Messiah! (and some weight loss)

I know, I know, I write that every year. It's because I like participating in our community Messiah Sing Along so much! Actually, last night I had two musical performances to enjoy.

C and E's class sang "holiday" songs (3, 4, 5th graders each sang a group of songs). Tonight are the K,1,2's so we'll pick up S's class then.

Right after than was the annual community Messiah sing-along at a church very near ours. Because Conor is here, dh and I were able to send the girls home with him and he and I go to it together. He'd never been to one. Of course, with his being in the Tenor section and my being in the Alto we couldn't see each other, let alone actually sit together. :-) I ran into the several LDS ladies that I always see there. The whole thing is fun, although a little stressful when we're coming up to the songs I know I used to always blow even after months of practice in Gallup's choir. Haha, I guess that is part the the fun too, laughing with the other ladies when we all blow it!

I've hit a milestone in my weight loss; now I weigh what I did when Kevin was born. LOL It's actually been a number of years since I've been down to that and I'm at exactly the halfway point, 22.5/45 lbs lost. In fact, last Saturday the first person who didn't know I've been dieting noticed my weight loss! It's taken just under 4 months, so I assume it will take me another 4 to get to my goal. I've had a change in mindset about losing weight. Eight months seemed much too long to wait before, but now it seems like a change in my habits instead of a hurry-up-and-get-there kind of thing. And since I started in August, I should reach my goal before bikini season. Haha, JK!

Annual report--Hallelujiah!

Don't I have an entry like this every year? Tonight my mom, a friend, and I went to a local church for the 34th annual Messiah Sing-In. There was a small orchestra (about 25 I'd say), four wonderful soloists and . . . no choir. The audience was the choir, of course! We sat in large sections and the spirited conductor led us in the choir numbers. We sang eight of them and I sang two of them well. LOL Those would be the two I'm working on for two different choirs I'm singing with right now.

I can't wait for next year!

Scary choir rehearsal

Scary because we are doing a boatload of pieces from the Messiah and . . . we've kind of forgotten a couple of them, including the final number. We started off with the final one our very first week back in the middle of January and have practiced it again here and there, but not in the past few weeks. It wasn't horrible, but there were a couple of places where the whole choir kind of stumbled along. I can see the director hitting that one hard next Tuesday at our last rehearsal. She was stressed.

The other one is No. 26 "All we like sheep have gone astray." Lots of difficult sixteenth notes in that one. Again, one we started off with but haven't done for a few weeks. I'll be practicing with an online Messiah tutoring site this week.

A funny about "All we like sheep": the director pointed out we were singing it as though it meant, "We all like sheep" as in mutton. This area is heavily Navajo and many Navajos, especially the older ones eat a LOT of sheep. I'll remember that the rest of my life every time I sing that song. :-)

The "A" Family Bakery

Last night I had my Messiah choir practice so dh stayed home with the girls and made chocolate chip cookies. They are slightly caramalized and have crunchy edges. Absolutely delicious. Not that I'm eating near the number I'd like, of course--gotta keep to my diet. :-)

Today I made bread for general use--sandwiches, snacks, toast for breakfast, etc. This batch made two large loaves and they are 30% white, 60% whole wheat, and a 10% mix of oats, ground flaxseed, and sunflower seeds. I don't know if I've ever made better. As I was getting ready to close up the cookbook my eyes fell on a recipe for rye bread. Quite some time ago my mom brought me enough rye flour to make a loaf of bread but I never did anything with it. Miracle of miracles, the flour was right where I thought it was and it was just enough for the recipe. The dark brown color comes from molasses, coffee powder (we don't drink coffee so I used some coffee substitute powder), and cocoa powder. It called for optional caraway seeds and I knew I didn't have any, but I thought I had some dill seed which is similar. I'm sure I had some at one time, but I must have used it up, so I made the bread without any seeds. It is good but doesn't have the characteristic flavor I think of when I think of rye.

We are set for bread and cookies for a few days. I love it when we have the energy to bake like this. It's only been about 2 months since the last time I baked bread but it seems like a long time. After having the first bite of the crunchy heel of fresh bread dripping with honey, I have no idea why I waited so long.

Messiah!

Every Christmas for the past four years I have sung in a community choir. The first two years we sang the Christmas parts of the Messiah, which I love. The next year was John Rutter's Magnificat and last year was a selection of Christmas music from the 1400s to the present day. The Magnificat was really hard because it was almost all in Latin with which I am unfamiliar. I really liked last year's selections although one was in French and was a doozy to learn as, well, I don't speak French either. It turned out to be my favorite piece though.

Each year the wonderful director has mentioned doing a concert for Easter but it has never actually happened. Until this year! Since we haven't done any Messiah for two years and the Easter part hasn't been done in our town for seven years, that's what she decided to do. I hadn't sung all the choruses in that section previously, but all are very, very familiar to me as I've listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing it dozens of times on their 1958 album.

Thursday night rehearsals are my favorite look-forward-to event of the week and I'm glad it's Thursday late afternoon now.