Hawaii - Part 1

I want to share my trip with you all because it was a wonderful trip and truly amazing, but it's going to be mostly writing and less pictures. I am however working on putting together a physical scrapbook of our trip, so once I get that finished (hopefully soon!), please come see us and we'd love to show you our pictures. :) It's my first scrapbook in a while so I'm excited to get back into crafting.

Part 1: Pre Hawaii.

We never intended on visiting Hawaii. It actually came about as a spur-of-the-moment decision that was kind of last minute. It actually started with Iceland. We saw our friends going, and all of their pictures looked amazing - the nature, scenery, landscape, all of it. So we had tucked away somewhere in the back of our minds this idea of going to Iceland for our "big trip" we would eventually take.

Time passed. I stopped working full-time. Life got busy with other things, and we sort of forgot to look into it and plan this trip. Fast forward to February of 2017. I was on Groupon Getaways one morning browsing their trips and I came across a Costa Rica trip for $0 departing from Dallas. I freaked out, texted Jonathan, realized the dates were super soon (like two weeks out), and then saw that his passport was expiring in one month and there was no way we would get his passport renewed and back in time for the trip. They don't let you book international flights unless your passport is good for six months post return I believe. So by the time we quarreled via text message about how his passport was expiring and I couldn't book a free trip for us, the deal was gone and I was irritated about his passport.

Within the week we had his passport renewal application filled out and mailed (with my help...). However, we had pretty much given up hope on going to Iceland because we wouldn't get it back in time for a trip in March and tickets were going to be much more expensive when summer rolled around. At this point it was just getting it renewed so this wouldn't happen again for the next 10 years.

March was key. I'd been pinpointing this month since last year. Why did it have to be so specific? Because I was going to be working 75% of the weekends in February and 75% of the weekends in April, and May airfare is the equivalent of summer prices. So if we were going to make this "big trip" happen on a somewhat reasonable budget, we had to go during that specific window.

A couple days after that missed Costa Rica trip, I was notified of cheap tickets to Hawaii. Neither of us had been before, and Hawaii was exotic enough to be a "big trip" but still within the U.S. so it did not require a passport to travel. We entertained the idea of going to Hawaii and looked up some places we'd want to hit up. Well, in the time it took us to be indecisive about going, the cheap tickets sold out. So we were back at square one. However, I got the email again a few days later saying there were cheap tickets to Hawaii, this time only to the island of Maui.

We looked up destinations we'd want to hit up and booked the trip on a whim. I think I was more panicked than excited after booking the trip because I realized how expensive this trip was going to be. Cheap plane tickets was one thing. Cheap housing was another...and almost nonexistent. We ended up booking two Airbnbs for our stay, one closer to the hiking and nature, one closer to the harbor for touristy things. I wasn't sure how to feel about the Airbnbs, but it was our cheapest option so it was happening whether I liked it or not.

The entire time leading up to this trip felt surreal. People would ask me if I was excited about my trip, and I'd kind of feel very nonchalant about it. Like it was the next event that was simply just happening. Finally, the morning came where we were going to the airport to leave for Hawaii. We left Dallas, had our layover in LA, and then finally landed in Maui. That's when things started getting real. We got our rental car, drove to Costco to stock up on a few grocery items and grab a quick dinner, and then drove to our first Airbnb. As we drove down their highway at a mere 35 mph, I looked up and saw stars in the sky and the dark outline of the mountain in the distance. It was happening.

Next time: The Perks of a Costco Membership

Friday Afternoon DIY

The majority of my students had spring break this week, but I still taught every day except today. I woke up and started my day as usual: did some things around the house, practiced some piano, got organized, and ate lunch. Seeing as I had the entire afternoon open and I hadn't left the house for "fun" in almost two whole days, I was itching to go somewhere.

This was something I didn't quite anticipate feeling nearly as much as I have felt in these last months since quitting my full-time job to work from home. (And I probably would not feel the same way if there were piles and piles of things to do around the house.) But I was dying to just get out and go somewhere, usually shopping - grocery, music books, clothes, miscellaneous errands - they're all the same to me. I just wanted to get out.

