Current Enjoyments--4/15/13

God has made many opportunities for joy recently. Here are the 15 "little things" that I have currently been enjoying (in no specific order :D ). 

1) Jamaican coffee

This is absolutely delicious, but super expensive. Some friends have given us some Jamaican coffee beans, and we already have a nice coffee grinder and French press at home, so that all equals to a happy 15 minutes of coffee drinking. :) Disclaimers: Jamaican coffee is quite expensive and since the beans are so unique, some coffee grinders (namely, the Robinson Family household coffee grinder) do not like it. But believe me, you will.

2) Tea! Especially these...

I recently went to a friend's house, and since she loves tea so much and I like it too, we had a mini tea party. I hadn't had tea in a while, but all that changed. I've been drinking tea more recently, and when summer comes around, I'll probably go on an iced tea spree with this:

3) My ESV Study Bible

This is awesome. If you're an ESV fan and love to go in depth of theology and history with Bible study, this is the Bible for you. My parents bought this on Amazon for me as an Easter present. I've already been studying the book of Isaiah with this book. It has a reading plan, concordance, index, articles by experts, maps, introductions to each book or section (e.g. The Prophets, The Gospels, etc.), tips for study, footnotes, table of contents, an online study option... It has pretty much everything!

4) The fact that I get to read some of my favorite books of the Bible in my Omnibus Primary class
I'm super excited for this! We're already reading the gospel of Mark AND we're going to get started on Philippians and Colossians this week. Plus, you can read it from any version you want, and that gives me yet another opportunity to read from my handy dandy study bible. Super. Fantastically. Awesome.

5) The fact that my last bowling score looked like an SOS in Morse Code
Ok, I'm not as excited about this one as I am enjoying it. I've been looking at this picture on my phone in the last couple of days whenever I needed a laugh or needed a reminder that God made me a hilarious joke. I mean this is very humbling:

Mine's the second row that starts with an H.  Don't all of those dashes remind you of morse code? In case you're wondering, my final score was a whopping 42. I think I had a better score when I bowled for the very first time at age 10. Six years later I bowled like I have the lane and the gutter confused. My mom decided to reteach me how to swing the ball and my dad reminded me of why the last box on the score sheet is bigger than the other ones. I don't know how it happened, but somehow I must have looked like I dumbed down after 15 minutes of constant gutter balls, which makes sense. I mean if I saw somebody look like they were chucking the bowling ball into the gutter lane, I'd probably remind them that the actual bowling lane is in the middle too. At least I can laugh about it now.

6) RMCA Music Festival and Bake Sale this Friday
This is one of my favorite events of the school year, and this year is going to be the best for the following reasons:
First of all, I get to be in it again for the first time since I was in middle school;
Second, my friends from  other schools are going to be there;
Third, I don't have classes that day, so in theory, I can go to as many of the performances as I want (notice that I said "in theory." I might have some unexpected homework, I might not be allowed to go in during judged performances, etc.);
Fourth, in theory I can spend time on breaks with said friends from other schools (another "in theory");
Fifth, I get the opportunity to bake for the bake sale;
Sixth, I'm going to be totally ready to play any song my director throws at me;
Seventh, I might get the chance to play some solos;
Eighth...I don't have an eighth, but I'm sure I'll come up with one within the next few days. :D
That's a lot of reasons why it's going to be one of the best days ever. This would be dumb, but I almost want to dare myself to come up with one reason that anything could go wrong on Friday. It would be dumb because the devil can and will take up that dare, it would be stupid to let him, and why let myself be a part of the pessimistic? I mean this entire post is about finding the optimistic in life right now. So, with that said, this Friday=one of the best days ever. Moving on...

