January, February

When I was seven years old, my family saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the drive-in theater. I remember almost nothing about this movie, except for one brief scene:

"I'm free, I'm free! Dang it."

That's how I feel when January turns to February. I'm so excited for January to end, but February isn't much better. It's still cold, it still gets dark fairly early, there's still snow, and there's not a lot going on. I think my favorite part of February is all the pink and red flavors of the month.

Of my nine canonized holidays, Valentine's Day is my least favorite. The holiday peaks in elementary school. In recent years, I think there has been more of a trend to emphasize other kinds of love (platonic, familial, etc.), which I 100 percent support, but I don't think the transition is complete yet. I don't have a significant other, but even if I did, I don't think it would make much of a difference in how I saw the holiday. I mean, hopefully I would have the SO year-round. 

I made this hokey image for my blog background for the Valentine's season back in 2012

What do you do for Valentine's Day if you don't have a class party? You can go to a dance or watch rom-coms, but neither of those is my thing. (Though I did appreciate the year there was a That Girl marathon.) Decorating sugar cookies can be fun, but I don't like to have that many extra cookies on hand. (I would rather try lots of different things, rather than have a lot of one thing.)

And my Valentine's Day playlist is my shortest of all my holiday playlists. Some people might think of just having love songs, but we have love songs all year, so what's special about them? I don't like playing my Valentine's playlist that much, because I will get sick of the songs too soon. The most famous/iconic Valentine's Day song is "My Funny Valentine," which most people don't know, and it's literally about loving someone even though they're ugly.

And don't get me started on Groundhog Day again. I don't mind that it exists, but I do mind that it seems to get more attention than Arbor Day, Mardi Gras, and Pioneer Day, all of which are much better holidays.

Anyway, all this is a long introduction to say that it wasn't a very interesting week. 

My goal for the year is to get rid of something every day, because it occurred to me last year that our house is often cluttered because we don't have good places to put things. I got rid of good things this week. I took some old, slow laptops to Best Buy to recycle. Back in second or third grade, I asked for a filing cabinet for Christmas, so my parents gave me a used pseudo–filing cabinet. It's just been taking up space in my closet, so I got rid of it yesterday, as well as getting rid of some of the things in it. I could have gotten rid of more, but baby steps, right?

I went to the swim team twice this week, and the more I learn about swimming, the more I realize how bad I am at swimming. But I have to start somewhere. Recently one of the coaches gave me some feedback on breaststroke, which made me realize I was doing it wrong, and I felt like I had to start all over. But I went to the pool on Friday (without the team) and practiced, and I feel like I've made some progress.

And I ran eight miles yesterday without my knee hurting, so hopefully I'll soon be back to running eleven miles before trail season resumes.

Also, I don't get why people say that cats are uncaring and unloving. Maybe some are, but I wouldn't say they are in general. Reggie frequently meows at me and my parents so we will sit on my bed so we can pet him and cuddle with him. This week, he was meowing outside my room. Then he followed me downstairs and went by the couch and meowed. Then he followed me back upstairs and meowed by my room because he was desperate for affection. He loves us! And Jimmy was the same way. And I had to type this paragraph with an eighteen-pound cat resting on my arm.

Have a good week during this bland month!