I must start off by saying that I am most thankful for my wife, Holly. She's so beautiful and joyful and positive, and I have no idea where I would be without her. And I'm thankful that she's also a horn player and music educator. And, I'm thankful that she provided me with three boys that will be very talented musicians someday!
But here on my music blog, I must talk about how thankful I am to simply just have a career in music. I'm thankful that I don't have to work in retail anymore, or have to work some other job that I hate just to maintain our income. I'm thankful that I am my own boss, and that I have the ability to maintain my own schedule and basically do whatever I please. It's just really amazing to have that freedom.
I'm thankful that I have a lot of work, too. There are many freelancers I know out there that have to supplement music with some other job. I've got 28 students I teach every week, in addition to my two brass ensembles, composition sales and the Saratoga Orchestra. I'm working a lot, and it's all towards something.
And specifically, I'm really thankful to have such a great studio of students, and to have great students in my brass ensembles. What a great group of kids I have, and parents to match, to make all relations very positive. I'm also thankful for the Whidbey Island Horn Club, which is simply just a hobby, but is something I'm very serious & passionate about, and is turning out to be better than I expected.
I'm thankful to have all this stuff while living in a place I have always known as home. I spend my first 18 years on Whidbey Island, and when I was gone for 10 years in eastern Washington and in Milwaukee, I always missed "home". The feeling of being in this beautiful place where so many tourists visit is quite a special one.
So yeah, as you can tell, I have a lot to be thankful for. There are things I wish I had, such as a full-time playing job or a nice trombone or more time to practice, but I can't get too caught up in that stuff. It seems like human nature to take for granted the positive things in live, as I have fallen victim of, but it's the positive things that life worth living. Lately I have tended set my mind to the "live every day like it's your last" mindset, mainly because of all the random tragedies people can have from simply going to church, going to an elementary school, or going to the movies (all of which I do). So I want to embrace every day how great it is that music is so much a part of my life that I am paid to make it.
What are you thankful for?
Take care and value music.