Unfortunately my photography website had been down for several months because of issues with my hosting company, so last month I ended up rebuilding a website with a different platform and with a different hosting company. It was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to make it work like I wanted it, and it was a time consuming process. The new site is now live with a different domain: rzanaphotography.net . There are a few quirks to fix still, but overall things seem to be functional at least.
Because my tummy is so full of baby right now, I have had to take a break from my cello for a couple of weeks. My arms were not able to reach around at the right angle anymore. I’ve been missing it! Before I had to temporarily stop playing, I was working on starting to learn a cello sonata by Vivaldi and I was relearning a piece by Faure.
I learned about Anne Askew, a woman who was tortured in the Tower of London and burned at the stake for her “radical” protestant beliefs during the reign of King Henry VIII. Whenever I read about accounts like this, I am kind horrified at the depravity of humanity to be so incredibly cruel over such small differences in belief.
Mr. TOF’s trombone teacher gave him a huge list of famous trombone players to research and listen to at his first trombone lesson. He’s looked up and enjoyed listening to several already, and I found myself inspired. While Suzuki viola and violin incorporates a lot of listening to the music students are learning, all the recordings for required listening are made by the same person. I hadn’t actually ever thought to make a list of famous artists for my music students to look up and listen to. Encouraging my students to do more listening is definitely an area of my teaching that I could grow.
I’ve been enjoying following along as a blogger I’ve been reading for a decade and a half travels around the world for a year with her husband and their five older children. They’ve been sharing about many very interesting places they have been visiting. When they landed in Morocco, I was motivated to do a little reading because I didn’t really know very much about Morocco. I learned a lot about the culture and history, even though I kind of cheated and just checked out some juvenile nonfiction books from the library.
A rotten diagnosis of gestational diabetes has thrown me for a bit of a loop on so many levels these past two months, and I have not always been cheery about it. I was forced to learn not only how to test glucose levels many times a day but also how to give myself an insulin injection at bedtime. It wasn’t something I ever really wanted to learn, but here we are. Hopefully it goes away when the baby is born and stays away for forever, although there is a high chance that it will come back in my future. On the other hand, even though it has been a pain, it has not been the end of the world, and the baby seems to be doing well.
At the piano I have been learning an additional Chopin nocturne. They seem to be just the thing for me this summer: calm but expressive music. I also started working on a Schubert Impromptu: Opus 90 number 2, and a short little Scarlatti sonata. I reviewed one of my favorite Bach fugues and some Spanish Dances by Granados.
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