Thoughts and Happenings

It snowed this week! Last Sunday the maple out front was absolutely gorgeous, with bright gold leaves everywhere; today it's almost bare. But there's beauty in that too. I love the way the seasons change. Speaking of that maple, I asked Sarah to snap some pics of me under it before our concert on Sunday. I'm happy with how they turned out (thanks Sarah!); now I just need to take the time to actually change my year-old profile picture. :)

The pics were taken just before heading out to our CYS concert up in the mountains. It was a delightful time; chatting with friends and reading aloud from Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (the book that I've been reading to Michael as we drive hither and yon) in the car, being in the mountains on a beautiful day, a Starbucks run between our warm-up rehearsal and the concert--we needed to keep our energy level up, people!, a wonderful concert with a large and enthusiastic audience. It's amazing how much difference that last thing makes. So much more fun to play when there's energy in the audience to build off of. Anyway, it was a great closer to our "Dance With Me" set and soon here we'll be starting work on our December program. A Schubert violin piece, Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, and most of Part I of Messiah are on the docket; I am looking forward to it.

I cooked up a couple more pumpkins today, getting about 12 cups of pumpkin and some seeds that I didn't burn. Michael and I are the only ones home now, and I doubt that there will be any seeds left for anyone else. :) Today's pumpkins were pie pumpkins, and they handle differently--you can't just scoop out the insides. I ended up cutting them into chunks and peeling each one. Just a random note for you cooks out there. :)

Michael and I performed the last movement of the Chopin cello sonata at his recital today. It went quite well, even if the Piu Mosso al Fine was a little...fast. It's an incredibly exciting (and quite taxing) piece--a lot of fun to play. You should listen to it sometime (Truls Mork and Yo-Yo Ma both have good recordings). Now Michael's talking about the Rachmaninov sonata. I told him he had to give me 6 months' lead time before performance on that one. I'm listening to it now and wondering if I should make that a year. :) Ah well--most things really worth playing take a lot of work, and it's worth it.

Last night I buckled down and got to work on my colonial cloak. I'm working from a pattern sketch in Costume Close-Up by Linda Baumgarten and the idea of drafting the lines and cutting out the fabric just working from a little sketch was intimidating. It wasn't so bad, though; I just copied the pattern and drew grid lines on the copy, got approximate measurements, and worked from that. Cutting out was easier than I'd expected. I haven't put it together yet, but I went out and bought thread tonight and I'm trying to decide on what I want do to with the brown silk I have--line the hood? trim the front and hood? I'm not sure I have enough for both.

On a different note: I'm grateful for the fact that God doesn't move or change, regardless of me, other people, or any other possible circumstances. I'm grateful that He is a safe place to rest and that His love is forever. (Reminds me of a Rutherford quote that I should post...)

Sooo...that's my life just now, or a little piece of it, anyway. I'm hoping to get some quotes and book reviews up here soon; I have been reading a lot. Just now, I'm going to do a quick version of my Saturday chores and then I'm hoping to sit in front of the fire with a mug of Tazo's Passion tea steeped in apple juice (delicious!) and read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while the house is still quiet. :)

Have a lovely Sunday!

Rachel

...and I almost just posted this to the wrong blog. (!) :D