This is IT!

OK, so here goes...My latest very FUN endeavor, which has been taking between 1 and 3 hours of my time each day, I obsess over it day and night, I can hardly wait to be proficient at it, I hired a teacher to help me with it, it has inspired me in other areas of my life, iiiisss....maybe I won't tell after all,.... kiddin! It's my dearly beloved violin that I've had forever but just never got around to learning. I don't know how old I was when I first decided that I wanted to learn violin but I'm guessing I was about 5. At the time we were poor and there was no chance of getting lessons. Dad picked up a violin at an auction for about $25 back in the 80's and we ended up hanging it on the wall as a decoration for 10 years! When I was a teen I asked Mom if I could have it and she said yes. So I took it down, repaired it's cracks, refinished it, and restrung it. I think I was 16 or 17 when I first hired a teacher who said she would come out to our home for the lessons, at the time I was well on my journey in piano lessons and thinking about teaching. I found the teacher to be frustrating and not the most helpful and after about 4 lessons I learned that she didn't even play the violin herself!!! I was SHOCKED! I cancelled my lessons and put away my violin(I thought forever, yes, I was just being dramatic). Really though, I had lost the spark that I needed at that time to continue learning. Over the past 12 years(I know, I'm getting old) I've gotten the violin out and tried to screech out a song only to put it away very quickly, horrified at the awful sound. So... now I'm as surprised as anyone that my interest is reawakened at this time. While attending the Feast of Tabernacles I met another older beginning violin player who inspired me to try again. When I got home I opened my violin case and began playing and now I can't put it down. After 10 days of consistent practice I decided I'd better get a teacher before I developed some bad habits that were hard to fix. Being a music teacher myself, I understand how important it is to get that feedback from someone experienced. I had my 3rd lesson this morning and I've completed one and a half levels of "All For Strings" method. I'm eager to get down the art of vibrato and excited about learning some classical pieces. Next week I'm even hoping to take my violin to the Alzheimer's nursing home and play for the elderly, hopefully they'll forget how badly I play and welcome me back the following week. :D I'm already setting my sights BIG, maybe in ten years I'll be teaching violin lessons myself, perhaps when I'm 50 I can give a solo recital at the local theater. Ha, Ok so now you know and you can keep your eyes peeled for the video that hopefully I will soon post on youtube. I want to keep a record of my progress that way I can look back and be appalled at how bad I was and encouraged by my progress. Oh, and I forgot to mention how my violin practice has been inspiring me in another area. Since you can only practice so much before you get too tired from building all these new muscles for holding the violin, when I'm finished with my 3 hours of practice I just sit down at the piano and give it a few more hours of practice. It may sound crazy to you non musicians for me to practice music up to 5 hours a day, and to those of you who are musicians, well you probably wonder why stop at only 5 hours, right? I kind of go through these phases with my piano, sometimes I go for months without practicing(feel guilty for it too) but sometimes I just can't find a good enough reason to get into it. So any little bit counts, an hour or two and some goals to shoot for at the piano is a big thing for me right now. I have to say, I feel like a kid again!