I didn’t come up with the name. It was something my mom coined when we lived in Germany when I was young. She’d cut up a cucumber and sausage, halve some tomatoes, lay out circle-shaped crackers and round cheese, and call it done. But when she called out “Circle lunch is ready!” it somehow had this magic of making us think “lunch shouldn’t be this easy”, “I’m cheating by eating this”, or “wow this is so fun!”

Now that I have kids of my own, I’ve put my own spin on circle lunch… and even ventured into Circle Breakfast.

My favorite is when they scream out, “I ate its hair! He’s bald!” or “Look it’s angry now!” or “I’ve made an alien!”

This will be my fourth WordCamp US, second as an organizer. If you’re coming to the event, stop by and say “hi”. 🙂

WordCamp US 2018 website

It’s December 7-9, 2018. There is still time to grab a ticket if you’ll be in Nashville or a FREE livestream ticket if you’d like to tune in from home.

This Greek girl has succumbed to another Greek’s famous weakness. I’m thankful it didn’t detach, but wow I feel like a guinea pig at physical therapy each week.

Graston – check

If you’re wondering how buttered toast feels, this is the deep tissue massage for you. It makes the worst knots light up like red Christmas lights as they scrape your injured sections with butter knife / shoe horn-looking instruments.

Dry needling – check

This is a bit like a cross between acupuncture and poking someone and saying “does this hurt?” They find those reddest and most locked up parts lit up by the Graston and stick a needle into it. The muscle seizes around the needle and freaks out. Then when the needle is removed, the muscle loosens up more than it was before. Some days it feels great. Other days I walk in fine and leave limping.

Cupping – as of today, check

You know that feeling when you were a kid and you were messing with the soda bottle and get your tongue stuck inside the bottle for a bit? Amplify that. Take a bunch of vacuums and leave the ends stuck on you for 10 minutes. Hopefully you don’t turn black and blue. Too tight and the pinching is actually quite painful. Too loose and it really doesn’t force the locked up portions away from each other.

I like to think I had a conventional childhood, but sometimes when I say things like “yeah, I went to a German school for a year when my dad was singing in the opera house” or after a concert “their career isn’t going to last long if they don’t work on vocal technique to quit hurting themselves” that I get a few raised eyebrows.

My dad grew up in Boston, number 3 of 4 children living off a cobbler’s salary. Their shoes were always shined at church, but were often 1-2 sizes too small. He sang in the Greek Orthodox Church choir and eventually soloed as their cantor. He decided to study music professionally and become an opera singer. He worked as a short order cook to supplement his scholarship and eventually finished his Bachelors and Masters of Music at the Boston Conservatory of Music. Around that time he won the Metropolitan Opera auditions and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Rome, Italy.

When he returned he tried to finish his Doctorate at Michigan State University and taught as a masters grad there for 2 years, but a job opportunity opened up at Bowling Green State University and he decided to go there rather than finish. In retrospect, it was a very good decision. He never became “Doctor P”, but he never needed to.

When he was younger he was known for his Marcello and Scarpia.

As he got older, he started to do more Sharpless in Madame Butterfly.

He stayed for 33 years at BGSU as the resident baritone, teaching voice to opera students and other music majors. He taught Italian diction for singers then, too, before retiring from BGSU and moving on to Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music. He’s now 17 years into his stay at IU and only just now, after 50+ years of teaching opera at the university level, retiring in June 2019.

He gave a performance this past weekend as part of a faculty recital, which was quite the feat getting up on stage after having hip surgery at the end of July and eye surgery a few weeks ago.

I am always amazed by the things his students are doing from both universities. They’re in opera houses around the world, teaching at esteemed universities themselves, releasing videos that go viral, winning awards, appearing on television and movies, and just making me proud I can say “My dad taught them.”

I work for a pretty amazing company, automattic.com/work-with-us, that on your 5th anniversary you can take a 3 month paid sabbatical.

I have had some (I hesitate to call them epiphanies because they seem more like common sense that gets lost in the rhythm of a busy life)… moments where I realized what I needed to stop doing and what I needed to do more of.

1) Don’t worry about work – it goes on without you.

2) Life goes on without you too. There isn’t a magical Sabbatical switch that flips and everything turns into sunshine and daisies. If you want something to be different, you need to change it. If you want something to happen, you need to plan it out and do it.

3) Small, kind, daily gestures go a long way to feeding relationships that matter.

4) Time passes quickly when you’re wasting it.

5) Taking care of yourself should not be the last thing you do after everything and taking care of everyone else.

So after a month of winter cabin fever, taking care of sick kids and a dad with pneumonia (again), I realized I need to

• Get out of the house every day
• Exercise every day
• Create music
• Fuel my inner artist

What have I done with 2 months of sabbatical so far?

I have joined a welcoming, supportive Crossfit gym — walking distance from my house. Score!

I’ve crocheted a hat for my son and started a chevron blanket using the techniques my grandmother taught me when I was little. I made some Christmas ornaments from scratch with the kids.

I am taking piano lessons once a week to work on my technique. (Don’t judge this Schumann yet – it’s a work in progress, with the tempo and repeated switching between 5 flats and 6 sharps standing between me and calling it done.)

I make a point of playing outside for an hour as often as possible with my kids right after school.

We read knock-knock joke books together before bed, in addition to them reading me one story each, so we have some giggles to end the day.

I go for long walks just to see nature and get fresh air.

It hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve had time to remember what’s important and bring it back into my regular routine. With one month to go, I’m going to enjoy the trips I have planned and start figuring out how to maintain that balance once I go back to work.

I’ve always gravitated toward the piano. I play for me, not for concerts or recitals. I studied with my mom during elementary school (she was a music therapy major, sang in a band, played guitar and piano). When I played her last college piece and she wanted me to keep progressing, she arranged lessons with the wife of one the university professors my father worked with. After that another family friend, the summer musical rehearsal pianist, taught me. By then I was in college and started studying with 3 different professors there.

How is it I’m just now decades later learning technique? Hahaha. Was it passable before and no one harped on it? I set out to take lessons during my sabbatical with the explicit instructions for my teacher to help me play without hurting myself. So far I’ve learned to play some notes higher on the key to keeps gentler angle and to put my elbows in front of my body for difficult sections that would otherwise wrench my wrists.

Up next is this piece Romance in B Flat minor by Robert Schumann. I have the notes down but am working on the speed. There are parts I need to rework for positioning, when my right hand starts to hurt which I should not be doing to myself. Wish me luck!