I’m writing this post while listening to Bach’s Easter Oratorio. Yesterday featured two violin sonatas played by Shunsuke Sato, who does a lot of the Netherlands Bach Society’s violin work. It is good stuff. A friend who is also doing this project pointed him out to me and now we have become quite the Sato fans. Maybe I’ll see him in concert sometime!
I also listened to the Christmas Oratorio this week. I wound up listening more than once because the first video I’d chosen wasn’t really my favorite. It’s a frequently performed work so not everyone does it as well as it could be done. I wound up settling on the JS Bach Foundation version. I’m a big fan of the opening chorus to the 5th part. So catchy. That powered me through a strength training session the other day. I should be going to a Bach concert this weekend put on by an early music group, so I’m looking forward to that.
Meanwhile….I took my 14-year-old (almost 15-year-old!) to a running store last night to get fitted for better running shoes. He’s been running on the high school cross-country team for the last few weeks and his coach pointed out that he was over-pronating so we went to get some more stabilizing shoes. It was quite the involved experience (he tried on like 8 pairs!) but we left with one he liked. And several pairs of running socks because, hey, we were there.
It’s been fun to watch him do this sport, which I’m now realizing would have been a fairly accessible high school or middle school sport to do. Like on an average day they do some warm-ups then go for a 45-minute run. That sounds like a very pleasant way to end a school day! Not that dissimilar to what I do now.
Although I’ve actually been running in the morning more lately. Now that no one usually needs to be up before 7 a.m. if I pop up early enough, I will go run 2 miles on the treadmill. I’ve been aiming to do some speed work during these sessions. I’m really, really slow (my “speed” is like 7 mph) but hopefully it will help. I do another long run this weekend, but probably not quite as long because I’m planning to do a hike with an area trails association too. Hopefully tonight will be fairly chill (such as it ever is) because it’s been a long week. I went to two back-to-school nights this week, but those are now over. We hit all four! I also feel like I’ve been doing a lot of paperwork. The two high school kids will go to NYC with their school music program this spring and I need to register for that and I was somewhat blindsided by the paperwork volume for an activity for the 9-year-old. I signed him up for an after-school robotics activity, but since it’s run by the official aftercare provider, I had to do everything to register for that as a childcare agency – like the various agreements, vaccination record, getting the app from the childcare provider with a pin to check him out (as did everyone else who might check him out), etc. Whoa.
In the meantime, here’s this week’s content… Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community page, I just posted the recording of our book club discussion on Jodi Wellman’s You Only Die Once. Membership is $9/month and we have multiple discussion threads going each week on issues related to work and life. Please check it out!
The Before Breakfast podcast featured my longer episode where I interview Sarah Hart-Unger about mornings and routines. I also have an episode advising to “Check if you’ll need to reschedule” and one on the idea to “Start a goal club.”
At Vanderhacks I wrote that “Complaining is boring.” I suggested that one might “Map out a busy season.” And behind the paywall I noted that “Procrastination happens” — but here are my tips for getting things done anyway. Next week I’ll be starting my video posts (I believe usually on Tuesdays but we shall see).
Thanks for reading!