Favorite Things

It's Wednesday again, and what better way to celebrate than to share a few of my favorite things this week. Silly things, random things, relaxing things, and things that are just generally making me happy.

 The set for my class's ballet performance as decorated by myself and my class. Can you guess what ballet we did? (Answer below)

End of summer sunset!! Just enjoying these last few days with lots of sun and lots of sandals.

The apples are coming (credit to the tree out back).

Classy dinner, don't you think? The chef declined to be in the photograph.

New Irish tune book from South Sligo (purchased at the Coleman Centre in Gurteen, Co. Sligo; can be found here http://www.colemanirishmusic.com/)

Brand new collection of Fred and Ginger (some of my all-time favorites). Can't wait to get watching :)

Happy Wednesday!!

Blogosphere

In the great wide world of the internet, a blog is like a garden. Every person has their own little space and must be creative with the plot of land given to them. We can landscape our piece however we like, maybe a little bit English country, maybe a little bit Asian fusion. Maybe you're thinking that Facebook or Twitter offer the same possibilities. But I am here to tell you that the freedom of expression allowed on Facebook or Twitter is a little lie. Facebook tends toward self-promotion, and Twitter tends toward marketing. Meanwhile, a blog allows the personal freedom of shaping the design, the features, and the topics. One could choose to make his blog as self-promoting as Facebook. But while Facebook is only fun for posting drunken and sloppy pictures of friends, blogs allow a little room to breathe. By reading a person's blog, I feel like I can see and get to know a little bit more about a person because their posting about things they like rather than just themselves. Besides, we never see ourselves properly anyway, so to post about oneself is like painting a picture (rather than taking one). I'd much rather explore a friend's blog than her Facebook profile.

So go ahead. Mark your territory. Landscape your plot. And create a blog. You've got nothing to lose. And maybe you'll find yourself and others along the way.

 The crazy girl marking her territory in the Mexican restaurant is me. The lovely landscape comes from: http://www.landscape-design-advisor.com/design-styles/english-country/english-garden

Sunday Afternoon Pondering

On a lovely, rainy Sunday afternoon, I sit all relaxed and cozy in my bed with a piping hot cuppa joe. I've been busy day-dreaming for nearly an hour now and finally decided that it was time to do something else. So instead of day-dreaming to myself, I came online to day-dream to you! You're welcome!

I usually have a goal every year to read around forty to fifty books. However, this year, I've been extremely lazy. Usually the summertime is when I would read the bulk of my books. This summer, as you know, I was not lazy on the beach with my Agatha Christies but frolicking around Ireland. So I've read about five books this year. Because of my failure in the one resolution, I looked up my other New Year's resolutions from almost nine months ago to see how I've been doing.

My resolutions were as follows:

1) Consistently keep your journal
2) Read fifty books
3) memorize a Lizst
4) Build Irish repertoire
5) Finish (and get credit for) THESIS

Those have been copied verbatim from my handwritten list from January 1, 2012, caps and all. The first is a bit personal (and vague). Which means that I can say I've been working hard at it because there were no original parameters by which to judge my progress. Yippee! Goal number 1: check! The second (as previously noted) has obviously not been completed. I'll get cracking right away and let you know of my progress. The third I think is a bit of stretch. I don't even like Liszt. He's just so classic that I feel like as a pianist I should've done this already in my life. But unfortunately I haven't. So we'll just have to see if that happens before the end of the year... The fourth is definitely the most vague one on this list. By it, I mean that I want to add a million more Irish tunes to those that I already play. I've had a terrible cold for two weeks that I'm only just getting over, so that's been my excuse for not working on it. I'll keep you posted...

The only thing I have completely completed at this point is number five. Glorious number five. I just graduated university in May, by which time I had finished and gotten credit for my thesis. So there we go. Donezo. On to the next one...

Bucket list coming soon...!
Happy Sunday,
SE