Getting to know me for the Crappy Day present Exchange

I will update with what I've been up to recently soon, but for now I'm doing a 'get-to-know-you' post, because I'm participating in the Crappy Day Present Exchange! So here's some information about me:

• I'm vegetarian. I love all food, literally - there is not a single type of food that I don't like. But I'm vegetarian, so I don't eat meat. I do eat fish, though. And I prefer chocolate to sweets.
• I love elephants. I don't know why, I just think they're really cool!
• I have a cat - or at least my mum does. I adore my cat. She's very cuddly, and very warm. And very furry. She moults all the time!
• I love bright colours - cheerful colours. I#m particularly fond of purple and teal, although I love orange too.
• I like watching rom-coms, or Disney movies!
• I spend my free time knitting, sewing, baking, writing letters and reading. I especially like sewing and baking. For my birthday, I asked my parents to get me baking equipment, as there were none provided in the student house I'm living in. They did brilliantly and got me most of the things I would want/need. I don't have measuring spoons, measuring cups or a rolling pin.
• I'm currently a student at Nanny College. I spend one week in college, studying; and the next week working in a placement with children. At the moment I'm working with children aged between 2 and 4. I also do babysitting in the evenings and at weekends. One of my normal jobs is with twins aged about 14 months. I love working with children; they make me unbelievably happy. When I'm in college, I have some lectures and some practical lessons - cooking, sewing, practical skills and personal development.
• I'm Christian. I love going to church on Sundays - the church I go to is really fun, and I find the services really interesting. I also go to a student night on Wednesdays at church, where we have a meal and fun chats!
• I'm a very tidy person. I hate mess! My stuff is all organised into boxes, box files etc.
• I don't drink much alcohol. I like to go out and dance, but I'm just as happy at home with a brew and friends to laugh with.
• I love to laugh!
• I don't generally bother to straighten my hair, wear makeup or do things like that. I like to for a night out, but I'm too lazy to do it normally. I prioritise other things instead.
• I'm very serious about dental hygiene - three of my top front teeth are false, and after all the surgery I've had for them, I don't want to risk compromising them by not brushing properly and regularly!
• I have no seasonal preference - I love how warm summer is, but I love cuddling up under a duvet in winter!
• I prefer showers to baths usually, although I like a bath as a way to relax on occasion.
• I have my driver's licence, but no car. I catch the bus everywhere at the moment, but I love going for walks.
• I love musicals. Last summer I saw Les Mis on stage with the wife. The year before we saw Wicked. Both were amazing - as was the film of Les Mis!
• Beth isn't actually my first name. My first name is Margaret. But I go by my middle name, Elizabeth shortened to Beth.
• My favourite ice cream flavour is Ben and Jerry's half-baked.
• I like colouring in. It's really fun, even as an adult! Adults don't get enough time to do pointless things like colouring in, and it's a shame!
• I can't play any musical instruments, but I wish I could play piano and guitar.

So hopefully there are things here that you didn't know about me before that you know now!

Love love xx

Random retrospective thought, Truffles and Gingerbread Houses, Fabric and Themes, New Year Goals

So I was transferring some pictures into a folder on my computer, and I happened to flick through the old ones in there and I came across this particular image:

It feels crazy now to think that this was a part of my life for an entire year - and to think that I've been without it for 9 months. Looking at it now, it seems almost sort of grotesque. Yet at the time it was a part of me, much in the same way that my glasses or contact lenses are. I need them and so they feel like a part of my body, yet I can remove them. I think back over that year and I don't know how I did it. And I know that I did it because there was no choice, there was no option about it. You deal with what you have to in life. But, now that I don't have to deal with that, I don't know how I managed to do it. it feels... foreign, somehow.

Anyway, randomness aside, I thought I'd show you some pictures of the gingerbread house I made, and the truffles I made just before Christmas!





 These are the truffles - aren't they beautiful! I think so, anyway. I love how smooth the white chocolate turned out on the outside, albeit for the little lump on top of each of them. That's where they were speared on a cocktail stick for dipping.








 And dark on the inside! I love the contrast of the outside shell against the dark inside. The filling was rich with almond liqueur and dark chocolate, so the white chocolate coating balanced it really nicely. I gave some of these as Christmas gifts, and the rest were gobbled up by family!




