Tag 3

I've been tagged! by Holly, thanks. (my first time ever) I almost didn't recognize it since I haven't been Marie F. for very long (only 2 years, ha ha)

I'm supposed to name 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random/surprising facts about myself, then tag 3 people. Here goes:

3 Joys

1. The gospel of Jesus Christ. In the scriptures the word joy is used mostly in connection with Christ. I think it's important to remember that true joy comes through Christ, and that anything in our life that brings us joy is given to us by Him. I especially like 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,"compared with 2 Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." To me that says even so in Christ all might have joy. And yes, this is me waxing philosophical.


2. My husband, JP. I feel like I'm more in love with him than ever before. This may seem cheesy or cliche, but it's definitely true. He is a joy in my life.


3. Music, especially classical music. Listening to music, playing music (I play the viola), all of it. I'm missing it a little right now because of the symphony break, and my students not showing up. I love music, and I'm grateful for all of the people that taught me that love, including my music teachers. But especially Holly who taught me how to listen to music, and not just play it.

3 Fears

I have worked hard to overcome fears in my life, including heights, and being in front of people. The ones I'm currently working on are water/fish and spiders, so I guess technically I'm still afraid of them some, but I've come a long way. We now have a fish named Haiku, and I've been swimming 8 or so times this summer, and I've killed a handful of spiders in my house (big progress.) So things I'm still afraid of:

1. Snakes, we saw one on a hike in Yellowstone this year. It was afraid and got away fast, but I still didn't like it. And I didn't like walking past them in the pet store yesterday either.


2. Not getting enough done/procrastinating. I think that's what puts me on edge and makes me high strung. The interesting thing is, it's still not enough to keep me motivated for a whole 8 hour period. *sigh* So it sort of ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.


3. Failure... not being good enough at something, whether that's teaching violin or being a wife or mother. I've had a lot of successes in my life, but I haven't really learned to deal with failure. And I don't even have a good definition of what failure is to me, which is why it continues to be a looming fear, instead of one I can conquer.

3 Goals

1. Suzuki teaching; I want to build my violin/viola studio, and I want to improve my teaching skills.


2. The "Scrapbook Pile:" we have a huge pile in our bedroom of all the stuff we've both collected over the years. There's photos, certificates, memorabilia, souvenirs.... everything. It needs to be gone through, de-junked, and made functional. Included with that goal is putting together something about our wedding, a small scrapbook, or wall hanging that I can feel happy with so I can feel like it's documented and I can move on. Also, the family history stuff we've been collecting and we want to work on more keeps migrating to that pile.


3. Health; I want to get more in shape through yoga and running. I did really well last month, with water aerobics, and even ran with the high school cross country team one day, and then we went to Yellowstone, came back, and all of the sudden I quit. So hopefully I can jump back in here soon.

3 Current Obsessions/Collections

This is a good one for me because I live my life obsession to obsession. I read about them, and research them, and talk to everyone about them, and then I move on to another one, having sponged up everything I can. I guess the overarching obsession of all of these is reading. So these are my three most recent.

1. Birthing. I have two friends that got me started on this. One friend had 2 home births, and the other friend is planning a home birth. I'm not sure that I would want a home birth, but my mom had a midwife for her last few births, and I think that's the way that I would like to go. Luckily I don't have to decide anything right now, and I have a lot of time to keep reading and researching. But if anyone has suggestions on great midwives in the Salt Lake area, let me know.


2. Homeschool. I've been researching homeschool because I know I'm going to homeschool my children, at least for the elementary school years. JP and his siblings were homeschooled, and my parents are teaching my siblings at home now.


3. Sign Language. I've always loved ASL, and as I learned about signing with children as a second language and pre-speech communication tool I've loved it. In my research ran across Signing Time! and think it's really fun. I also studied deafness, and deaf culture somewhat. I learned a lot, and then got a job working with a boy who is deaf last year.

