Before we go any further...

..there is something very important you should know about me.

I love music.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved music. There is a photo of me when I'm still a baby, and in this photo I have managed to drag myself across the floor over to the tape/cassette player and am lying right in front of it. My mother tells me that I used to bang on it until someone put music on.

When I got a little older, probably around 7 years old, I really wanted to learn to play the violin. My two older sisters had already had piano lessons and for some reason I was just drawn to the violin, so my parents signed me up. Sadly, after about a year of struggling through lessons the teacher told me that the violin probably wasn't for me, and sadly I had to agree with her. But a few years later I started taking clarinet lessons and I still have my clarinet today! I don't play it often, but on rare occasions I will still play a tune or two. And a couple years ago my parents bought me a ukulele which I am very slowly trying to teach myself. Now despite my great love for music, this does not necessarily mean that I have a talent for it. I am not particularly gifted at playing any instrument and, although I can sing, I can't harmonize to save my life, but that's okay.

More than playing music I love listening to music. To many of my friends I am known for always having music playing and always having a song stuck in my head. When I listen to music, I am very aware of the lyrics. I feel like music is so incredibly good at portraying emotions that could otherwise not be put into words. I tend to go through phases where I listen to one particular song more than others, sometimes to the annoyance of my roommate but luckily she forgives me. The reason is that whenever I'm going through something, or find myself in a situation, or am in a certain mood,  I try to find a song that reflects how I'm feeling or that has a better way of explaining what I'm feeling than I could ever come up with myself. However, this doesn't mean that whenever I am listening to music it is a reflection of how I feel, there are lots of times where I listen to music just for the sake of listening to music!

So this is a fair warning to you: if you should see postings of lyrics or excerpts from songs on my blog, do not be surprised. It is just one of the ways I share how I'm feeling, or it could just be that I want to share a great song with you.