So after finishing all my "work" for the day, I allowed myself to indulge in a new craft endeavor I wanted to experiment with. I made a list of the places I was going to go and the items I needed. I had planned on stopping by Joann's, Hobby Lobby, and then Michael's for three different items. I usually try to consolidate as much as possible, but when these stores limit you to one coupon per transaction per person per day, it's worth going to three separate stores to use three separate coupons when they're all within the same street block of each other. I'm not going to reveal what items I was purchasing so the next few paragraphs are going to sound very vague, but I'm doing that on purpose.

I got to Joann's and looked for item #1. They didn't have it. Online it said they had three in stock. Clearly the stock was not there and the website not updated. Big sigh. I ended up buying item #3 intended for Michael's because it was on sale and a better price than Michael's. I got back into my car, drove down the street about 2 minutes to Hobby Lobby. Instead of buying item #2 intended for Hobby Lobby, I ended up using my coupon to buy item #1.

Once again, I got back into my car, crossed the street, and went to Michael's. Of course, I was supposed to get item #3 at Michael's, but I had already purchased it. So instead, I looked for item #2, intended for Hobby Lobby, which I couldn't buy because I had already used my coupon and wasn't going to spend more on it than I had to. Well, turns out Michael's doesn't carry item #2, and the most similar item they did carry was almost 3x the price at Hobby Lobby. I was not pleased and left without completing my trifecta of craft supplies.

I debated going back to Hobby Lobby again and just seeing if they'd let me use a coupon again to buy item #2. After all, I had left the store, drove to a different location, and then returned. However, as much as I think the people at Hobby Lobby would have let me use the coupon anyway, I turned the other way and went home.

Having arrived home without the three necessary items to complete my craft, I couldn't make any progress on that at all. So instead, I decided to start (and finish!) another craft. I had seen a piece of wall decor at Hobby Lobby as I walked in done in this style which refreshed my memory of having wanted to try it myself. After grabbing my things, but before checking out, I stopped by and inspected it a bit just to see how it was made. Mentally, I created a step-by-step instruction list on how I would go about doing it.

Since I came home missing one item for my originally intended craft, I switched gears and worked on this other DIY project inspired by the one I saw at Hobby Lobby. I had all the necessary materials since they were leftovers from previous projects.

Materials:

- one piece of MDF board or wood board cut to desired size - we had leftovers from building some shelves a year ago.
- nails - they don't have to be extremely long, but they should be nails and not screws. I used some finishing nails we picked up at a garage sale for cheap. I think the whole box was 25 cents.
- paint - we had paint Jonathan picked up one day after work which I've used for previous art projects.
- string of various colors (multiple strands of thread or a skinny yarn work well) - these were leftovers from my giant cross-stitch.
- hammer
- scissors
- pen or pencil
- scrap paper

Steps:

1. Paint your MDF board or wood to desired color. Let paint dry and add additional coats as necessary following the instructions on the can.**
2. Using a piece of scrap paper, sketch out your desired shape and then cut out with scissors.
3. Place the paper on top of your wood or MDF board in the position you want.
4. Carefully using the hammer, put nails in around the paper to create the outline of your shape. Nails should be spaced about a 1/2 inch apart. They can be closer or further apart depending on your discretion. (You can wear gloves and safety glasses if desired, but I didn't because this was very tame compared to other projects we've done. I would recommend the gloves if you're a neat freak because the nails do tend to wear off their coating onto your fingers so if you don't want black/grey fingers after, wear gloves.)
5. Remove the scrap paper after you're done placing nails around the outline. 
6. Take string of various colors and wrap around the nails, tying knots to secure once you've placed it the way you want. This is actually the most time consuming step. It took me about 20 minutes to put the nails in and then about an hour to tie all the string on the way I wanted. 

**Note: I had my MDF board pre-painted from another previous project so I didn't have to wait for paint to dry. Obviously if you start from scratch, it'll probably be a 2-3 day  project because you'll have to wait for the paint. 

I did a very simple heart design and chose to lay out my string in a rainbow fashion going from the warmer colors into the cooler colors. I arranged it like this partly because these are the colors I had and so I was limited with what was leftover from my cross-stitch. 

So there you have it. My Friday afternoon (back up plan) DIY project. :) I see these all the time being sold at stores for decor for $10-$30 dollars depending on what it is. It's really not that hard and depending on what you have on hand, the cost could be little to nothing.

