Social media is blowing up about how cold it is. Honestly, it is really cold here. It was colder yesterday, but it’s still cold. I try to remind myself of a few things:

1. It is winter.

2. I have a house with wonderful central heating and space heaters in the bathrooms and other places where needed.

3. Soon we’ll be complaining about the heat.

4. We humans (I’m saying that in a dalek-voice in my head, btw) like to complain. When we have things in common to complain about we feel a sense of community.

5. Writing lists on my blog is fun!

I should probably just add a cat picture and stop there (this is what google tells me most readers want), BUT I thought I’d ramble on for a few more minutes.

Louie and I are “training” for a 5k on Valentine’s Day. Mostly because we are romantic like that but also because it makes us more likely to get out the door to run if we are thinking about maybe registering for a race. We went on Tuesday when it wasn’t quite as cold as it was yesterday, or today. We will probably run again tomorrow. We debated running today but chickened out.

I remember I lived in Cleveland for many years, and I’m sure it was colder then? Am I just getting old and crotchety, or did I own more corduroys and wool?

I also remember there was a time on this blog that I was way more obsessed with working out, but I’m different now. It’s funny. I’m in less good shape, but I feel better about myself. It’s wonderful, really! And I am in pretty good shape, it’s just that exercise isn’t an obsession. I eat what I like, with reasonable portions and try to eat a good amount of fruits and veggies and whatnot, and it all seems to work out pretty well. My goal for the year is still to get in a little better shape and get back into better running shape, but it just isn’t my number one priority.

I have a million thoughts but it’s hard to organize them into a blog post. Other people do this without trouble, but they probably do things like plan. I like to just sit down and spew words on the page…does that make me sound a little bit insane? Please don’t answer that, actually.

Some friends and I went to see the Bad Plus last night. It was a great show. I was really inspired by it. I’ve had some discussions with band mates about trying to write some music. I’m such a giant classical nerd and lost my creativity a long time ago in that respect, but it feels like it could be something really fun and use some creative outlets that I feel are likely just hiding a little bit. I used to write music as a kid, before I learned about how hard it was and how bad I was at things and how Mahler did it better. And I try to retain that childlike feeling in so many aspects of my life, why stop with violin? I feel like I could write books and books about the difficult relationship I have with the violin…and music, and how I both blame it for my life problems and attribute all the wonder and good stuff in my life to it.

I kind of want to delete that paragraph, both for the eager honesty, and for the bad writing, and also for the rambling and nonsense… but I’m going to leave it. I think one of the themes I’ll have for my blog this year is really trying to share some of the struggles I’ve had with music and the violin. Another theme is cats, and perhaps a third theme of stuff that absolutely nobody wants to read about. That can fit into a large variety of topics, luckily, and is mostly the topic of my blog already, so it’s not a real change.

I was going through the pictures on my phone to see if there are any worth sharing (short answer, no, long answer, I’ll share what I want to share!) and I found this Facetime screencap I made. I think that this is perhaps the most awesome picture of me ever! It’s all worth it to have that adorable face on there, right? Maybe I was trying to make the same face as an adult, and that just doesn’t work.

And with that, I bid you adieu, friends and dear readers! Stay warm 🙂