 And the gingerbread house:

Not bad for a first attempt, huh?! I've never made one before, so it was all new to me. I used this recipe - I've got to be honest, it didn't really work so well for me personally. But it did work in the end, it's just I got a soft gingerbread rather than the biscuity, crunchy affair I'd been expecting! And it turned out alright, I think. It was really fun thinking of quirky twists to make to the house, like:








The cat-flap - can you see it? That way a gingerbread cat can come and go as he may please! Also a shed on the back, which was decorated in the same way as the front door and shutters:








I used a pastry brush to brush the melted chocolate on. It gives it a bit of a texture which I think looks quite like wood.













The last thing I did was to make these Christmas trees for the garden. This is done by cutting out 2 trees from the dough; then, once they're cooked you cut one of them in half whilst it's still hot. Once they're all cool, you glue the 2 halves to the other tree at right angles so it has four branchy bits. I used caramel as the glue for both the trees and the house. Then I sifted icing sugar over everything to make it look like snow.



I went shopping today with my mum. We went fabric shopping for Nanny College first. Our next sewing project is a play mat which is both double-sided, and doubles up as a bag for carrying the treasure baskets we make. Since I'm theming all my work under the theme 'Once Upon a Fairytale', I chose fabrics which look like The Little Mermaid:

See, they're all shades of turquoise. The one on the far left is mottled to look like the sea, and that will back-to-back with the one with spirals on. The other I got a scrap of, as I figured it would come in useful somewhere in this project.










I also bought this fish appliqué, as I felt that some appliqué and extra bits like that would look really good on this. Technically, students don't normally do things like this on the project. But the projects that we do are designed to ensure that all students learn basic sewing skills. Since I've been sewing all my life, the majority of what we do and learn is just reinforcement for me. I like to be stretched; I don't like things to be too easy. So I've been doing a few little extra bits like this here and there to maintain my interest and focus. I think that brushing up on my appliqué skills will do this - it is something I've done before, in a couple of different ways, but I know there's room for improvement, and the practise will help.

I bought one other fabric whilst i was out with mum. I didn't need it really, but when I saw it, I knew I just couldn't leave it behind:

 See what I mean?! It's so bright and cheerful, and the bobbins and needles are just so darn cute! I don't have a use for it right now, but I'm sure I will find one at some point. For now it will join the stash.

I also went clothes shopping with mum, and I bought some boots and a winter coat. and then I came home and made broccoli soup for supper. Yum!

This leads into my wacky New Year Goal for January: go unprocessed. By this, I mean that I plan to eat foods which contain natural ingredients only, and have not been processed so much that they are unrecognisable compared to what they started out as. I know, this sounds a little confusing. But basically it means that I'm going to aim to eat foods in their original, natural state. And for anything that isn't, like cheese, or butter, or pasta, I want to be able to read the ingredients list and recognise and understand what every ingredient is on there. And I want there to be no more than about 5 ingredients on the list, too. If there are too many then I will consider it processed. Obviously, I'm on the second day of this. I've not got into it quite yet, but that's because I'm still at my parents' house. I can't expect them to be okay with all my weird things that I like to try out and experiment with. So instead, I'm trying to use these few days to wind myself down to this goal; starting by reducing the amount of processed foods I eat and increasing the amount of natural foods I eat. So I'm not worrying about it too much until Saturday, and that's when I will get serious about it. We'll see how it goes!

Other than January, I've written down an initial plan for my wacky goals for most of the months - a couple are still empty. None of them are set in stone. A lot of them are things I've always wanted to try, like learning the piano or fasting or running. Some of them are challenges for me, which I think I will enjoy tackling, like no Internet for a month, or taking a photo everyday for a month. I expect the order I do them in will change, and some of them will be changed for new ones as I come up with things that I want to do more. The idea is to strive for things that I would otherwise think of doing but never actually do. That's why they're wacky!

With regards to my other goals, I have the new book I'm going to read for January already. It's my Christmas Present from the wife: The Shack Revisited. She was the one who originally lent The Shack to me, and I loved it. It gives understanding to some of the harder questions surrounding faith, and I've found ever since that if I'm struggling in life, I can often relate my problems to some part of The Shack, and see where my understanding is missing. This in itself can allow me to see how to solve my problems. Plus, I find it's always a great book for reminding me of what an amazing God I love. So the follow-up story was a brilliant gift to receive from the wife, and I'm really looking forward to reading it! I started it straightaway, but then I stopped myself, as I remembered that I have a 5-hour coach journey back to Bath on Saturday, which will be ideal for reading.

