hutch off the cuff

The dirty details . . .

I spent the better part of the morning today getting the grit on this new position that has brought more than four (virtual) backflips in the past day of my life.  It's a pretty hefty thing I've taken on, and the post was not left in the best place by my predecessor, which makes the next six weeks even more exciting.  I'll be teaching two sections of a General Ed music appreciation course, conducting three choirs, and teaching private piano and voice lessons.  In the spring I'll also be teaching a Music history and literature course and likely collaborating on a musical.  Woohoo!  So what comes next?  Here's a fun little run down:

• Order textbooks.  I think the one they've been using is adequate, and the school already has a small stock of them, so it'll be simpler for the time being.
• Plan out a semester of instruction using said book.  The fun part is that while I have two identical sections, I teach one three times a week and another only twice, but for longer each time.  So, one goal, but two ways of getting there—I don't think they should make me do that my first semester, but I'm a trooper!
• Order and receive keys to the music library so I can: 
• Choose repertoire for three choirs.  This is where things might get a little sticky.  As they currently stand, the choirs have become very pigeonholed as to repertoire and function.  I'm looking to break that open a little, expand the choices, the experiences, and the musical life of every single one.  I foresee major resistance and eventual begrudged compliance and bliss.  They're going to like it, I say!
• Study and prepare said rep.  yikes. You always have know everything.  It's tough, but someone's got to do it!
• Prepare syllabi and course calendars.  Schedule concerts. 
• Obtain lists from enrollment services of incoming students interested in music. 
• Contact those students and make them participate. 

That's just for starters, and just the beginning of things I'll be doing before everyone heads back to campus.  Don't even ask about auditions, organization, music distribution, formal planning . . .

In other news, we found a house and sent in our application.  We're still steady renters, very afraid to dive into the housing market with the current situation and our year to year employment.  It's best to stay renters for a while.  The best part of this house is that it's amazing.  Or maybe it's that it's available the very day we're out of our house here.  Maybe it's beautiful, bright, newer, alive, and welcoming.  Maybe it just felt like a place we could love.  Who knows.  It's great, and we're excited to write that ENORMOUS check tomorrow and start switching over our utilities.  Yippee.

Day 2 of . . .

NOTHING.

Nothing at all going on here.  Gratefully, it's the first such occasion since graduation since I really wondered what I was going to do all day.  First it was the trip to Utah, then the journey to Arkansas, then prep for Houston, then Houston, then coming home from Houston, then interview prep, then going to Houston again, then interview, and now that it's all over, I feel a little aimless.  I should hear about the job within the week, and once that's going, I'll be busier than, well, busier than I am now, and that will be a welcome change for sure.

It's interesting what you learn about yourself when you have nothing to do.  I learned that I haven't read a book for leisure for almost a year.  I'm due for another one, so I went to the bookshelf to pick out a treasure, but was quickly and rudely reminded that all of our books have been packed already.  I thought maybe I'd play and sing for a bit—just fun stuff, not the arias and art songs I've been preparing for a year.  I reached for the music books, but (you guessed it!) they're books and have suffered the fate of all other books in my house.  I considered doing some packing to get ahead and be ready for our eventual move to a yet undiscovered and therefore undisclosed location, but it turns out that Liz has already packed too much!  My second day home from Houston I was preparing dinner and found, to my great displeasure, that all of the herbs and spices had already been packed.  Maybe I'm the crazy face here, but who packs the spices before the last minute?  People who like bland food, that's who!  They've since been unearthed and restored to their proper location.  Funny stuff, really.

So here I sit, blogging to fill time and keep my mind occupied.  I think the next logical step is to keep my body occupied—exercise today, methinks.  We'll see if that really happens or if I'm just too bored to have the drive to do anything at all.  It's amazing how having nothing to do diminishes your desire to do.  Ah, summer . . .

A new look for a new direction

If you refresh your browser, you'll see that Houston is no longer gracing the head of this blog.  In fact, I'd say this new look has kind of a simplified reconstruction vibe, and that is exactly where my life sits right now.  There is a story to explain that, and it is here for those that care to click over and read the saga.  Suffice it to say here that I'm home, I'm happy, and we're moving forward in a big way.  Life is good.  I'm hoping that means I'll be blogging more regularly!

Building shelves

As one might expect, we have a multitude of books in our home: big books, small books, fat books, thin books, funny books, sad books, silly books, and glad books (I just couldn't help myself!) Yesterday Michael organized his collection of personal and library-borrowed books into his own library, separated intelligently by category, and in neat piles all over his desk. He even created a discard pile for the books that needed to be reshelved after he enjoyed them. Today he announced that he needed shelves for his library, so he and I went to the store, intelligently shopped for "the best deal that met our needs" and came home to build shelves. Not to be left out, Joshua and Jacob joined in for what would prove to be one of the longest, but most most fulfilling Sauder experiences of my life.

Planting Flowers

Outside our front door we have a 1 ft. x 3 ft. patch of "garden" that the boys have been begging to fill with flowers. They want to plant, grow, tend, and harvest, and finally, after 19 months I helped them get started. Here's my boys starting the seeds for Larkspur, Zinnia, Cosmos, and Impatiens. They are thrilled with the already amazing progress of the Cosmos—we have 2 inch seedlings after only four days!

