Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost two months since the last time I posted. A lot has happened since then…most notably is that we are officially homeless. That’s right; Ben and I have no official home. I detached from the Fleet Forces Band and we moved out of our apartment a couple of weeks ago. It was really bittersweet; I won’t really miss Norfolk that much but I’ll miss the people, and the people I worked with. I had recently gotten involved with an awesome clarinet quartet, and we had much too little time together. We did manage to get some videos posted to Facebook as proof that we did something though!
We proceeded to take on a 5 day road trip with my car and a moving van filled with stuff we’re not taking to Hawaii with us. We went north first, to visit some friends up in Rochester (and eat at some of our favorite places!), and then made our way west. It was a long week, considering we were both driving the whole time, and we had three dogs with us! But we made it without incident. Colorado even welcomed us with some severe thunderstorms as we drove across the eastern plains on I-76. We’ve been in Colorado for almost two weeks now, and in 11 days we board that plane to Honolulu! I’m so excited, especially the closer it gets.
Unfortunately, this time has done a number on my practicing. In fact, that number is pretty much zero. I haven’t practiced regularly since the Navy Band audition! My high school happened to be celebrating their 50th anniversary of opening while I’ve been here, and I volunteered to be in the alumni band. I really realized how out of shape I’ve become a couple of days ago at rehearsal, when my chops were fried after only a few minutes! The performance last night was much better, but it became pretty obvious that I should make practicing a priority again.
Well anyway, I’ll try to keep up better with the blog, especially throughout all these crazy changes! And I will post about the Navy Band audition sometime soon, I promise!
Sandy Herrera, Clarinet 