3 Random/Surprising Facts About Myself

1. I love books, especially childrens books, and poetry.


2. I play the string bass (only classical.)


3. I have two metal rods in my back for scoliosis.

3People to Tag

1. J.P.


2. Mom


3. Brit

I Cut My Hair

For my life, this is exciting, and rather drastic. Yesterday I got my hair cut. I cut off over 12 inches. Yes, I will be donating my hair to Locks of Love. I changed my hair from going to the middle of my back, to going to about jaw length. It is fun and I like it, the only thing is now I need to remember how to do short hair. (My mom actually helped me with the first styling of it.)
Going in to this, especially the night before, I was so nervous. I didn't know how I wanted it cut, I just knew I wanted it pretty short, and I knew I wanted to donate it, and I knew JP didn't want it too short. From what I've heard it sounds like we compramised pretty well, and I'm happy. I did have my mom come with me to the salon, I guess I'm not completely grown up yet. But by the time she got there I was starting to feel like I would have been ok if she hadn't come. My stylist was awesome, and understood what I wanted more than I did. So without further ado, my haircut...

And I also think Julianna did a good job taking the pictures, Thanks Jules.

Fortune Cookie

Last week my in-laws took us to dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant, one of my favorites that I haven't been to in a couple years. It was very good food and good conversation. But my favorite part is usually when the fortune cookies come, not only do I love how they taste, but it's fun to see the fortunes, whether they're silly, fortuitous, or insightful.
Like the Andy Griffith show we watched last week where Aunt Bea opens a Chinese restaurant because of a lucky penny, and then gets out of the business because of a cookie fortune that reads "beware of business ventures, they can be very risky."
So our fortunes for that night were:

• You have a captivating style all your own
• You are the life of any party
• You should be able to undertake and complete anything (JP)
• The strengths in your character will bring you serenity (Marie)

Although mine may not apply completely to me any more than the others I decided I wanted to write about it.

What strengths of character can a person have that will bring them serenity?

• Acceptance
• Forgiveness (and the C. Terry Warner parallel, forgo-ness)
• Strength
• Understanding

The word serenity also brings to mind the Serenity Prayer. These are just some thoughts.

Thoughts on my last job...

Now that my job from last year is finished, and I've had some time to process, here's some things that my student and that job taught me:

• Sign Language- I feel like I could now be confident to sign with someone, I learned so many new signs, and the daily practice helped make things become more fluid. Now I want to keep it up so I don't get rusty.
• Discipline Techniques- I even had the district behavior specialist help me. I learned about setting boundaries, and knowing the plan before hand so you don't overreact. It's not the exact techniques I want to use forever, but it's learning and a starting place.
• Endurance- I often said, "It's ok I can wait longer than you." But then I had to stand by that. And to go to work everyday got difficult by the end, but I went and I endured.
• Parenting Skills- Not enough to get me through 24/7, but enough to realize parenting is an extremely big job. Also the importance of bonding and connecting with your own children, and the power that comes through being the mom instead of the babysitter/teacher.
• Early Reading and Math- I saw how many intermediate steps there are to basic reading and math that we sometimes take for granted.
• Mandt Training- How to physically restrain a child, and how to avoid it at all costs.
• Public School- How much I don't like it there, and how much I'm capable of teaching my children.

I also built friendships and relationships, and was able to bond with an angel child. Although he's crazy and frustrated a lot of the time, he really has an angel spirit (as his mom calls it) and is trying his hardest to be heard and understood.

Grandma Simmons' Wedding Pictures

These are the original photos from my Grandparents wedding that I said I would post. I was able to get them from my mom and finally scan them today. These are the only three photos I know of, so if you find others of Lee and Beulah Simmons (especially of this dress) let me know. (Thanks Richard, for sending the one of the wedding cake.)
The lists of who is in each picture I scanned from the back of the photos and is in my Grandmother's handwriting.

Solo Recital

On April 5th I played a solo recital after the Priesthood session of General Conference at the home of Alan Edwards. My accompanist was Diane Bastian. She is an amazing accompanist.

The program was:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in a minor -Allegro Moderato by J. S. Bach
Sonata Op. 120 No. 1 -Allegro Appassionato and Vivace by Johannes Brahms
Ave Marie by Franz Schubert
Suite in G Major -Prelude by J. S. Bach
Suite in C Major -Gigue by J. S. Bach
Arpeggione Sonata -Allegro Moderato by Franz Schubert
Where Can I Turn For Peace by Joleen Meredith Arr. By Marie Feinauer & Marilyn Olsen

I played a violin piece because it is the piece that I need to pass off through a video with the Suzuki Association to continue my Suzuki training on the violin. I was planning on doing all of my Suzuki Training on viola, but when the opportunities present themselves, you need to jump.
I think one interesting thing is that none of the pieces were originally written for viola. The Brahms was for clarinet originally, the Bach Suites are for cello, the Schubert Sonata was written for an instrument called the Arpeggione. The joys of being a violist.

