Happy Jewish New Year!

Things have become extremely busy, but all good stuff so I dare not complain!! The fundraising for the Leukemia Society is going much better than I expected and I only need a couple more hundred dollars to reach my goal of $4800. This has been quite a challenge for me to raise this kind of money. Thanks to the guys and their generous donation of playing for free, we played a house concert/fundraising event that brought in a bunch of money for LLS. I am so touched that my musicians would donate their time like that. Such good guys, as well as incredibly talented musicians.

I'm also in the middle of the mixdown of Azucar de Amor and I think it's going pretty well. It's hard to get enough distance from the music to know if its really good or not. But then there are those moments where I hear one of the songs on the CD and I think to myself, "yes, that's exactly how I wanted this song to sound!" I am proud of the efforts put forth with this next CD. I had to finally realize that making a CD is like raising a child; at some point you just have to let it go and allow it to find its own way. That's how I have to think of these songs -- I think they are ready to go out into the world and stand on their own at this point!

The other exciting thing is that I started teaching at a new school yesterday. The children are very creative and full of energy. I'm definitely going to have to lay down some laws in order to keep them from walking all over me, but I feel that I will have a lot of opportunities to explore teaching methods that I wasn't able to do last year. I am encouraged--encouraged!!!--to be creative and experimental with the students. Yipppeee!! I'm really excited about teaching music this year and I really hope it goes well.

So, now I need to go and work out before going back up to San Francisco to continue the mixing of the CD. I've got to get/stay in shape for the 9 hour hike that will be happening at the end of this month.