1. I understand the logic in teaching me “Dust In The Wind” – but I got so sick of it that I refused to practice it all week. Today, I rolled into guitar lesson and my teacher asked about my week and how guitar went for me. “It was lovely,” I said, “but I didn’t play ‘Dust In the Wind’ because I’ve decided I hate it and I don’t want to play it.” ALLLLLLRIGHTY then. Instead, we played “Fast Car” for most of the lesson, and then at the end, I started learning….

2. …the chorus of “The Rain King” by Counting Crows. LOVE. Of course, it involves bar chords, but it’s generally easy to learn to play with songs you love versus songs you want to run screaming from forever. Soooo, YAY.

3. Continuing on my music kick… One2One Network sent me a copy of Brandi Carlile’s new album Give Up the Ghost, which is available on Amazon and iTunes and all the usual places (Cool note: Looks like it’s available in VINYL on Amazon. Wow. Really?). Brandi’s style is kind of folky-guitar-rock, but is a little more country-tinged than I prefer. I really like the songs “Looking Out” and “Pride and Joy” – but the album is hit or miss with me.

4. In the interest of disclosure and a bit of griping – the album was sent to me free for my review. I wasn’t paid for my opinion (I happily give my opinion for free). I’ll always give you MY opinion when I review things – good, bad, indifferent. I mostly review music and books – and those things are subjective — and so you can still form your own opinion – or say to yourself, “Well, she likes this band, and I do too — so if she says so-and-so put out a good album, I might like it too.” I do use affiliate links to Amazon when applicable (who doesn’t?). Short story long – in interest of maintaining ftc transparency guidelines, I’ll always tell you all that stuff. I think it’s somewhat silly that it’s required – but I’ll do it.

5. I won that awesome scarf last week, but I’ve never really worn a scarf aside from “trying to keep my neck warm” puposes – so I asked Jenny for some tips on how to wear a scarf without looking stupid. The result is this cool VLOG Jenny posted for me this morning.

6. I am the POETRY BOOK MOM in The Princess’s class room this year. Last year, I decided in-class volunteering wasn’t really “my thing”. This way, I get to help out (by gluing the kids’ poems into cool hardbound books) on my time schedule without having to explain math to someone else’s kid.

7. Tomorrow, me and the fam will be taking in a showing of “Where The Wild Things Are” – it’s one of the few things I definitely wanted to do for my birthday, so we’ll be doing that.

8. Oh? I didn’t mention it was my birthday tomorrow? My bad.

9. Today, I was grumbling because my purse felt VERY heavy. When I got home from guitar lesson, I completely upended that sucker dumping everything on the floor. What did I find? Um, about seven bucks in coin change. Gosh, I have NO IDEA why my purse was so heavy. {roll eyes} Whoops?

10. I went for a run this morning. It was so cold that I felt the wind whipping through my pants – by the time I was done, my whole lower half felt numb. BUT… My pace quickened by about forty seconds per mile. Well, there’s an obvious observation: I run faster when it’s cold, AKA: Let’s get this thing done so we can get back inside and drink cocoa.