How does he do that?

You may have seen this, but if you haven't...



:)

Music news

A couple of years ago, Morgan entered some music into the LDS Church Music Submission. (Or whatever it is called.) A few months later, we found out he received special recognition. They asked if he wanted to sign over rights to the song (kind of) so they could post it on lds.org. He agreed. We checked the site over and over and never saw it. However, look what we found this week! (He's about ten down.)

So if you are in a ward choir, print off his music and give it a try! And it's free for you! :)

Morgan arranged this for a stake conference choir piece. It was supposed to be one of the prelude numbers, but because of circumstances beyond our control, we didn't get to sing it for prelude. Morgan was a little disappointed, but was rather pragmatic about it. However, some whispering went on (by other people) and it was announced that it would be the piece would be sung by the choir right before the general authority who was visiting spoke.

We sang our little hearts out and it was very beautiful, if I do say so myself. So beautiful that when the general authority stood to speak, he looked back at Morgan and told him how much he enjoyed the piece. That was quite the thrill!

Increase in Learning

I've been reading David Bednar's new book "Increase in Learning." It is excellent. I've been taking it quite slowly, as he encourages, trying to really pick up the patterns of what he is saying. I've been tempted to share lots of quotes from the book, but one I read today hit me particularly for sharing.

President Hinckley said "We must go on growing. We must continuously learn. It is a divinely given mandate that we go on adding to our knowledge."

Fun, isn't it? And there are so many, many things to learn about. I started thinking of all the things I've been learning in the last year and the plans I've made for this year, not to mention the unknown lessons that will be rather thrust upon me. While there are times I get frustrated with how slowly I learn a lot of life's lessons, I do feel excited for the wonderful variety of things to learn about. I just wish I could master it all!

Things I realize I've been learning about this week alone: scriptures, the family, politics, quilting, juicing, exercise, relationships, patience, house hunting, crocheting, mailing things, insurance, Afghanistan refugees, creativity, cooking, time management... (Oh, and Hobbits.) :)

Okay, I think I've only started. Anybody learning anything particularly fun/interesting/insightful these days?

Hats

I learned to make a new hat. Beezie graciously agreed to model.



This is slouch mode. Cuz it's a slouch hat. Get it? Get it?

I modified the pattern to make a different look.



Original pattern found here.

Darcy and... Jane?

In a letter to Sir William Elford (December 20, 1814), Mary Russell Mitford wrote:

...it is impossible not to feel in every line of Pride and Prejudice, in every word of Elizabeth, the entire want of taste which could produce so pert, so worldly a heroine as the beloved of such a man as Darcy. Wickham is equally bad. Oh! they were just fit for each other, and I cannot forgive that delightful Darcy for parting them. Darcy should have married Jane. He is of all the admirable characters the best designed and the best sustained.

I find this hilarious! I've never heard anyone express a similar wish, so it rather startled me. But it very much amused me to rewrite the story quickly in my head with Darcy and Jane getting married after Elizabeth eloped with Wickham.

Then again, maybe not. I think I prefer Austen's storyline. :)

Something funny

After reading Carol Burnett's "This Time Together" a couple of months ago, I decided to look up one of the sketches she mentioned. Tim Conway played a brand-new dentist serving his first patient. Harvey Korman was his patient. Conway decided to improvise.



Even funnier than Conway, to me, is Korman cracking up. I love watching people try to maintain a character and not succeed at all! :)

If Shakespeare had written The Three Little Pigs

A friend passed this on to me and I was so grateful because it combines two of my great loves - great language and retold fairy tales.

[warning: he smokes in part of this]



I've always been curious as to how large my vocabulary is, so if anyone knows where to find a test... I suppose I could count all the words I've written in the past ten years, but that seems a little time consuming. :)

2012 Reading Challenge

For our 2012 Challenge, Austen Knows Best and I decided on a less creative, more straightforward approach. :) It's a 10x10 challenge meaning ten categories of ten books each. The categories are (drum roll, please):

1. 10 Children's books
2. 10 Juvenile Fiction books
3. 10 Young Adult books
4. 10 Nonfiction books
5. 10 Classics
6. 10 Church books
7. 10 Adult Fiction published no earlier than 2000
8. 10 Books from your to-read list on Goodreads (if you are a member) that were added prior to 2012
9. 10 "Choose Your Own Category" books
10. 10 Other

So to explain, for the "choose your own category," it's a category of your choice that isn't up here. :) So you could pick something general like "Science Fiction" or "Mystery" or something specific like "Books on Gardening" or whatever. The "Other" category is for books that don't fit into any of the other categories. Or if you've filled the other categories, I suppose you could dump surplus there. Basically anything could go into "Other."

For my own category, I'm going to read books on writing. :) I think that's kind of funny, but there it is.

Report for December Reading

To wrap up the 2011 Reading Challenge, here's my December report, but first of all, understand that I tend to read less on vacations. So despite the fact that I was excited for the December challenge, I really didn't read all that much past the first week.

Nonfiction:
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life - Glenn Beck and Keith Ablow (****)
The Heroine's Bookshelf - Erin Blakemore (**)
A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me about Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter - William Deresiewicz (*****)
Started several biographies on Walt Disney
Read some critical essays on Jane Austen and her work

Challenge (Jane Austen and Walt Disney):
Jane Austen Ruined My Life - Beth Patillo (***)
Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart - Beth Patillo (****)
Pride and Popularity - Jenni James (****)

Other:
Love Finds You in Pendleton, Oregon - Melody Carlson (***)
Buttercream Bump Off - Jenn McKinlay (**)

As you can see, a lot of my nonfiction reading dealt with the challenge. It was a fun reading month. I still have a stack to go, so it might show up in this year's reading. :)