About Last Week | This WONDERfilled Life

It’s 9:40 am on a Monday morning and I am on my second cup of coffee after a very long, but exciting, week and weekend…This was the busiest I’ve had in years.  

It started Monday with a great rehearsal for an upcoming recording project with my favorite brass ensemble, Millar Brass (I will be sure to post the fruits of our labor as soon as it’s available!). 

Tuesday evening found me at my alma mater, Northwestern University, watching the talented and impossibly funny while also being the nicest human being, Sarah Willis, hold a master class with the current NU Horn studio. I got some really great bits of info that I am very much looking forward to trying out this week in my personal practice.  And we all got to get in the picture at the end! HA!! 

Photo Credit: Northwestern University Horn Studio 

Wednesday I got to visit with one of my oldest friends, JoAnn! We went to BU together over 20 years ago and always try and see each other when we can.  I love that we can so easily pick up where we left off.  We text fairly often but when in person it’s really as if no time has passed.  It’s been a year since we’ve seen each other but this trip she was finally able to meet the kids! We had a lovely dinner, and great conversation about brass playing (she’s a great trumpeter, yoga instructor who also developed and runs various workshops on mindfulness and playing, and an excellent photographer, check her out on her Instagram!!

Thursday I had zero official plans, but I was still tying up loose ends for our upcoming Hocus Pocus Premiere… like our family “costume” shirts and some of the party treats.  I promised the kids they could help with some things, like these “chocolate wands”… this was a letting go process…also…beware of black sprinkles…once wet…you look like you’ve been rolling in mud…just ask Bubba…in all fairness they turned out decent and we didn’t have many left at the end of the party so the kids certainly ate them! I’ll have more info on these and the other little surprises from our party in the coming week (I hope). 

They glow in the dark!!!

Friday was party day!! WooHoo!!! If you’ve ever been curious what I and/or my craft studio look like on an event day…here’s a sneak peek!! Spoiler alert, it’s never clean or organized!! LOL!!

The party was a great success, it took me a few hours to set it up and another hour for Super and I to break it down afterward.  I love being able to host events like this for friends and family and have an entire blog post coming on the night’s festivities and *magic* of the evening!

Saturday was a chill day and another night of reconnecting.  Since we were hosting (aka refilling food and drinks) Super and I didn’t really get to take in all of the movie, so we decided to re-watch it for our Saturday afternoon movie and popcorn (a hold over weekly event from our pandemic days).  We’re so glad we were able to watch it again because it’s really good! Highly recommend! It was funny, touching and entertaining.  And unlike most Saturday movies, I actually stayed awake the WHOLE time!!

Saturday evening had me driving down to the University of Chicago’s campus to hear a lovely program dedicated to my good friend Sonya’s dad.  While her dad is very renowned in the music world (especially in the composition side of things) I was truly more excited to see her in the flesh! We figured out it had been probably close to 10 years since we’d been in the same room.  Like JoAnn, she also went to BU with us and the three of us have been friends ever since.  Bummed that we couldn’t make our schedules work to all be together at the same time, that said I don’t know that Chicago could have handled that!! HAHA! The program was a wonderful collection of works written by Oliver Knussen, George Benjamin and Augusta Read Thomas and was a thoughtful and loveing tribute to Olly who passed away before the pandemic.  Sonya and I laughed and chatted all through the reception and it just did my heart good being able to sit with her and talk like old times!! We also may, or may not have had many cake pops…just saying…

So if you’re still reading this far, you might think by this point in the week I was exhausted, and I was…am…I mentioned my second cup of coffee this morning right?

But Sunday I had a few more things up my sleeve…I realized as Super and I were packing up the Party that we didn’t get a family photo in our Halloween/Party gear…so I decided to sort of set up a truncated version of our outside set up as a precursor to our upcoming ‘Trunk or Treat’ event, and I needed to work out some kinks in using the fog machine (yes, we bought a fog machine!) so I threw together a photo shoot in the basement, and set up my phone to time lapse it all! LOL!! Seriously though, I think it’s so important for people to realize that things like this take time, planning and hard work.  A simple photo shoot often is actually anything BUT simple.  

All that said, last week was draining but also soooo much fun! I am hoping to write up a few things about our party in the coming week.  I learned some new crafts I can’t wait to share with you all since I know everyone is gearing up for Halloween 2022.  Me? I am just glad I have our costumes done and our set up complete…if you need me in the meanwhile I’ll be napping!!