I will also be doing my January craft project tomorrow - I will be making as many of the QATWII squares as I can, whilst I have access to my mum's sewing machine. I've been really neglectful of the group since I went to Nanny College. But my aim is to get back into it! It's being able to access a sewing machine that is the challenge. so now is a great time to do as many as possible. This is also my second post on here for January, so hitting that goal pretty easily. that one's mainly about the stamina to maintain it all year, so we'll see. My letter writing and responding will have to wait until I'm back in Bath, but I'm confident about it. I really like my miscellaneous category - it's full of those things that I always want to do but never get round to. So hopefully they will happen at some point throughout the year.

I'm going to go to bed now! Tomorrow I want to be up early to tidy and sort my room; pack a few bits and pieces; and do lots and lots of sewing!

Love love xx

Long Post, Letter Writing Paper and a Seal, the Wife's Birthday Gifts, QATWII Latest Block, A Baby Blanket and a Broken Knitting Needle

I did promise an update, didn't I? (Be warned: this is a loong post!)

So, I've spent some time this week writing letters to various people - the wife, EH, and the wife's friend by weird circumstances. I really love writing letters, I have some gorgeous writing paper! Want to see? Of course you do!

There's this one - not my favourite, but nothing wrong with it, and it was good quality and a good price. It is quite pretty, just nothing majorly special. It was from paperchase, like a lot of my letter writing paper!

Then there are these 3, also all from paperchase. The far left has birds on it, the middle buses and the far right butterflies. I really like these. The butterflies are my most recent purchase of letter writing paper, and I love them. But I'm particularly fond of the buses, because they're so quirky and fun! Want to see the backs of them, too?

Fun, right? Of course, I say the back, but other than the butterflies, this is the writing sides of them! You can't see it, but the bird paper has a faint pattern of leaves drawn on it.





None of them are lined, which is a little frustrating for someone like me who can't write in a straight line. But I made myself a guideline sheet which I paperclip underneath, and that works fine. I only use one sheet per letter, too. If I run out of room - which I often do! - I have some packs of double-sided lined A5 paper which I use. this way my writing paper lasts longer, I don't end up with lots of excess envelopes, and I save some money!

And finally, I have:

The colour hasn't shown up too well on this, but it's a very pale sort of turquoise which is really pretty. I love love love this! The birds are beautiful, and both sides of the paper can be used. Like the others, it has decorated address labels with it, and this one has some stickers for sealing down the envelope.





I like my letters to be as pretty as possible - I like pretty things! And a lovely friend of mine, EH, gave me a gorgeous wax seal for sealing my letters which I adore:

 I use it on pretty much all my letters. Sometimes the seals survive the postal system; sometimes they don't. I don't tend to find out if they have or not, but EH has let me know on occasion. You can see here it's actually lying upside down. But it's fairly simple, but lovely!




I do love receiving snail mail from friends. Email just doesn't compare; you don't usually get warm fuzzies when you see that you have a new email. But seeing that letter posted through the door and knowing a bit of your friend's personality and affection is inside is just lovely!

Another thing that happened recently is the wife's birthday - Happy Birthday, wifey! She finally opened my gifts to her today, and loved them! I never showed you the card I made, did I?

Again, see how I matched it to the gift-wrapping? I like to keep a theme running through...

 ... And on the envelope, too. Yes, I do have a stamp which says 'wife' on it. And yes, I did use it as the only identifier on the envelope. The wife would know it instantly!







 Okay, okay! And one last photo of the card with the gifts!

Pretty, no? The wife opened them this evening, and spent a little time looking through the contents, which were:

 The Bloggess' memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. It's an amazing book, really hilarious. And since the wife and I both enjoy the blog, I thought what better gift to give her?