Final cost : $0. Gotta love leftovers :)

Your Biggest Competition

One of the hardest aspects of life is to prevent external influences from changing your opinions. There are some instances where this is actually a good thing. Like when all your friends are telling you to stop smoking or to drink less or to stop playing computer games for a few hours to spend with your girlfriend (haha). These are all good examples of external influences. I'm talking about the external influences that cause us to go from positive thinking to negative thinking.

I will never forget my very last competition as a young pianist. I was 17 and somehow conveniently forgot to tell my dad I had a competition on a Saturday because I just figured my dad wouldn't be doing anything and had time to drive me down to Dallas to compete. Well, it was about 4 hours before my performance time, and my dad told me not to compete that day if I wasn't comfortable driving. I knew I wasn't going to do that because I had worked so hard.

I looked up directions on Google Maps on how to drive to Dallas taking all local roads because I was too scared to take the highway. I didn't want to add extra stress to my day, but I wanted to compete. So I drove myself. I gave myself ample time, drove slowly, and made it to the church. I performed well enough to land myself a spot in the finals, requiring a second performance, this time open-audience. I was used to competitions at this time in my life so playing for others didn't phase me. I ended up placing 3rd and earned myself my final trophy among my collection of musical accolades. I drove home very satisfied and proud of myself for having driven myself all the way down and back.

I told my teacher my results and he was happy for me. He probably told me "Good job" or something along those lines, not too congratulatory but enough to show he was pleased. He took a trip to Hong Kong right after and I had a few weeks off from lessons. After he returned, he asked if I wanted to have a lesson, and instead, I quit, and he was furious. I won't get into the details of why I quit, but he did not respond well. In his angry email to me "subtly" telling me I was making the worst mistake of my life, he said, "To be honest, she could have won the first prize....if she had tried a little bit more harder [sic]." This logical fallacy still makes me angry to think about because it's exactly the kind of thinking that is incorrectly ingrained into the heads of students. How could my teacher say this with such confidence? There is no merit to what he said. He was not the judge of the competition. In fact, he was not even at the competition. We as individuals all have the capability to perform our best performance. However, our best, even in the most perfect way, may not be good enough to win first prize. My teacher didn't even know the backstory about how my dad told me not to compete at all because he couldn't drive me.

Your biggest competition is always yourself, and you should always remember that. I have been the performer who has had memory slips in a competition and still ended up being chosen as one of the top 3. I have been the performer who has performed what I thought was a near-flawless performance and ended up winning nothing. We can only control how much work and effort we put in and our performance during our short five minute window to shine. The rest is someone else's opinion.

Parents, teachers, friends, when you know someone in a competition - your child, friend, or student - don't be like my piano teacher, suddenly changing his perspective because of an external situation. Let your praise be praise and your criticism be constructive. Be kind, be supportive, and know that the student is going to be his or her own toughest competition.

Flat File

A few weeks ago, or maybe just one, I can't remember, I converted some built-in-bookshelves to be a flat file for my music. Before, it was just regular bookshelves with the books vertically placed next to each other. I grew up doing this, however, it is quite bad for your books. Over time, unless you have a very good bookend, (which I do not,) the books will slowly begin to slip downward. The unfortunate part about this is that the process is quite slow, so over time, the books don't fall, but they'll actually take on a warped shape to accommodate for the slipping.

Before: regular bookshelves, music books stored upright. Hello, guitar!

Having been pressured immensely by a fellow music teacher and friend, I finally decided to take some action to get a flat file. However, purchasing a flat file that has aesthetic value and can function as a piece of furniture is not cheap. They run at least a couple hundred dollars to start. I had no intentions of spending that much money simply to store the music, so we decided to go a different route. (Having moved the piano in with seating for parents, the room itself also has very little space to add an additional piece of furniture so I wanted to try and use the existing space as best as possible to not cramp the space.)

We did some research and looked at the shelf clips on our built-in. Now our house is over 30 years old. These shelf clips that were used are not your normal little pins that you push into holes and pull out. These shelf pins were one of a kind, specialized clips with their own tracks.

This here is a Knape & Vogt 256 shelf clip. If not purchased carefully, they can
run you up to $1 a piece. We purchased carefully and did not spend that much per unit. 

