8 ways to slow down your blogging!

Alien playing the drum! Or maybe it's Susan multi-tasking...note the 5 eyes...multi-focussing!

It's my busy time of year and it seems that I have been somewhat unsuccessful with my multi-tasking when it comes to blog posting lately!

If you're looking for ways to slow down your own blog posting:)...here is my list of the 8 things that been enveloping me and my brain for the last while and slowing down my posting.  

1.  Registration for next school year.  

My extra bits of time have disappeared lately with my attention on registration for next year.  This includes creating a workable schedule that can accomodate the families I work with and also my family at home...and this year I'm putting my own downtime desires into the mix (not something I always do because I really do love to do all the things I do).  I'm trying to find a better balance of work and play so I can spend more time with my husband!

2.  Planning to NOT teach on Saturdays and evenings next year.   

That means saying goodbye to the majority of my private students and focussing almost solely on my classes.  This has created a huge emotional burden for me and for some of the parents.  How do you say goodbye to the only music teacher you have known for 7, 8, 10, 15 years?  How do I say goodbye to families that have begun to feel like my own family?  I have supplies of tissue on hand around the studio:)

3.  Lots of behind-the-scenes planning for the celebrations happening this month for my year-long classes.  I work with each of my Maestros classes to create a special show for each of their celebrations.   I will write a series of posts about these creative staging projects.

4.  Maestros Year 1 is creating a shadow puppet play to the music of Greig's Morning Mood.  I am hard at work with my exacto knife and scissors these days creating an Alien Orchestra and rocket ship.  This group is also perfecting tunes to perform on the violin, recorder and ukulele.

5.  Maestros Year 2 is creating a musical play from completely random ideas generated during a brainstorming session.  Truthfully, I weave some magic out of the ethers to connect all the random ideas into a narrative.  This year the narrative includes themes of dreamweaving, native-theme music and totem animals.  This group is also perfecting tunes to perform on the vioin, harmonica, guitar and recorder.

6.  Maestros Year 3 has been preparing since January for a Grande Venetian Carnavale.  We've made stunning masks, talked costuming, street performances where they can earn real money, juggling.  They also play fiddle, guitar, recorder, harmonica and percussion.  This group is also hoping I will find a way to carve out time to paint them a giant backdrop to set the venetian scene.  This backdrop is in the planning stages and looks like it might be 10 feet by 12 feet to cover a whole wall in the studio.

7.  Finalizing my plans to study abroad this summer in Salzburg!

 ...more in another post about this exciting adventure!

8.  Worrying like mad about my 97-year old grandmother (I wrote about her in a post this year).  She had been hospitalized, recovered, moved to two different wings of the hospital before finding out she was not going to be able to return to facility she had been living in for 7 years.  Then...moving her to a new facility.  

Shockingly, she was mistreated in the new facility, being physically abused, neglected and disrespected.  Thankfully, after several tortuous weeks and some frustrating conversations with facility staff, she has been moved to a completely new facility and will hopefully never have to move again.  I think this 8th thing has been the biggest weight on my mind the last couple of weeks and probably the true reason why my posting has slowed.  

What's next?

I'm taking photos today of all the shadow puppetry-making and screens, etc.. so tune in soon for a creative update.