Spring Break

Spring Break has been a bundle of different, unexpected, strange, and moving. We took off Saturday for Heather's house to help after her procedure. We did our nontraditional Easter celebrations with homemade tortillas, and fresh fixins, Joshua especially loved the sour cream,

then had a very small Easter egg hunt.

Monday and Tuesday we spent cleaning up and helping organize Heather's house. We made an amazing change in there, and here is photo as proof:

From there we sped home, during which journey we decided that rather than zip back to Missouri, we should head the opposite direction, so we jumped on I-80 and made a beeline for Indiana to visit Friends. After a few short stops and one amazing farm-fresh "breakfast for dinner" meal, we headed down to Indianapolis where we scored an unheard of rate on a 2 room hotel suite and bedded down for the night. Wednesday we head back home (again!) but instead of a direct route via I-70, we took the Northern route so we could stop at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

This was the true treat of Spring Break, and the entire family enjoyed learning about Lincoln, his life, and his legacy. There were incredible displays of technological mastery coupled with moving depictions of slavery, conflict, emancipation and assassination. It was an incredible experience as well as an appropriate and timely educational opportunity for our family. Having to talk to your four and five year old about slavery while standing in front of a life-size re-creation of a family being sold apart, seeing the pain in their eyes and the horror across their tired faces, is a priceless and moving moment. Try it some time and let me know at what point you could no longer speak because your voice was choked with disbelief, emotion, and tears. You can't replicate those times, and you must cherish them when they come.

Promise Fulfilled

Now that Family Weekend is finished, here's the photo I previously promised.

Valentine's Day

We had a great time as a family for Valentine's Day. I had classes and rehearsals all evening, so we enjoyed an early meal, a little candy together, some beautiful cards and the company of the people we love the most. The boys made the most beautiful cards for us and for each other, and we had our first really sincere Valentine's Day together. It only comes once a year, and we made the most of it. Kudos to us, and the chocolate brownies were great too.

The Smells that Stay With Us, Part II

Well, it's been long enough, but here I am finally finishing my story. Uncanny, really how that last place smelled like Grandma's. For our second evening in a strange house, we travelled to Bloomington-Normal where Irene picked us up after the concert and took us to her beautiful home on what I can only suppose is the South side of the city. We stepped through from the garage, and I was greeted with soft yellow walls, blue and red accents, a high-ceilinged open floor plan, and a clean, warm, welcoming scent reminiscent of warm sunny days on 760 East in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. I spent so many mornings, afternoons, evenings, and nights in that house; in fact, I lived there at least two summers of my life. It was more than a few similarities, it was complete familiarity—visual, aural, and olfactory. Unbelievable.

Judging by the miserable way I felt and the joy I experienced from these familiar surroundings, I must conclude that it was a series of blessings I definitely needed. Who could have guessed I'd be staying at my grandparents' houses?

The smells that stay with us, Part I

Had I enjoyed a more frequent internet connection while on tour, I would have posted these thoughts a week ago, but as life started anew this week, I've been forced to put it off.

There are so many things to hate about choir tour—the crazy arrangements, rehearsals, payment, unearthly organizations of pamphlets and programs, the tiring schedule, hours on a bus with people who've only eaten fast food for four days, uncomfortable hotels beds, snoring roommates, sketchy internet connectivity, and illness (always strikes me.) Above all of these harassments, however, sits the chief annoyer, the grand marquis of hateable tour facets: home stays. Up until last week I had avoided all but one night of home stay through all of my touring. As a hater at the beginning, that experience can be summed up as nothing short of horrific: I slept on the basement floor with a couch pillow and a lap blanket. It was like Dante's own seventh-circle plaza hotel.

One can imagine my hesitation then when approaching the latest installment of tour with not one, but two amazing nights in two different strange homes and strange places. The first of these was in Skokie, Illinois, where we stayed with George, a retired dentist and widower. As we entered his 1950s era home, my olfactory senses shot me back to a place I know as well as my own home. I was transported to a place with assorted oriental art on the walls, stacks of books and magazines on the mismatched tables and shelves, plush carpet, thickly-lined curtains, faded, but sturdy furniture, and years of collected plastic utensils and newspaper clippings mixed cleverly with tidbits of depression-era advice. It's the home in which I learned to play the piano, where I ate the best rice pudding and the richest fried chicken and rice, and where I learned what irrigation is, how to pull weeds from the root and how to climb trees without breaking any limbs. That place I knew is nearly gone, but the house remains settled on a now-bustling road in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah.

When I stepped over the threshold of that house in Illinois, not only was the smell familiar, but as I looked around the living room, I saw assorted oriental art on the walls, stacks of books and magazines on the mismatched tables and shelves, plush carpet, thickly-lined curtains, and faded, but sturdy furniture. The last familiar facet, the depression-era advice, was adequately fulfilled as George shared with us stories of his time in a Japanese interment camp in Arkansas during the second world war. He grew up in Los Angeles, and was trucked across the country in the wake of Pearl Harbor, then settled in Chicago after his release. He's been there ever since, and gratefully, he had a musty sofa and a sleeping bag on which I could spend a restful, peaceful evening. The next morning he treated us to breakfast at Annie's Pancake House. The similarities were uncanny, and the memories they inspired were familiar and sweet.

Here's to the power of smell, and to years of fond memories at Grandma's house, ready for recall at a moment's notice.