month. This? Falls square …
Mindfulness through music
Want to live in the moment? Play an instrument. But not just play an instrument, play in a high-quality ensemble on that instrument. And then play wicked hard music in that high-quality ensemble on that instrument. You cannot help but …