The Depths of Midwinter

January through March are the hardest months for me to get through. The excitement and busyness of Christmas is over, the decorations are down, and there's not much to look forward to. I suspect I'm not alone. I used to think I detested winter because of the cold; while that's certainly part of it, the real reason is the darkness that stretches on forever. In my part of the world we'll get snow a few times, but the days are more typically gray and dreary. The sun won't show itself for days at a time and night lasts forever.

On New Year's Day we had a rare sunny day, and I made sure to take myself out for a walk. Like many parts of the world, we're having a mild winter temperature-wise. Because we live on top of this hill, it gets insanely windy. There's nothing like a strong wind to suck all of the fight and joy out of a person.

Another day I had a strange burst of motivation and took myself and the kids outside to scrounge dried grasses in the field next door. White and gray is the more typical sky for the winter and of course the wind was blowing. I have been wanting to make an all-natural winter wreath for quite some time, and even got as far as picking a bucket full of material a few years ago, and then leaving it in the shed until the spring when I finally threw it away. 

The field is not a beautiful meadow of grasses fit for frolicking. It's full of brambles, half-grown trees, and mostly likely deer poop. Every year a man shows up on a too-small lawn tractor and attempts to mow it, leaving scraggly tufts of grass. It looks terrible. We traipsed around cutting grasses, our pants full of barbs and stickers, getting caught on thorny vines. When my bucket was full, I stood outside, hands freezing, and tied together bundles of dried plants and attached them to a frame I made from some flexible new branches from our crabapple tree. I used twine, so the whole thing can be thrown into the collection for yard waste at the end of the season. I wired the wreath to a fence post where we could see it from the house. It's been battered by the wind but should last until spring.

Sunsets and sunrises are amazing in the winter. I don't know if they make up for the season, but they make it more bearable.

I've been trying to complete several of my many sketchbooks. Sometimes the sheer number of blank pages overwhelm me, so I want to get the total number of sketchbooks in progress down to a reasonable number. I only have 8 pages left in this watercolor book! I don't paint that often but I love being able to see my progress from when I started this book in 2020. Mainly I create paintings from tutorials in books or online, however I do want to start designing my own work soon. 

I'm on my way to finishing my patchwork quilt! I completed the final two squares, leaving the sashing and finishing (which is not a small amount of work). I've loved seeing progress on this project after so many years of languishing in a drawer.

The cat has been so cold. If anyone is sitting down, he is on them. Honestly sometimes it's annoying because he gets in the way and weighs down your legs so you can't move. He's a large cat, maybe 13-14 pounds by now? At least he's tolerant of literally everything.

One of my goals for this year is to try new things: I did two in one week! First, I went to a yoga class at a new studio that was being taught by a friend who is completing her yoga teacher training. It was my first group exercise class since before the pandemic, and it was hard to relax in a room of 20 people, all breathing, some coughing (!!), and little ventilation. I don't think I'll be at that studio again because it's quite far from home, but it did make me want to join more group fitness classes in the future. I used to go all the time to Zumba, yoga, kickboxing, and weightlifting. It became challenging once I had kids to make the classes, although now that they will both be in elementary school this year, it may be more feasible.

Another friend and I decided to try a new cuisine for every letter of the alphabet. This might be difficult for O (Oman) and Q (Qatar). We started with G, visiting an African restaurant serving food from Ghana. I had fish, jollof rice, and fried plantains (which were delicious). Serendipitously there was also a Guatemalan bakery on the same street, and we popped in for some pastries which turned out to be both cheap and tasty. You know it's a good sign when everyone in the bakery ordered in Spanish.

And finally, we had a birthday! Cora is now five years old. How the time flies! Check out that candle - it shoots out a giant flame which lights many candles, while it spins around and plays "Happy Birthday." Luckily nothing caught on fire, and the children were amused, as you can see.

I'll be back in a few days to share my January reads. I've been blogging long enough to know that no one cares about your personal blogging schedule, but I've decided so separate out my book reviews and regular posts for now. Thrilling announcement, I know!