2015 in review

Summarizing a year isn't always easy. This year in particular has been totally full of ups and downs. The worst of the downs slammed itself right into the beginning of the holiday season, so it's with little exaggeration that I can say I'm relieved to have 2015 be walking out the door. I have high hopes for 2016.

2015 Things of Note (and yes, I'll admit to going to my facebook page to figure out what all happened this year):

January-

• Finished my first sweater of the year

February-

• Traveled to Boston, Kansas City, and Chicago to do grad school auditions.

March-

• Premiered Chris's First Symphony in B minor (first movement) with the SPU orchestra
• Finished my second sweater of the year (for Chris!)

• Came to the conclusion that grad school for performance was not panning out (two waitlists and a rejection) and decided with my horn teacher that I should stop pursuing a career as a horn player

April-

• Moved to Redmond
• Finished third sweater of the year

May-

• Bought my first car!

• Finished a non-sweater object (and my first garment using cashmere)

June-

• Proctored the horn auditions for SSO
• Celebrated two years with Chris
• Was offered (and accepted) a position in Fundraising as the Campaign Coordinator at SSO

July-

• Turned 24
• Bought myself a stand mixer for my birthday

August-

• Attended my first work conference in Orlando
• Finished out the sunniest summer I've ever witnessed in Seattle. 

September-

• Finished my fourth sweater (super special, as it was knit with yarn from a knitting friend who passed away earlier in the year from cancer)

• Paid off my first student loan
• Worked my first Opening Night Gala

October-

• Played principal in my first opera: Faure's Penelope
• Finished sweater number five

November-

November gets a paragraph. The majority of the month was fairly uneventful, full of Baxter-sitting and work. However, the Friday before Thanksgiving, we received the shocking news that Chris's father had passed away very suddenly because of a heart attack. The following two weeks were a blur of grieving and trying to tie up loose ends. My awesome boss helped make sure I got maximum bereavement leave so we could fly to Boston and back to bury him at the family plot. I've never been so thankful to be welcomed and part of Chris's family, and while the circumstances were far less than ideal, it was wonderful to spend so much time with all of them.

I also finished my sixth sweater and a pair of socks for Chris.

December-

•  Spent three weekends playing in the pit for She Loves Me
• Did more Baxter-sitting
• Got to see Star Wars (!!!) twice in theaters
• Finished my first 100% designed-by-me knitted object as a favor for a friend

It wasn't a horrible year. Heck, I knit six sweaters (six and a half, if you consider I have only sleeves and a hood left on another sweater for Chris), socks, and a small blanket! But it has been an emotionally draining end to the year, and I am very ready to see what new challenges and opportunities 2016 will bring.

I wish you all a fun holiday weekend, and the very best for the new year!

~Allie

Giving thanks, especially during hard times

Today I am thankful for the wonderful family I got to share the day with, the amazing food we ate, the memories recalled, and that my own parents were able to make extra time to come see me on their way back home. 

It's hard to believe that so much has happened in less than a week. Was it only Friday that Chris texted me midday to tell me his father had passed away? There hasn't been time to even stop and process it all, and I'm not sure there will be for a bit yet. The memorial here in the Puget Sound will be on Monday, then we'll be flying to Boston for the service there, where he will be laid to rest with his parents and brother on Wednesday. 

Laid to rest. 

None of us were ready for him to go. Could we ever have been? But I reflect upon the man that I knew, and the memories shared by those who loved him his whole life, and I am so thankful I got to know him at all. My best words of tribute to John are that he was the best father-in-law I'll never get to have. He loved me, and loved my relationship with Chris...he sat on the phone once with me (while he had guests for dinner, mind you) because  I was driving my uncle's Forester and the radiator cap blew, causing it to overheat. I'll never forget that while I was working to calm and explain the situation, he told me all about how Subarus have engines designed similarly to airplane engines. (He was also tickled when I took that piece of information and bought my own Forester. Which has not had radiator troubles, thankfully.)

He leaves behind a legacy; children and grand children who are also "wicked smaht", loving, and generous. A wonderful family that I have the absolute pleasure of being a piece of. 

My own parents, too, have been wonderful these past few days. I think I've called Mom nearly daily to have someone to talk to, and despite the late hour, they even stopped by the family house tonight to give me hugs and meet Chris's family. 

It's heartbreaking to really consider the circumstances that have brought us together, but I'm so glad that I'm surrounded by such wonderful people, who remain just as wonderful in these terrible circumstances. It says a hell of a lot about every person's character, and I love them all. 

