Nothing much

So really I should be doing other things right now, but I wanted to share something that's exciting to me, although it might make me look a little slow. Here I am someone who types for hours and hours every week and the only shortcuts I knew were cut, copy, and paste. Last week I learned how to skip back and forth a word at a time and also delete and highlight a word at a time. Which I have been practicing. Today, I learned how to make my own shortcuts! Which means that now I have a shortcut to highlight words (very much used by me) and also, I have a shortcut to the AutoCorrect function! Hooray! SO MUCH FASTER. Where has this been all my life? Oh, yeah. Exactly where it is now. I just never bothered to learn.

And to reward you for actually coming to read a post called "Nothing much" and then making it through that short bit of nothingness, I'll post something fun and interesting. We were researching classical music that has been "jazzified" and found this Christmas-y piece.



I really hope you took the time to listen to at least part of that. Isn't it great?!

Sunday

I have been having a little bit of a hard time getting into the Christmas Season this year. The year just passed by too quickly and I can't believe it's already December, much less halfway through! Anyway, my dad had a brilliant idea that we executed on Sunday and I've been much more in the Christmas Spirit since. It involved this:



And this:



Not to mention lots of other similar songs. (Anyone guessing a theme here?) :) Anyway, a group of about 25 people and Handel's Messiah. It was a joyous occasion.

(As a side note, I'd never heard of this soprano before. Should I be ashamed? I think she has a beautiful soprano voice!)

Christmas time

I still want you to go on and comment on my previous post. I really would appreciate recommendations. But in the spirit of Christmas, I wanted to post this beautiful Irish Christmas hymn. It's one of Morgan's favorite songs. We love this arrangement.

Personality

Personality tests have always fascinated me. I was just heard of a new one and learned a little bit more about one I've heard of, but don't really know anything about. Does anyone have a favorite personality theory/test/book/style/whatever I should put here? Please recommend!

Celebrating Christ in a Food Court—Don’t Miss This One!

Many of you know how dear Handel's Messiah is to me. What a joy for me to stumble upon this today. Really. Take the five minutes to watch this. It is worth it.

Celebrating Christ in a Food Court—Don’t Miss This One!

It would have been amazing to been in the Food Court this day, but I'm so glad it was well-taped.

I think what really gets me about this recording is the diversity represented in the people singing (Jesus is the Savior for all of us), but more importantly, everybody who is singing is also smiling. I don't know that it is possible to sing this shout of praise without grinning. I've never been able to manage it except when struggling to keep tears of joy and humility from running down my cheeks. Our God is good.

On the road again

I had dinner with a delightful group on Saturday. I was introduced to this duo:



(They do a lot of comedy a la Victor Borge, too. Thought I'd pass them along.)

During dinner (where an iPad is a necessity) we watched this video [Kira, I don't think you'll like the end of this.]:



We also listened to a lot of music like this:



And we ate a delicious, very British dinner. Except the cheese course, where we had, of course, Wensleydale cheese, and a delicious French desert. (Served with my favorite British clotted cream.) Fantastic blend. :) A most beautiful evening.

Bath

May I recommend that you pop over to Mona's this weekend. She posted some pictures that she took while we were in Bath. She has some fun quotes and links, too. Bath is delightful!

Hyde Park!!

The Rose Garden in Hyde Park. Can you imagine the riot of color in the summer?

One of the beautiful flowers.

Walking through Hyde Park. Lots of walkers, runners, and cyclists.

All sorts of gorgeous trees.

"The Dell." One of my favorite parts of the park.

Isn't it beautiful?

This is the best picture of this tree I could get. I wish it turned out better. The stark contrast of colors was so amazing.

Another beautiful, overexposed tree.

The Serpentine.

See the horses coming down Rotten Row?

Kensington Gardens.

The Albert Memorial is through the trees.

There it is. (Isn't that blue sky wonderful?)

There is Prince Albert.

Top of the memorial.

Middle. (Make sure and click on these, so you can see them bigger.)

A whole bunch of movers and shakers.

Another day in the neighborhood

Went to Leicester Square to buy tickets. This is for you, Seth:

Went on a walking tour based around this group:

On the walk, we saw this beautiful piece of art outside of a children's hospital. Any guesses as to who it is?

Obligatory cloud picture. :)

Where we ate dinner. Sorry for the bad picture. My camera isn't much into night pictures. (It's called Garfunkel's by the way.)

The amazing, wonderful, deep, funny play we saw last night. It was fantastic!

Monday, Monday

Don't have much time to write, but wanted to give you a glimpse of my Monday. We went to Hampton Court and got to the gardens right at sunset! Well, you can imagine my delight. And the fact that I took way more pictures of clouds than I did of the palace. Hm....

Hampton Court from the front.

View of the sunset.

Another view. (By the way, sillouhettes against a sunset sky are one of my favorite things on this earth. [sigh])

In honor of...

In honor of another part of our Saturday, I have two recordings for you. The first was actually recorded in Carnegie Hall, but is the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields or whatever it would technically be called. (I chose this recording because I love this piece.)



This second is actually recorded where I have stood. Fun for me! [Note: this is only the first part of the piece. It will have a link to the rest, but just thought I should warn.] This piece is also very beautiful.



Here are a few of my pictures. The first is of the church there kind of in the background. I'm sorry to say I didn't get a better picture.

Here's the inside. Isn't it gorgeous? The ceiling is so beautiful.

Here is the organ.

Here is the crypt underneath. Some of you have probably heard that there is a cafeteria in the crypt that you can eat at. So we did. As we sat at a table, there were inscriptions under our feet on the floor with people's names and dates, etc...

Check out these clouds

The clouds looked gorgeous today.

Do you agree?

Oh, look! There's beautiful clouds AND Big Ben.

Beautiful clouds AND Parliament.

It was such a wonderful day! LOOK at these clouds!!

I love these clouds AND where I am.

What a day, what a day!

And on top of it all, a book market. A BOOK market. Does a day get better than this? Not much anyway.

On a different note, a highlight of my trip was yesterday when we went here:

I hadn't planned on visiting there, but it worked out that way. And I was so glad we did. In our wanderings through the store, we came to the musical instrument part. Lots of grand pianos. Of course I was drooling. There were signs that said not to touch, but ask for assistance. The man working there had been singing, but while he was taking a break, I asked if I could play a piano. He said I could unless I was going to play Fuer Elise. That made me smile. I promised to play something else. At one point, I started a pretty fun piece and quit when I got to where I no longer had it memorized. When I stopped, I found him looking at me. He said he was waiting for the big part. He sat down at the piano next to me and we both played the "big, bangy part." Then I started another piece he also knew and we played the bangy part of that one, too. We gathered quite a crowd. What a high! He absolutely made my day. I'm so glad we met!

I'm here

The colors are gorgeous here.

Beautiful walking areas.

This is what I saw today. Pardon the non-perfect picture. I was just about to cross a street.

We walked around here. A very long walk. Wonderful memorials. Unlike anything I've ever seen. (A non-traveler here.) I loved seeing the William Wilberforce memorial.

Something from the outside. This picture turned out better than I thought it would.