But then opportunity presented itself. When I visited the wife in May, we went on a day trip to durham, and whilst we were there we found this little shop tucked away, which looked like someone had lifted the roof of it off and poured in all the contents from 3 1950's houses. But in the window of the shop was this:

That's a taxidermied cat, people. For people unfamiliar with the bloggess, she collects various taxidermied animals, especially ones in clothes. Well, this cat had gold-tipped fangs, false eyelashes and earrings in. Not exactly clothes, but kind of awesome in a creepy way anyway. So we snapped this photo of it and then I emailed it to the Bloggess, who has a fairy godmother to take care of her emails and stuff. Her fairy godmother emailed me back, really sweetly too !), and offered me a signed book plate for my copy of the book. Then I emailed her being really rude and asked for 2. She was lovely enough to oblige, and so the copy of The Bloggess' book for the wife became a little bit more special, being a signed copy now!

I also wrote a message to the wife on this page, but I'm not going to show you that - it was personal, and none of your business!








I also bought her this:

Awesome, huh? I chose this book specifically, because faith is very important to the wife and me, and it's something we share. So it felt fitting to get her the book themed around faith a little.







But THEN another opportunity presented itself. Crazy, huh? I mean, I got the wife the Bloggess' book, and then the opportunity to put a signed book plate in it came along. And I got the wife a Postsecret book, and then... Frank announced that he was doing a tour in the UK. Something I don't think he's EVER DONE BEFORE!! I wasn't sure how long the tickets would last before they were all sold out, so I had to make a quick decision. I bought. 2. Tickets. Really!! I wrote a message in the front of this book too; but then I also wrote a tiny note in the back of this one, inviting the wife to come to Postsecret with me. She didn't notice it at first. But then when she read it, she looked shocked, then held up the book to the webcam to show me, then said, and I quote, "Are you JOSHING me?! is this real? Seriously?!" And I said that no, I wasn't joshing her, and yes it was seriously real, and then she looked at her calendar to find the dates and found where I'd written over those dates to mark them off her calendar already, without her knowing. And she freaked in a hazy excited joyful whirlwind, and we laughed and smiled and life was super sweet!

So, did you manage that saga? Still with me? because I have just a couple more things to show you. First is my latest block for the QATWII:

Do you like it? It wasn't actually too challenging once I worked out what I wanted to do. I found the pattern on the Quilter's Cache.

And here it is with the other blocks made so far for this quilt. I just hope the recipient likes it! I have yet to put it up on flickr - that's tomorrow's job!








And I had a minor disaster this week. I was knitting this baby blanket I've been making for a friend, which I've been working on for rather a while now. I tend to warp my needles rather a lot - I don't know if it's my tension, or what. But this happened:

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a bamboo knitting needle snapped in half. And I don't happen to carry spares in every size imaginable. Fortunately the pattern and yarn are very forgiving, so I simply switched up half a size; and so far, I can't see where the change happened. Would you like a sneak peek at the blanket? The pattern is free from Ravelry, and in due course I will of course credit the designer. But for now you'll have to content yourself with a peek at a corner of it!

 

My friend knows what sex the baby is, but is currently keeping it to herself. So I'm hoping this lovely light green will seem neutral enough. It's certainly pretty - at least, I think so, anyway! I hope she likes it!







And... I think that's just about all! I did go on a 2-hour walk today, to a nature park place near my house called the Flash. But otherwise, apart from cooking supper a lot, that's all there is to my week! Oh - I did work 2 days, and they were fine. Fairly unremarkable, usual fun to be had with lookign after a 3-year old and 6-year old.

Love love xx

cold snow and little sleep, Sunday, box, box, plans

It's very cold. We had some snow yesterday, but none today. We still have yesterday's batch, though, which is melting so so slowly that I still can't go out. I wanted to go swimming today, and then maybe try going to church at Leigh Sports Village. But getting there is too dangerous. And I have a cold, so mum reckons swimming isn't a good idea today. Maybe tomorrow, instead. Depending on the roads. This weather is so frustrating. Also I woke up this morning at 6:30 despite the fact that I'm not working today and intended to sleep until 8, instead. I fell asleep again around 7:30, and got up then at 11:30. So I'm feeling a little crabby - disturbed sleep and a waste of a morning makes me an irritated child.

On the plus side, it's Sunday, so I've enjoyed looking at the new Postsecrets. I thought it was a challenging selection this week - no truly definable journey or theme running through, but a strong balance that touched on lots of things. I also made my second fabric box last night, and I'm greatly pleased with it. I'd been pleased with the first one, don't get me wrong - but I knew there were problems with it. It was a bit saggy on the sides, and a bit thin. And the way of putting it together had made it impossible to match the inside and outside evenly, so the sewing had been messy in many places.