Our much cheaper solution was to add shelves to the existing built-in unit so that the bookshelves would stay on the left side and my flat file for music would be added on the right side. If you reference the first image above, you'll see that the three shelves for books on the left have ample wiggle room between each to shift closer and add in a fourth shelf. That's precisely what we did. We moved one of the shelves from the right side to the left to create a fourth shelf for books. Then, we created four more shelves ourselves out of wood to add skinnier shelves on the right for my books to lie flat.

Work in progress: fourth shelf added to the left for books. Stacks of music
lying on their side waiting to be sorted into in-progress shelving units on the right.

The total cost for my flat file conversion ended up being about $25. Of the total materials needed - shelf clips, wood shelves, wood stain, and a clear coat - we only actually had to buy one quart of wood stain and a pack of shelf clips. In the garage, we already had leftover wood pieces from previous projects for the shelving and a can of clear coat also from a previous project.

The finished shelf with bookshelves on the left and a flat file on the right.

Much to the chagrin of my music teacher friend, I did not purchase a flat file, which my bank account much appreciates. Now, for the first time in 15+ years, my music books can lie flat and rest comfortably on their shelves with no fear of a warped cover. I am constantly reminded that my music library will grow and I will need more space, and that statement is most likely true. In that event, I will slowly remove the books from the left and slowly infiltrate that side as needed using the same process we did. Perhaps this whole built-in unit will be a flat file for my music some day. But we are not there yet. :)

The 5 Musical Processes

Throughout the course of my years learning piano and now teaching it, I've come to find there are a number of stages that one must experience and go through in learning and perfecting a piece (including memorization). Each stage occurs differently and lasts a different length of time for different musicians but they are all experienced in one form or another.This is my own personal break down of how the processes occur and what they mean.

1.Uphill Battle

The first stage is named uphill battle because that can be what it feels like. It involves learning notes and rhythm. For considerably hard pieces, this can be a very tedious process of writing down fingerings and teaching our fingers to memorize the muscle movements necessary in order to play the notes in the proper sequence and rhythm. This is the most laborious aspect of learning music because it involves a lot of separate hand practice and time spent repeating the same things over and over again. It's arguably the least fun and takes the most work. However, it's the most important basis to music. Without notes and rhythm, you have air space.

2.  The First Plateau

The second stage is named the first plateau because once you've learned the notes and rhythm, you feel like you've just completed a great feat and you can rest a while. And for difficult pieces, it's true, you really have. At this point, the notes and rhythm come easily and you can play the piece, but it lacks the stylistic elements in order to bring the music alive. The performance might still be a bit mechanical in places that are still uncomfortable, resulting in an unnatural sound.

3. Rocky Scramble

The third stage is one that some musicians may disagree with me on. I've talked to a few and it does not seem like I am alone, but perhaps it's not consistently experienced by all. I call it the rocky scramble because it's where you start to discover difficulties within the piece that you didn't think were there. You start making mistakes and messing up in places you thought you knew and had learned. It feels a bit like you're backtracking in your growth and learning. This stage can be frustrating because it involves relearning some notes and rhythms, perhaps in a way of rote memorization so that you can resolve the problems.

4. The Second Plateau (Refinement)

The second plateau is where it's easy to get stuck in. It's also named refinement because it's about the fine tuning - you have the piece learned pretty darn well, but it's not perfect. Stylistic elements are beginning to take shape and generally, the piece is enjoyable. There is the occasional slipped finger, wrong note, rhythmic error, a brief memory slip. It's the stage that takes the most work to gain the least amount of advancement, hence, why it's easy to get stuck in. It takes a lot of perseverance to get through this plateau and into perfection. 

5. Perfection

The last stage is precisely what it is - perfection. At this point, the piece comes effortlessly. You melt into the melodies and let the notes and rhythm embody you as the performer. There's no mistakes because you know the precise muscle movements and style to deliver a perfect performance.

I would like to share a video of Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu Op. 66 with you. It's still in the refinement stage, but I have about 10 more months to keep working on it to the perfection stage. It sounds like a lot of time, but I have another 6-8 pieces I need to bring up to perfection at the same time, so it's not as easy as you might think.

I really like this piece. While learning it I found YouTube videos of young children under the age of 10 playing it. I just have to look away and remember that they're on a different path than me and will proceed at their own pace. I'm just very thankful that my own abilities have allowed me to learn and play this piece at all.

