Some Things I Learned this October

October has flown by! I’m not sure what even happened. It feels like I barely wrote on my blog, and I’m mystified as to where all the days went! It has been a busy fall season around here, and I have definitely been scrambling to keep up.

Here are some things that I learned this month:

• Mr. TOF and I read about Peter the Great, Czar of Russia and Catherine the Great. We were particularly stunned by all of the crazy events in the life of Catherine the Great.
• I have been learning so much about swimming from watching The Banana sparkle in her first season of competitive high school swimming. Recently we needed to get a tech suit for her sectional meet coming up, and who knew that something that looks like it is literally the size a five year old would wear could stretchy into something that would fit a teenager. It did take her more than 20 minutes to get the suit on, actually. It has also been fun to understand more about long distance swimming and how important the lane counters at the end of the pool are to pace the swimmer. The Banana has been getting faster and faster, and she even recently tried a bit of butterfly.
• Full sized violas have an incredibly rich, nuanced sound. Mr. TOF just got a new instrument on Friday, and the sound stuns both of us every time he practices.
• I read a fiction book about the Cloquet forest fire of 1918 (which also struck part of Duluth as well as other places in between) and learned so much. I was expecting the book to be cheesy, and I did think the characters were a bit flat, but all of that was made up for in the incredible weaving of historical detail that went into the book. I have another nonfiction book about the crazy disasters of 1918 that struck Northern Minnesota on my To Read list, but I haven’t managed to get to it yet.
• On my cello I learned the third moment of the Sammartini sonata I have been working on, and I am having success with vibrato in some other pieces. I am so excited about the vibrato. It was so long in coming and so frustrating to figure out.
• Plunger trumpet mutes make everyone want to sing along to the jazzy tunes! I’ve been enjoying the Devious Snail’s jazz practice time.