I first visited Don Stephens's Annualized Geo-Solar Design web site several years ago, and I'm delighted to see that he now has a more detailed paper available. I quickly forwarded the link to S., who is making noises about building a new place. Just the thing for our climate here in Maine.

These days, as a Suzuki teacher, I am a firm believer that the environment makes the child, that talent is not inborn, that anyone can learn to play the violin well. It was 26 years before I came around to this thinking, before I became a teacher (and before I was diagnosed with MS), years spent in harsh self-criticism and the belief that I wasn't smart enough, or talented enough, or social enough, or pretty enough, or any number of self-defeating beliefs that hampered creativity and joyful living.

I got through those years, though. In college, I survived them with a quote from Schumann: "Talent labors, genius creates." I don't know why that made me feel better, but it did. I didn't expect to be a genius, and seeing that statement reminded me that talented people still have to work hard.

Tonight I gave a violin lesson. This student is practicing. He is working hard. He is making a huge amount of progress. He is feeling (and looking) relaxed when he plays. He is getting excited about his new ability (I know because I asked him). He says that he's practicing more. I can tell. I love it that he's proven A. wrong. But even more, I love that little look of "woohoo!" that I see on his face when he's playing the violin now. I probably have that look myself, as I watch him.

I'm waking up in the morning feeling too warm under my blankets, Bonita is on top of the blankets instead of snuggled under them, dawn comes before I leave my house in the morning, the sun is warm on me as I walk home from school...I think Spring is coming!

I feel completely safe saying this, since if Nature reads this and decides to dump 2 feet of snow on me, at least I would finally be able to try out the snowshoes I got for Christmas.

I am a little worried that this winter's lack of snow will mean fewer blueberries on the mountain this summer, though. Hmmm. Now I'm all tangled up and can't figure out whether I want Spring to come or not. Sheesh.

Saturday dawned beautiful and sunny, with temps in the '50s. I headed to Cape Elizabeth to see E. and her week-old baby girl, and enjoyed hours of walking around Fort Williams and snuggling with her tiny alien. So small! So cute! So sleepy! Adjusting to the world is hard work.

Today: colder, no sun. Time to do my taxes.

Spent 4 hours in the ER yesterday morning, after suddenly being overcome with dizziness, shortness of breath, and racing heart during my morning class. I didn't start breathing properly again for several hours. My feet felt sort of funny, not MS-tingly, but just hard to feel them. All tests were fine, and they chalked it up to MS, (which sucked). I took the rest of the day off, canceled all of my violin lessons, and vowed that I would sleep more and stop doing so many activities. Most of all, I promised that I would be good to myself, try to eat good food, get enough rest, and not worry about whether I'm doing a good job teaching violin. I love my violin students, and they are making great progress. No stressing out about it allowed!

This morning I woke up feeling like I had a weird chest cold, but was fine otherwise. After talking to a few people, (including one of my students who was sick last week), I think what I had yesterday was a reaction to a virus. Apparently I'm not the only one with heart palpitations, dizziness, and lack of feeling in hands and feet. Wow. I've never heard of a virus like that before!

But I still vow to be better to myself. There's nothing like a visit to the ER to remind me to be nice to the ol' body.

Saturday, March 18th brought both MS-y numbness and Tango Mucha Labia's first gig (at the Downeast Country Dance Festival). It went quite well, all things considered, and many people were asking when we would be playing again.

On Sunday, after a visit to the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church, I grabbed my violin and headed downtown to Acoustic Coffee, where I sat in on Les Beaux de l'Aire's second set. That was tons of fun, despite me not having a clue what was going on most of the time. :-) There were a couple of nice moments, and I loved playing with the trumpet on "When You Were Smiling".

Still feeling weird this week, but slowly getting better. Violin students are looking so relaxed these days that I keep having visions of Gary Larson's "Boneless Chicken Ranch" cartoon, with chickens draped everywhere.

Ryan called today to tell me that yesterday "K. agreed to marry me sometime in the future." I'm sure her whole family is buzzing with excitement and is, no doubt, already deep into wedding plans. As Ryan said, "the best way to send her mom into an apoplectic fit is to mention Las Vegas." I told him that maybe this wasn't the time to mention Dad's family's track record of going off, getting married, and then telling the family about it afterwards. :-)