--

In more mundane news, I've knit a few sweaters, am working on another sweater for Chris, and a blanket for a friend. I made an awesome apple pie for dessert tonight, and I'm super thankful for my boss, who authorized me taking time to be with Chris through all of the flights and services. 

I think the lessons I've learned, coming out of all this, are that you should fully live during every moment you have; to love your family (traditional family and the less traditional family made up of friends and those close to you); and to never miss the chance to say I love you. Ever. 

In which a career was begun

The title's not to say that working in the ticket office wasn't a real job or anything, but now I'm finally feeling like I'm earning my keep, and being paid decently to do it. I'm not inherently wealthy now, just much more comfortable than my previous status of making-it-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth.

I have a retirement plan started. I bought a new wardrobe...though I apparently won't stop being frugal any time soon: I bought most of it on sale. I would have avoided buying new clothes altogether, but my black slacks were 7 years old and had done 18 months of hard Starbucks work, my only pencil skirt fit a bit too tightly to be comfortable for professional office work, and I only had a couple dresses that weren't too dressy for my new position.

I like my new job thus far. It's a bit crazy, and my learning curve has had to be very high, as the person training me will be leaving in just over a week. I'm going to have to learn how to stick up for myself and say no. I'm also going to have some fun saying yes when I used to not be able to. I enjoy dressing nicely, though thanks to my director's kindness, I'll be allowed to wear jeans any time I'm not working events or having meetings with the big important people. I plan to set aside some money so when the fall fashions arrive (soon!) I can get a new pair of boot cut jeans to wear with heels. My old pair died within weeks of my last pair of skinny jeans, and now I only own the one pair of skinny jeans.

The downsides to my job? Well...I have to shave my legs. I'm wearing knee-length dresses and skirts now. I also get to have this weird feeling of running around like a headless chicken sometimes because I get stuff thrown at me from all directions simultaneously. BUT, the flip side is I get to use the organization skills learned after two years in the ticket office to figure out how to juggle it all. Let me get through the beginning of the season in September before I let you all know how well I'm going to swim! Oh, and I do spend a lot of time in meetings, but I'm sure they'll get more relevant as I get to know my position and duties better..

The major upsides? Well, I somewhat get to set my own hours, which means no one bats an eye if I work 7:30-4 or 5. I get quiet time to get my work done before everyone else gets home, and I have a shorter commute because I avoid the worst of the commuter traffic in and out of the city. Depending on the day, I do have the option to work from home, though I'll figure that stuff out later once I'm less dependent on getting information from everyone around me. I also got an office (shared with another employee)! It's not perfect, considering there's someone else in it, but he's fairly quiet, and I'm very quiet at work (shocking, I know...but most of the time I have headphones in and am processing data and drafting letters). And now I have a door, and a rubber tree that I adopted from the most recent greenery change at the hall. I may need to name my new plant. He does a very good job of being my final screen between my door and my desk. Fewer people see me = fewer people interrupt me.

So in summary? I'm pretty happy. It's nice being able to pay my bills without doing a bunch of mental math first. It's nice wearing clothes that aren't older than my niece. It's nice being a somebody when I used to feel sort of like a nobody. I also need to get new business cards.

Bring it on, world!

~Allison

A little levity

In my family, we pride ourselves on our senses of humor. My father is the best at puns and "Dad Jokes" (You know, the kind of joke where you ask someone for a hand with something and they start applauding?).

Well, for years, my oldest sister has been teased because it took her about 20 years to finally understand the joke "How do you get down off an elephant? You don't. You get down off a duck!"

(I'll give you a second to get it... Still don't? Think down feathers.)

The story goes that she finally got it while getting ready to sleep under her down comforter. She called my parents, and Dad especially got a good laugh out of it. It usually gets brought up at nearly every family holiday. Well, Rachel no longer has to be laughed at alone.

Chris and I were joking around last night, telling knock-knock jokes when I turned to him and said, "What's black and white and red all over?" to which he responded, "A newspaper!" I got all up in arms and started complaining about how that joke made no sense because a newspaper isn't red. His eyes got big, and he asked, "Are you serious?" And then it hit me...a newspaper is black and white and READ all over. Darn those homophones.

So yes, I called my parents and they laughed that yet again, one of their daughters was oblivious to a joke that most 5-year-olds could figure out.