This and all my YouTube videos have been simply recorded on a point and shoot camera. No separate audio files.

Mondrian Inspired

So if you read in my previous post about the garage art I had created last summer, you would have seen in there that the Mondrian inspired piece was another one I wanted to work on at some point. It took a while, but during winter break when all of my kids (except one!) decided to cancel for the week before Christmas, I had a lot of time on my hands. Finally found some time to write about it so I'm now getting around to sharing.

I went about the process a little differently than the website I got the idea from (because I actually didn't read the website and after seeing the picture, created my own process on how to go about it in my head.) My was a little more tedious than the other way, but it worked.

The first thing I did was tape to paint the black lines.

If you remember from the previous post, I had explained how my husband had picked up gallons of paint randomly on his way home from work one day for free after seeing a Craigslist ad for free paint. Lo and behold, one of those gallons of paint was black.

Now here's where I start telling you all the DIY secrets. I found the can of black paint, but the instant I cracked it open, it was so sour and bitter and repulsive smelling that I knew I was not going to be using it to paint my wall. I closed it right up, made a mental note to make a phone call later to dispose of it properly, and went on to plan B. Plan B was using another dark shade of paint that we had which I originally thought was black, but after using it for a small project, realized it was a very, very dark shade of blue. Seeing as this project is completely my own and only inspired by Mondrian, I veered from the true black lines in his paintings and opted for the very, very dark shade of blue.

Completed lines

As you can see, the dark blue does its job of being a dark contrasting color and doesn't make that big of a difference.

With the first color - blue!

As you can see, I also did not stay true to Mondrian colors. He used completely primary colors whereas I am using softer pastel shades of each of the three. The reason for this was that coming in, I knew I did not have a true red. The closest thing I had was a milder pink, and this was supposed to be a project that did not require spending any money. So I was not going out to buy red paint. Also, I later realized (which worked out in my favor) that the can of yellow paint we had was also a soft yellow and not a bright yellow. Initially, I had wanted to mix the blue to a lighter baby blue because of personal color preference, but it ended up complementing the other colors better.

The pink paint has gone on.

Finished!

As you can see, I pretty much lightened each shade of color from Mondrian's....by arguably the same degree for each color. I purposely left the edges fuzzy and soft because I wanted a "materializing" effect. Once in the heart of the painting, I made sure to fill everything in with crisp clean edges. 

If you stare at it long enough, you'll actually see the illusion of grey circular dots at the intersection of the dark lines. I don't know how to explain this one, but it's just one of the many ways that our eyes can play tricks on us. 

This is actually my smallest piece of artwork in the garage. It only spans about 4 ft wide and tall. My other pieces are pretty massive and measure about 5 ft wide and 6 ft tall.

I don't know how proud my Humanities teachers or my art history teacher in high school would be, and I didn't do exceptionally well in either class, but I do still love art and find ways to be creative with the space I'm given. I'm slowly running out of walls in my garage to paint,  but I'll think of something. ;)

Ice Festival!

I randomly saw something pop up on my Facebook feed today about the famous Ice Festival in China. Being a cold winter day in Texas (35°F, feels like 27°F right now) I'm quite proud to say I've lived in the city where it's held AND attended four years ago. Had some fun reminiscing over pictures. And yes, it really is -35°C (-31°F) or colder there in the winter.

The Entrance. Tickets were $50 USD when I went.

Let's count! Two pairs of socks, two pairs of leggings, one pair of jeans, one pair of track
pants (not pictured), two thermal tees, one long-sleeved shirt, one fleece pullover, one
winter jacket (not pictured), and mittens (not pictured) = 12 different
layers = how to stay warm when it's ridiculously cold.

It's really made of ice blocks that they light up.

Ice slide

Walking on ice. All night. 

Sitting on ice.

Ice tunnel.

The scope of this place is probably the size of a small neighborhood. We stayed 1.5 hours before we got too cold and didn't even explore the whole thing. 

When you're from Texas, you usually get 0 chances to hug ice that's taller
than you. If you're lucky, you get 1 in a lifetime. I'm lucky. 

Do I miss it? China, yes. The cold, most definitely not. Would I go back? Yeah :)