Skip to main content

Blogging Buffet: V is for Violin and Vision

The theme of my A to Z Challenge posts this year is "Blogging Buffet." In celebration of recently posting my 1000th blog post, I am revisiting posts from the past.  This post originally published on August 17, 2011.  



Last night, my mom and I watched a violin concert by Jenny Oaks Baker. (www.jennyoaksbaker.com) Wow!  She performed in the puffy princess dress--minus the gloves, of course.  Beautiful arrangements of Disney songs comprised the entire concert.  Her three young daughters even played one piece, an arrangement of "It's a Small World" for piano, violin, and cello. 

 The evening truly was magical.  Though the concert hall held hundreds of audience members, the setting felt intimate.  Jenny's personality came through with some off-hand remarks.  After the concert, as she was signing CDs, she asked if her remarks had spoiled the princess magic.  I assured her that they had not. 

 Personally, I love being reminded that those we admire or look up to are real people.  I don't mean in the gossip tabloid sort of way, but rather in the hopes, dreams, and humor sort of way.  Jenny was relieved after her girls performed well.  She asked for our prayers before performing a particularly demanding piece.  By allowing us a glimpse into her personality, she reminded me that not only is she an incredibly talented musician, she is a real person.

 Not only that, I am a real person, too.  One of the overriding themes I am getting from Education Week is that we are all children of our Heavenly Father, we shouldn't be afraid to just be ourselves, we all make mistakes (so don't be judgmental!), and the Atonement is in place for each one of us.  Somehow, the concert last night reminded me further of those truths. 




photo signature3_zps16be6bca.jpg


Pin It

Comments

  1. shortybearApril 26, 2016 at 3:09 AM

    wonderful post

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marisa BApril 26, 2016 at 11:56 AM

    good advise - a couple of years ago a friend and I went to go see Tricia Yearwood - what a great person she is - she was so easy going and funny - it felt good to see that too,

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownApril 30, 2016 at 6:21 PM

    I really struggle with judgmental people. I know I shouldn't let them get to me but they really do. I need to be more tolerant.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Conversations are so much nicer when more than one person does the talking. :-) Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts; I'd love to hear from you!

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Things of Thankful: Live from Oregon, part 2

stock photo of old computer monitor When I was 10 or 11, I remember sitting next to my dad in our living room and reading computer code to him as he entered it into an Apple computer. We would finish the exercise and he would hit enter (or was it "run"?) and wait expectantly for the green type to appear on the screen. If we were lucky, the whole conversation would occur. Most often, there would be an error either in my dictation of the code, or in the typing of the code. We would then go painstakingly back through the lines, character by character, to find and correct the error. After what seemed like hours (and might have been), we would succeed and the computer would finally run the entire program. It was magical! My dad designed and built an earth-sheltered, passive solar home decades before solar panels were commonplace. He also was on a 9-month waiting list for a Prius, when hybrids were not seen on every street.  While my dad is definitely on the cutting edge of technol...
5 comments
Read more

Monday Mentions: Equate Crutches

Have you ever needed crutches? I hadn't, until a week ago.  I'm pretty sure I strained a muscle while running a half-marathon.  (That sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? I'm not actually that cool; the last time I strained a muscle it was from carrying too many shopping bags at once.) In any case, I found myself in need of some crutches. I sent my husband to the store to get some. Photo: A pair of crutches leans against a wall  Not that crutches are all that complex, but because I hadn't used any before, I wondered if I could figure out how to adjust them to fit me properly. I shouldn't have worried. John came home from Walmart with their generic store brand of crutches, complete with instructions. First, I needed to take out a long bolt that went through the hand grip. Then I needed to find my height range, push down two metal pieces, and slide the crutches until the little metal pieces came up in the hole near my height range. (Having two people for this...
4 comments
Read more

What a Wonderful World! (An #AtoZChallenge Post): Z is for Zion National Park

  Visitor Center sign in Zion National Park My husband recently re-retired, and we are front-loading travel. My #AtoZChallenge posts this year will explore our adventures--some pre-retirement, some post. Today's location: Zion National Park in Utah.  Zion is a bit of a shibboleth. People from outside of Utah (or those who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) tend to pronounce Zion as "ZIE-on." Locals (or tourists who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) use more of a schwa sound, pronouncing Zion to rhyme with lion. However you choose to pronounce it, it is an amazing, beautiful national park and has some amazing hikes. The last time my husband and I visited Zion National Park, we entered from the east, and traveled through the mile-long Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel. It is an engineering marvel, completed in the 1920s. Before we passed through the tunnel, though, we spotted a group of bighorn sheep, including some babies...
8 comments
Read more