7) In Longmont Youth Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, we're playing Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 (aka, Reformation Symphony) and John Williams movie adventures!
Mendelssohn's 5th will be the very first symphony that the LYS orchestra has ever played. (Super cool that I get to be a part of that.) Not many people are familiar with Mendelssohn or the Reformation, but apparently, Mendelssohn's 5th is a people pleaser to those who regularly attend classical music concerts and appreciators of music history. If you're a music hobbyist or just love learning about this sort of thing, I suggest listening to Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 and/or look up Mendelssohn's history and the history of the Reformation. If you ask me, it would be time well spent. I've only heard Mendelssohn's symphony once, rehearsed it once, and played through it about twice, and it's already one of my favorite pieces that I have ever played in my entire life. It's absolutely beautiful. Disclaimer: the entire symphony is about half an hour long, but in order to get the gist of it, I suggest listening to the fourth movement. It's my favorite movement because it's the finale of the symphony, and it's based on the hymn by Martin Luther "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." Mendelssohn made it absolutely stunning.
As for the John Williams piece, anybody who loves movies would enjoy this one. We're playing the themes from E.T., Star Wars, and Jurassic Park. It will be fun to perform for sure.

8) This shampoo

I don't know what it is about me and shampoo scents, but this shampoo changed my hair life. I know what you're thinking. "Gee, Hayley, it's just a shampoo." "Wow, somebody needs a life." "Tea Tree? That's weird." Think what you will, but Tea Tree is one of the best scents ever because it has a refreshing scent that wakes you up and relaxes you. The shampoo is also made to keep your scalp and hair clean and healthy. It's awesome. Disclaimer: It's pretty expensive for an 18 oz bottle of shampoo, but it's great to use every now and then. 

9) This water bottle

I got this for Christmas and it's one of my favorite presents. It has a filter in it so you can fill it with cold tap water and still get a fresh perfect H2O taste. :D I drink water a lot more now because of this.

10) Applesauce with Cereal
Call me crazy but I tried it out over Spring Break, and now I eat it almost every morning. It's delicious. What I like to do is put unsweetened applesauce in the bowl, put whatever fruit I want on top of it, put my gluten-free rice square cereal on top of that, top it with cinnamon and agave nectar, (secret: sometimes I put chocolate chips on top) and voila! The best breakfast cereal bowl in the entire world is created.

11) Opportunities to Teach!
I've had so many opportunities to teach this month! I've taught in my church preschool class, I had a fun  assignment in my English Composition class to teach a lesson from "The Elements of Style" on participial phrases, and I get to teach my youth group on the 25th!

12) Colored Pencils as Bible highlighters
Who knew that a colored pencil could double as a highlighter? I'm just using this for now until I can get a nice actual Bible highlighter on Amazon or get some Twistable crayons, depending on what the internet says is better. :P (Not to say that the internet is right about everything, but you know what I mean...)

13) Carl Maria von Weber's Concertino for Clarinet (not Carla)
Another reason that I can be a walking, breathing hilarious joke: I called the composer of Concertino for Clarinet in E-flat major Carla Maria von Weber instead of Carl Maria von Weber! When I made that discovery I completely freaked out on the inside, which was followed by the ever popular *facepalm.* I pretty much changed Carla to Carl everywhere that I had written it down to make it look like it never happened, but now that I look back on it, it's pretty funny. I'm still working on the concertino and my private lessons teacher has been giving me tips on how to do better, and I am much better on it than when I first performed it in front of my youth group at the end of February. So for now I'm feeling pretty good about it. It's also an awesome motivator to practice as much as possible, which is good news in terms of my resolutions for April.

14) The fact that there are only 6 weeks until school's out!
This one speaks for itself, especially to my fellow school attenders out there. :)

15) My awesome readers
Here's the thing: on Friday, I made a post about my poll and pretty much took a break for the weekend, but when I came back to check my blog status on Sunday, my all time view number went from about 340 to 415! I am so excited to know that people are reading my blog, and hopefully enjoying it. I'd like to say thank you to all of my readers out there for your comments, your views, and encouragement to keep writing and posting. It really means a lot! I love to see comments, encouragement, and even constructive criticism. This is only the beginning for this blog, and I can't wait to see what else God plans to do with it. I hope that so far all of you readers have been enjoying all that this young blog has.

(News: I wrote a message on the right of the blog posts explaining the details of the poll under the title and the favorite books link-up. Have fun voting and linking-up!)

Question for the Reader: What have you been enjoying lately?

"Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure." --Psalm 16:9