Here's the second box:

 I know, my photography skills are pretty poor, so it's rather fuzzy. But it's happier than the first one, no? I think the colours went together better, and I prefer them. I got very excited and added some decorative stitches. I had the top thread as white, and the bobbin as dark blue so there was the contrast where I stitched straight through both layers.

Can you see here how it stands up better?I considered using interfacing to achieve this, but I really needed quite a rigid, medium-weight interfacing and we barely had any at all, never mind of the right weight. So instead, I used a double layer of wadding in the middle, which helped a lot. If I did it again I would still use interfacing if possible, but this worked well to solve the problem and soothe my impatience. I also did everything in a different order. In the instructions they ironed the wadding onto one of the colours before it was sewn up at all, then sewed both colours' fronts and sides together and then sewed them to each other. Trying to sew with wadding makes seeing what you're doing really difficult, though, and this meant that on the green one the two colours ended up different sizes. So this time, I sewed the two colours' fronts and sides together, then pinned them and the wadding together to sew the top, making sure that seams matched and that the wadding was sized more precisely to each face of the box. And I used a more rigid card in the base, and used a layer of wadding on either side of it this time, instead of just on one side.

Overall I'm very happy with it. There are still mistakes, and bits that aren't great - but, considering I've never sewn anything where I've had to go round a 3D corner, it's not too shabby!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. I could sew something, or I could knit. At least I could knit if I could remember what I did with my yarn. I have no clue where I've put it all. I guess supper needs thinking about, too... And I have letters to write. I sent day 3's letter of LetterMo to nanny college, and day 4's to E. Day 5's is to the wife, and I'm planning to send Day 6 to my sister.

Love love xx

Childminding, roads, safety, temper tantrum, month of letters, London and Les Mis, Fill in the Blank, soft box, ballet

So! Through another week of childminding! It's certainly been interesting, and a little stressful if I'm honest. Tuesday and Wednesday were fine, although BB's been more challenging recently. This is mainly because she's so tired - she's getting up in the nights for her parents, and really early in the mornings too; and she's basically standing at her gate yelling at them. They keep trying to leave her to yell until she gets bored and goes back to her bed - but she's stubborn! She's always been much more of a firecracker than B, who was born with a laid-back personality! But we've had a couple of naughty steps recently, which is unusual, because normally I don't have to ask her to do anything more than twice - twice is when she wants to do something else first. But now she's being a bit pushy, and trying desperately to manipulate me with whining and telling me that she 'wants mummy' or 'feeling poorly', and the bottom lip comes out and she looks up at me to make sure I'm watching. Which I'm not, I'm afraid, because with BB the best thing to do is ignore her until she's either done what was asked or calmed down so you can tell her again.


But basically, come yesterday she must have been quite tired - and recovering from a cold, too. So she was dosed up at lunchtime with calpol, and we made the afternoon school run to pick up B. We were most of the way home, and stood at the edge of the pavement waiting to cross the road. B took a slight step back away from the edge of the pavement, and BB decided that that was the moment to run into the road. Right in front of that oncoming car. I swear, my heart stopped for a moment. Thankfully the driver was paying attention (and I cannot stress how much this demonstrates the value of the rules against using a phone in the car or other distractions!!) and he stopped. I had leapt into the road as she ran in, screaming her name. I'm not sure why - I think my first reaction was just to try and grab her out of the way of the vehicle, maybe. But I did grab her and brought her back to the pavement.

We got home safely, and nobody was injured, thank goodness. But I tell you, I have never been so scared before. I've suffered a road accident myself, and suffered the terror of operations from the dentist (which are far scarier than anyone can truly understand). But seeing BB run into the path of an oncoming car beat all. It would be devastating enough if she were my child - but she's not. I didn't want to have to imagine telling her mum that I'd let her child get killed whilst in my care! So from next week we're reinstalling the wrist-strap for a fortnight or so. Because none of us can afford to risk her getting killed. It would be too much. And you don't take chances on a child's safety. For the past 3 months, I have enjoyed having a toddler who knew about roads, and would stop at the end of the pavement if she ran ahead, and would wait for me to tell her it was safe to cross the road. And now we're going to have to rein her in. It's a little bit gutting.

