Pet people are the best people

I’ve found so much wonderful support over the past few weeks from all different people. We humans sure do love our pets! I’m settling back into my schedule of teaching and playing and missing the fatness but not too much. (I do miss her! And gleefully look forward to each day’s timehop to see if she is featured!)

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For instance, there she is today. What a sweetie. I can picture how it feels to pet her Smile

Do you ever feel like your emotions are a roller coaster? For me, some days I’m loving life and feeling good and connected to the world, other days I feel stressed and annoyed and that nobody understands me. I’m going to assume that’s pretty normal, but it’s rough on occasion. I heard a bit on NPR today about meditation and relaxation and thought maybe I should work on that. There are a fair amount of work-related things that get me riled up and I just want to be more calm and less stressed over them. On the one hand, I want to make the world I live in better, but on the other hand, maybe I should just try to relax and accept the things I cannot change.

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Mackenzie certainly never worries about whether she is fitting it or whether she is being paid fairly.

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Chloe doesn’t worry whether her playing is valued or whether she lacks confidence. She also never worries about smiling enough or whether her personality is too strong.

So, the snow from last week was thawing by the weekend and Louie and I had a lovely time walking about Forest Park. My new iPhone has a feature where it counts your steps, so I usually try to keep it in my pocket, even walking around the house. Saturday was one of the few days I got over 10,000 steps. Even on days when I run for a couple miles I only tend to end up with 8000/9000 steps. I guess I sit too much? But!

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There were so many geese sitting on the ice. I thought maybe they had a guest speaker.

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I never noticed this rock before. I like the shadows.

Earlier in the week I’d taken Mackenzie up to a nearby park.

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Sticks are one of her favorite things!

Besides walking around, we went to Farmhaus on Saturday night (had a gift certificate from a fried) and had dim sum at Lu Lu’s on Sunday.  Both were relatively easy to do eating pescatarian which was very nice. Farmhaus didn’t have too many listed menu options without bacon but the server was very nice and the kitchen was very accommodating. For dim sum we just had to ask about stuff, but again, it wasn’t too hard. I think the further I get into this the more I want to continue—I don’t really miss meat and I feel like little steps are a good thing.

This week is crunch week for the Perseid Quartet as we are playing a concert in Edwardsville on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to it—I’m so happy to play chamber music and have really enjoyed my quartet time. I feel I’m learning so much from the other players and I’m continually being challenged. It’s really awesome and helps me feel happy and appreciated as well. My students have been wonderful this month as well, and I have never regretted branching out and turning into a full time at-home violin teacher! Being my own boss is really the best. Even though there is often loads of paperwork and so many records to keep (and taxes to pay, so many taxes!), I think it gives me the best chance at success.

Last picture before I leave you to go feed Mackenzie and practice until my next student arrives. Leslie sent this. Can you spot the real cat amongst the stuffed animals (do I need to restart Caturday??)?

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Catalunya doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep.

2 thoughts on “Pet people are the best people”

  1. OMG that cat pic is adorable! That needs to be entered in some contests!

    And you could totally do an animal series about animals not worrying about adult things. hehe

    1. Wouldn’t that be a hoot! I just got inspired writing this post, but it was fun. I mean, and these animals technically do have lots of things they should worry about, but they don’t! I have so much to learn from them.

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