I haven't yet figured out how to edit a video excerpt to put here from the video that was take of the recital. But I'm glad that video was taken, hopefully I can give myself some lessons from watching it and practicing.

It was a very good experience to play for an audience again, and I feel like I've gotten back to my "I'm not too nervous" attitude. I was excited and wanted to do well, but also confident and felt good about who I was sharing with.

A lot of my family that was not able to come to my college senior recital were able to come to this one. I enjoyed being able to play for my friends and family in a more formal, but still relaxed setting.

JP bought an orchid that afternoon so we were able to display that on the piano. It is beautiful and still blooming. When the host of this recital, Alan, found out JP liked orchids he gave us a book to read called, "Making the Impossible Possible: One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary" by Bill Strickland. We've begun reading it and are really enjoying it. It's about a man who helped inner city youth by bringing beauty into their lives. And one of the beauties was growing orchids.

It's taken me a long time to do this post because I wanted it to be really good, but I couldn't decide what would make it stand out. Especially since my mom had already posted about this recital on the family blog. But I'm glad to keep a record, and once I get this post finished maybe my ideas will begin flowing again for what else I want to write about.

Performing Mahler's 5th

On the 15th of March I performed in Mahler's 5th Symphony with the Salt Lake Symphony in Libby Gardner Concert Hall at the University of Utah. Although it was a very hard piece of music and a challenge for me, I'm glad that I had the experience and took the time to play this piece.
The thing I want to comment on is our director and how amazing he was at bringing the orchestra through this experience. I first must disclose that we didn't perform this piece perfectly. We were far from it. And while most directors would be extremely stressed, pushy, and possibly even downright grumpy, Dr. Baldwin had a great attitude through the whole thing.
I especially noticed all of this during the dress rehearsal. The first thing we did was a complete run through! Now that may not sound all that amazing to many of you. But when a director is stressed about a difficult piece, usually the last thing thing they want to do at the last minute is a run through; they want to hit the hard spots. So we did a run through and Dr. Baldwin was disciplined enough not to stop us (much.)
After the run through he complimented us sincerely, not on our perfection, but on his faith that from hearing what we'd just done he knew that we would be able to make it through tomorrow without crashing. And that gave us all what we probably needed most, a little confidence (myself included.)
Then we spent the second part of the rehearsal working on spots he had noticed during the run through. And it was amazing, he had a system and he stuck to it. He would tell us the section, and what we needed to fix. Then we would play through it, and it wouldn't go so great. Then he would say one more thing, we would play it again, it would improve, and he would compliment us on the improvement and give us something to help us remember tomorrow. He didn't beat any one spot to death, and he didn't ever sound like he'd given up on a spot being the way he wanted.
After the rehearsal he saved time for a pep talk (some directors would go over time running spots, and then be like "oh... see ya.") And his talk was quite insightful for me. I must admit by that time I was extremely tired and didn't really want to play the concert the next night, so the pep talk was what I needed.
He paraphrased some other people, and he let us know that he was.... so I'm passing that on to you readers. Anyway, he said that there is a trend now for smaller orchestras to play Mahler, and the big works like that. The reasoning Dr. Baldwin stated was that there is power in this music. That even though we can't play it as well as say, the New York Philharmonic it still has power for the audience and (especially) us as musicians.
This meant a lot to me, because the reason I play the viola still is that I love playing in symphonies. I've felt the power of great music at least since I was in 9th grade and played the New World Symphony by Dvorak. And it made me grateful for the opportunity to play another great piece of music and experience that greatness again at a new level. It made me want to come back tomorrow and play the concert, even though I didn't know of anyone who was coming to see it.
At the end of his talk he complimented us for all of our hard work, and told us to think back to the first rehearsal and how much we had improved. And I must say the contrast was quite amazing, especially after only six rehearsals.
The concert the next night went well enough. I enjoyed playing, and I played better than I had the rest of the rehearsals (you gotta love adrenaline.) We only had a minor train wreck where the french horn came in the wrong spot, but we just went back to his entrance and everyone was able to figure it out and we got back together. It was a good experience, and now I'm glad that I didn't chicken out and take a break for this concert.