So there was that major incident which rather tore me up. And then, when the girls' mum got home, BB - being tired and grizzly from everything - decided to start crying loudly, which her mum ignored (good policy on attention-seeking behaviour usually!), and it soon escalated into a full temper tantrum violence accompanied by hysterical screaming. I have never seen that from BB before. I've seen her cry, both for real and for attention. I've seen her sulk. I've seen her hit her sister occasionally when she's angry or frustrated, and I've seen her hurt people by accident when she's got carried away in a game. But I've never seen a temper tantrum like that! She calmed down eventually, and her mum then dealt with it and spoke to her. But Thursday was not the best of days overall.

But it is a Friday today! I'm going out with some friends later today, which should be nice - it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to enjoy company above the age of 5! I've also begun my Month of Letters positively, with a letter going out to I, my friend from Malvern, on 1st; and a letter going out to a theatre on 2nd. I feel this was a bit sneaky, as I had to send the tickets back so they would send me the ones for the new date I'm going - but I did include a note to say thankyou to the Customer Services team for being so brilliant!

They truly were. What had happened was that the wife and I were due to go to London and see Les Mis on 4th August this summer. Being as dumb as I was, I was the one who had booked it, and I'd forgotten that the Olympics were on. So trying to sort out accommodation was next to impossible and way out of our price range. So I rang up the Customer Services for the Delfont Mackintosh Theatre group, and a brilliant young woman helped sort me out so that we could go 2 weeks later, which would have us going down to London in the time between the Olympics and Paralympics instead. She really was lovely and helpful, and she even waived the fee for changing the tickets and talked me into a cheaper postage option. She just went above and beyond, and made me feel so secure about rearranging the tickets. So now we're going to see it on 18th, instead, and we have our accommodation booked and paid for! And going a fortnight later more than halved the price of it! So now all we have to sort out is the train journey down, and that would be better to be done nearer the time.

Last thing of note - it's a Friday! Which means I will finally be able to Fill in the Blank on an actual Friday! So here goes:

1. If money wasn't an issue, the first thing I'd cross off my Life list is to go to New Zealand with the wife. There are lots and lots of things I would love to be able to do with that money, but the most expensive and unlikely thing on the Life list I share with the wife is a trip to New Zealand and a tour of The Tribe sets, so that would be what we would do! And of course we would tour Hobbiton too...

2. The idea of adopting asian babies is something I like that other people think is weird.

3.  If my life were a movie right now, the title would be Until she burst. This is in reference to the stress I've been feeling recently, and also the amount of chocolate I've been consuming. My hips have disappeared into rolls of fat. Ah well!

4. Three things I am looking forward to this month are the possibility of house sitting in a house my parents bought, doing a bit more exercise, and doing lots of fun, crafty things!

5. My favourite song to sing in the shower is currently the theme song for 'Charley Bear'. I know. This is what happens when you're introduced to children's television. you develop favourite shows and theme songs. And this one is really good! Otherwise I'm loving Fredrika Stahl's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

6. If I found out that the production of Quavers was ending this month, I'd go out and buy as much as I could tomorrow.

7. One thing I'll never grow tired of is the wife. I'm pretty sure, anyway. I worry sometimes that she'll grow tired of me. But I don't think I could grow tired of her.

So that's this week's done, and on the right day, too!  I'm going to stop now, as I could do with showering before tonight, really!! Plus I have little else to say... oh! Here's the picture of the soft box I made:

 Not too bad I think, for something that asks you to sew round the corners of a box!!

What I like best about these pictures is that you can't see that it's filled with chocolate in various forms! It's my chocolate box, and I love it very much. Now, if I could create a lid to hide the contents, I wouldn't eat so much of them. But it is demonstrative of my positive change in attitude towards unhealthy foods!







So that's all! I will try to post soon - like, when I've made the other box. And I'll update you on where I have sent letters as and when I do. Today's letter is to Norland College with some of my forms, tomorrow's is (hopefully) to my friend E, since she's way overdue one.

Love love xx

PS. I forgot to tell you about the ballet my mum and I saw. It was Beuaty and the Beast by Birmingham Royal Ballet, and it was excellent - the choreography and casting were ideal, and the dancers did it true justice. It really was enchanting! Also I made more soup and it was yummy.