Messiah: The Little-Known Story of Handel's Beloved Oratorio by Tim Slover

 Non-Fiction. Fulfills "New Arrival Downstairs" category in the Pioneer Book Challenge

When I was in Provo a few months back I stopped by the Pioneer Bookstore. As part of this book challenge I'm doing, some of the categories need to be purchased at their store. Side note: if you ever have a chance to visit the Pioneer Bookstore in Provo, GO!  It's a used bookstore and has wonderful nooks and crannies to discover and sit and read. I saw this one on the New Arrival table and picked it up. The fact that it included a CD in the back of the Tabernacle Choir singing the Messiah sealed the deal for me and I bought it. 

It's a short book that covers the social environment around the time that Handel composed The Messiah. Even though I know the music well, I had not known about the situation surrounding the singers Handel chose to sing and how the public reacted. It's easy to look back on music history and assume that all these masterpieces were received with many accolades. This was an interesting look into Handel's life and how he navigated the performers he worked with and the public's reaction. 

Recommend: yes

Girls Day Out in KC

 With the "men" gone on a campout this week, Lucy and I got to spend some girl time together. Today we picked up Audrey and baby Ollie and headed to the Nelson Atkins Museum. We spent a few hours there and didn't get to see everything, but loved what we did see. 

I didn't take any photos inside the museum, but my favorite was the famous Degas painting, Rehearsal of the Ballet. The huge sculpture garden that is outside was Lucy's favorite. It was quite hot, so we didn't spend as much time outside as we would have wanted. Little Ollie had a good time tooling around though!

Ollie crawling up to see his Aunt Lucy

These large badminton birdies are my favorite-there are several of them.

Just chillin' in the shade

Can you sleep through a tornado?

 One of the things people think of when the Midwest is mentioned is tornadoes. Even though Missouri is not technically in "tornado alley" there are still numerous tornado warnings throughout the summer. Early Wednesday morning the first of the summer warnings hit the Kansas City area. In Liberty we have a very loud tornado warning alarm that goes off that is about one mile from us and our phones will go off when the National Weather Service sends out a tornado warning that tells you to get to a safe place away from windows and preferably in the basement. Those alarms went off around 2:00am. Everyone in our house slept right through them!  (To be fair, our phones were plugged in the kitchen and not next to our beds.) But the wind and the rain were really loud and intense. Even that didn't wake me up. We lost power sometime in the night and it was off for about 12 hours. When I walked out my front door to go on a walk Wednesday morning this is what met my eyes:

We have 8 large trees in our yard and one of the large branches many feet up sheared right off and landed within a foot of our roof and front windows. We feel very blessed that it did not hit anything. 

All of us spent the morning breaking the branches down and clearing everything away. We had some very kind neighbors who leant us a chain saw and pruners and came and helped so that it was all cleared up and taken away in a few hours. 

It was garbage pick up day and we were able to get everything bagged and on the curb by the time the compost garbage truck came by. None of our neighbor's trees were touched, but there were several trees down across the city with some having fallen on cars and mailboxes. No tornadoes touched ground near us thankfully. 

In the future I believe we will be placing our phones nearer our bedrooms! 

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

 Mystery. Fulfill Best Seller Fiction Display category in the Pioneer Book Challenge

I've always been a mystery fan and especially and Agathe Christie lover. I normally read her mysteries that feature Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple and I love to watch the different adaptions on the large and small screens. This stand alone novel of hers is pretty dark, but I guess since each of her books usually has at least one murder in the story that could be said of all of them. This one seemed more sinister than others I have read. Perhaps it was because the detectives in her other books bring a bit of light into the stories. 

For those who have never read this I won't give any spoilers, but there are multiple murders committed and discussed throughout the book. And the absence of a detective as part of the story is not Christie's usual style. I would still recommend this book to those mystery lovers, but perhaps not to a first time mystery reader. 

Recommend: Perhaps

Wedding Bell Blues by Lynn Cahoon

 Mystery. Happily I noticed that another installment in the Tourist Trap mystery series had come out in February. I immediately downloaded it to my kindle and read it over a few days as I was on a plane with my daughter, Audrey, and her adorable son Ollie. (In between making sure Ollie didn't escape our row and run down the aisle of the plane.) It did not disappoint. I did see that Lynn Cahoon will be releasing her final book, #14, this fall. Sigh. I'll have to find another guilty pleasure!

Recommend: If you're me, YES!