I hope everybody had a happy and safe holiday season and is getting off on a good start to the new year. Left floundering for a resolution I decided to go simply with "Live Better" it applies to everything, eat better, sleep better, drink more water, be calmer, reflect more, be more empathetic. It encompasses whatever I need to make myself a better person and hopefully progress as a person in the new year. Isn't that what resolutions are about? Making yourself a better person? Maybe by 2016 the world will be a better place because everybody in it has made themselves a little better. A lot of little better in the world can make the world a lot better.

As this my first blog post I want to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Katie, I am a farm girl, a distance runner, a skier, a birdwatcher,  a trumpet player and now a blogger! First I would like to talk about skiing though, I have been skiing on a school team going on my second year now and although I love it there is something to be said for sitting on your butt in the snow not really sure how you got there. Today my Mom and I went for a ski at a local outing club, the trails were nice and it was a beautiful day but the same could not be said for my confidence. It has of course been a long time since I skied last winter and I was not what one might call swift nor graceful on skis. 80% of the season I was somewhere face down or on my butt in the snow. I got out there today though and after some hang ups I was classic skiing pretty well and my skate skiing was well, I was trying. A couple whitewashes and some of those painful falls were you land on the edge of the ski but I was okay. Going down hills isn't my best but I was trying really hard. After we'd been on the trails for about two hours we got kind of tired and my Mom and I decided to go. I went for one more downhill and I wasn't slowing down well. Next thing I knew and I was upside down with snow down my jacket and vaguely aware that one of my feet had come out of it's boot. Upon sitting up I realized both my boots had come off and I was sitting in my socks in the middle of the trail. The bars on my boots were still clipped to the skis and so it was a body less set of feet skiing down the hill. In spite of myself I laughed and upon the strenuous journey back up the hill I announced to my mother that I was definitely ready to leave. The thing is although, it may be frustrating and hard  I love to ski. You may not be into to skiing but I hope there is something that all of you love even when it is difficult. So long for now from Katie.