WHAT HAPPENS IN JANUARY?

January 2014

January 2015

Snow, sometimes. 




But not this year, 2016.

So far it's been a Green Christmas, and a Green January.

The little snow we did get covered the tops of cars, roofs, and settled into the grass. Gone in a day.

Mostly what happens in January in my family is Happy Birthday Time.

I saw three of the January birthday girls (besides myself) on January 2nd when we had our family Christmas get-together in Ohio. The other two, both guys, weren't there when I arrived.

My stock of greeting cards had to be replenished in November and December so I'd be ready for the January onslaught. The USPS ought to be real happy with the Palmer Family.

-----
My own approach to January is to ease into a quieter life after several weeks of (1) preparing holiday music and playing church services, (2) sewing and knitting gifts (some of which didn't get finished in time for gift-giving), (3) dealing with sinusitis and sleeping a lot, which seemed to be a required part of the cure, and (4) preparing the house for two of the children who came from Arizona and Minnesota to celebrate Christmas with their mom and the other two sibs.

The visit of my four offspring was the highlight of the holiday season. I could let go of my disappointment that some gifts didn't get delivered, and focus on seeing all my children together. We shared a big pot of chicken-vegetable soup and made sandwiches, drank tea and coffee, munched on chips with salsa, and devoured (inhaled is a better word) pumpkin muffins one of the girls brought.

-----
This first week of the new year I hung up my new calendars (dogs, lighthouses, barns, pathways, more dogs) around the house. My very favorite is the family calendar made by my oldest daughter with photos she collects from members of the family, uploads to a website, and then prints out. This year's theme is Throwback--boy, did we adults look young! And some of us were babes in arms. 

Another project was rearranging the sewing area so I can finish a quilt to mail to Ohio. Once that's done, the living room will look more like itself again, and folding tables will be folded up once more and stored away.

"Another year over, and a new one just begun." John Lennon sings that on one of my CDs. 

Hope your new year, just begun, turns into one you want to remember.