The last Wednesday in November.

Today was an ‘inside’ day for me. That means, that I didn’t have activity after activity planned outside of the house. So basically I finished up on my monthly chores (We switch tomorrow), did a little school work, and wrapped presents for 6 hours with Mom. I’m not kidding, we wrapped presents for 6, long, stinking hour, and we were machines! We are not slow wrappers, it was just the amount! Holy cow, so at least we’re more then halfway done with the gifts and the tree looks less lonely now. Still, geez. Yeah this holiday is for celebrating the birth of Christ, yeah that’s it.

The point of all that was to say, that I was getting a little ‘edgy’ from being inside so long. Then, I remembered I had dance class tonight. ‘Oh good’ I thought ‘That will at least get me out and get my blood moving fast.’

Dance was awesome again this week. Joan taught us a new tap step (It was freaking complicated, eight rotations in all.) and hardly anyone got it. Except for Claire and I that is. We were all trying to iron it out when Joan saw Claire and I had figured it out so she asked us to demonstrate! That’s always fun. Full of pressure, but fun. Oh! And holy cow, we found out we’re going to use that ‘80sish number for the spring show, and Joan placed me front and center! Gah, I’m happy…but freaked out! Okay not really. I’ve had it before, but I never really cared about doing that good before. Man I’m being so immature about all this, just ignore this paragraph people.

After dance (Which really did get my blood going, we were smoking!) I came home and ran around doing more chores. I was still hyper, so I decided to work out, on the weight machine and all that. Then, after about 45 minutes of working out, I still couldn’t calm myself down so I went for a walk.

Now, its absolutely freezing here people. Its gotten so cold I can’t believe it. I left at about nine fifteen, so obviously it was completely dark. I stepped outside and filled my lungs with that freezing air, and it felt so amazingly good. I put my cell phone in my pocket, turned on my music, and started to jog. There must have been no moisture in the air, because every time I breathed, my breath came out as a thick grey fog. I mean obviously it was just the frozen moisture, but I’ve never seen it like this. Perhaps it was because I was running, I don’t know.

Along with my frozen breath, there were two other lovely things. One, was the sparkling grass. I do not exaggerate by calling that, it was literally sparkling. A light frost covered each blade, and when the light caught that frost, it was dazzling. The second thing, was the sky. Like I said, it was a dry night. There were no clouds, and no moisture hanging low in the sky. When you looked up, all you saw was this brilliant navy expanse, with about a million stars shining along with our moon. I realize that this is incredibly lame, but I’ve always thought that Iowa’s winter skies look like a huge piece of navy silk, with dazzling diamonds sprinkled all over it.

I ran the last few blocks, then down our hill, and up our side walk. My glasses proceeded to fog over the second the warm air hit me and I could feel every muscle in my legs, because they were so cold in contrast. I had finally calmed down.