I'm just glad to finally get it!

Another pesky life update

Hello all!

I'm still on the planet. There wasn't much to post about in the past 5 or so months, considering you'd be hearing a repeated mantra of "Got up early, practiced before work, did some work, practiced some more, went to rehearsal, went home to sleep. Repeat forever." No one wants to read that.

Well, the mantra appears to have been in vain. I had promised myself after college that I would keep pushing forward in my career goals, get into grad school, get my masters in performance, then figure things out from there. See if by the time I was 30 I was actually making a career out of playing horn. Looks like life caught up with me long before I expected it to.

I did go and do the grad school trips in February. I felt pretty good about my playing, but when the results finally came back in late March, it wasn't pretty: two waitlists and a rejection. Also a rejection from the one summer festival I threw an application out for (I figured I really ought to stay and work for the summer if I was going to stop having a job in the fall when I went back to school). When the rejection came, my horn teacher and I sat down and had a serious talk about what this means for me. His advice was to stop having a goal to make my money solely from playing horn. The cruel truth was that if I wasn't good enough to get into even a mid-level conservatory for grad school, there was no way I was going to stay afloat in a sea of very talented and hard-working horn players that are streaming out of conservatories and big name public schools.

I cried. I was angry. I wanted to know why so many people had told me that I had potential to make it as a performer, and encouraged me, when it felt like the whole time I had no chance at it. I started to play the what-if game, but before that took off, Chris and I had a good talk about how unhealthy that was, and started to work towards re-framing my thinking away from the pain of rejection and disappointment, and toward what happens next.

It hurt to admit it at first, but after about...oh four or five hours of being upset, that there was a tiny voice in the back of my head that was sighing out of relief. I had worked my butt off toward this goal, and while it didn't work out, it meant there were other things I could do instead. I could stay in the Puget Sound, building a career! I could finish the move out to Redmond (more on that in a bit) and stay put for a while. I could keep putting money away in savings thanks to my new-found money saving skills! I could take the money I had been putting aside to buy a triple horn to instead buy something that would make life easier: a car (more on that later as well).

As time has gone on, while I'm technically still waiting to hear from the two schools where I'm on the wait list, I've started to relax and take time to enjoy my time and hobbies more. I'm knitting lots more, though that has more to do with my commute length than anything else. My psoriasis has gotten way less severe because I'm no longer stressed and filled with guilt when I do anything less than three hours of practicing a day (I still aim for at least one a day). I'm still taking gigs, still playing in a few different groups, but now I'm playing because I want to play, and not just because I desperately want to put pieces on my music resume. I can say no if I want, and that's okay.

So, in summary, I'm not aiming to play professionally 100% any more. I'm still aiming to be a great horn player, will keep working to improve my playing, and have actually really started the process of getting networked into some light freelancing in Seattle. With that, and the fact that I've moved to the suburbs, the time for a car has finally arrived. I'm still working to save for a decent down payment so I can get approved for a decent loan. While my credit is getting better every month, I'm still young, so getting good interest rates is tough. My goal is to find a car and get the ball rolling in the next couple months.

As for the move? Yup, I live out in Redmond. If someone had told me two or three years ago that I'd be moving this far outside Seattle, I would have thought they were crazy. There's no way I'd want to move out of the city! Well, I laugh to say it now, but I love living in the suburbs. Sure, if I need to pop over to the grocery store to pick up eggs, it's now going to take 30 minutes to walk the mile and a half to Safeway, and busing is basically impossible on weekends or outside regular commuting hours on the weekdays, but I love where I live. My apartment complex is everything I ever wanted in a living situation, but never could have afforded in Seattle. We have fitness centers, recreation centers, a tennis/basketball court, and three swimming pools! 24/7 maintenance on site, and the leasing office is open 9-6 every day. Oh, and security patrols every evening from 10 pm until 5 am, so if neighbors get rowdy, there's someone you can call and that can deal with it right away! But quiet isn't a problem out there...in spite of how many people live in the complex, many of them families, everything stays fairly quiet. Best part of living around families is that they're getting quiet and settled down for the night about the same time the college students would start getting ramped up for parties in my old place.

Oh, and I've already found a knitting group that meets not too far from my apartment on Sunday mornings, and have a standing invitation to join a spinning guild once my transportation changes when I get a car. Welcoming!

In summary, western WA is going to be dealing with me for a while longer, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this new routine and lifestyle turn out.