So I just came back in from watching the dog run all over the back yard. Just this weekend she graduated from having to be on the leash all the time to getting free reign over the fenced in property. Supervised, of course. It was late and the stars looked nice. I sat down in our yard swing and just watched her run back and fourth at full speed with the constellation Orion overhead.

Now I hate the winter. I seriously do. It’s cold. I hate the cold. It’s dark. I hate when the days are short and it gets dark really early. One of the few things that I do like about winter is how eerily quiet it gets after a snow storm. Since we live in a suburb of NYC the idea of “quiet” is rare and seldom experienced. When it happens it is absolutely glorious. Total quiet. No wind. No human sounds. Animals are all hiding. The snow just deadens all the audio.

We had snow yesterday. So tonight I got to sit out in the yard for a little while in the dead quiet. A few minutes after sitting down it hit me that I was having a “moment”. My internal memory recorder kicked in and I tried to appreciate every second of the experience. These things don’t come along too often. When they do you have to take every bit of it in. You never know when you are experiencing the last time of something.

We try so hard to fill our lives with stuff that makes so much noise. It’s totally unnecessary. We need more quiet and less everything else. More focus on the important stuff and less care about crap that just doesn’t matter.

Anyway…

In other news.. the first week of the year went ok. No epic disasters. The dog is doing really well all things considered. The kid managed to get through the return to school without a mega meltdown. Some major things got crossed off my to-do list. I’d give the week a C+… maybe a B if I am feeling sassy.