Snow Day Celebration: Caryn Kadavy's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion

Today I received the gift of time. The last two weeks have been beyond fantastic, but exhausting. I traveled to Boston for a trip of a lifetime to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships (more about that in a later post), I endured the end of a whirlwind semester in my first year of teaching, I traveled to State College to reunite with college friends and celebrate a 30th birthday, I reconnected with an old friend from my previous career, and I successfully submitted my quarter two grades. Even recounting my schedule has me feeling fried, despite how rejuvenating and exhilarating most of those events were. The thing about me, and I'm sure this is the case for most people, is after I have a lot of excitement, I need time to unwind, to recharge, to process and reflect. I have not had a moment of downtime until this afternoon. A huge snowstorm blew its way across the East Coast, hitting Maryland with about 10 inches of snow, bitter winds and near-freezing temperatures. I was in school for a professional day, finishing up my grades, when I received word that the building would be closing at 11 a.m. When I got home, I worked for another 45 minutes to finalize my grades, then collapsed under a fuzzy electric blanket, immediately drifting to sleep as the snow fell peacefully outside my window. The remainder of my day has been a great chance for me to take a break from school work and spend some time on other things that I've been putting off for awhile. It feels good to be productive toward projects that make me happy, such as my blog. It's already been announced that tomorrow is a snow day, which gives me an extra day to take care of myself and process what's happened in 2014 so far. What a wonderful gift it is to have an unexpected free day appear in the middle of your week. Whoever has been praying for snow, God bless you! :)

To celebrate this blissful mid-week snow break, I'd like to highlight a video that I haven't watched in some time, but remember quite fondly as being one of the most lovely figure skating performances I remember seeing in the mid-90s skating boom. Caryn Kadavy, a 1988 Olympian, skated this knockout performance to Celine Dion's powerful ballad, "It's All Coming Back to Me Now."
Caryn is the epitome of a classic, beautiful skater. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!