Home Life

"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home."  Edith Sitwell        

And January is the bare bones of Winter.  The ravelry of the holidays have past and the yearning for the gardening season has not begun.  I am just enjoying the peace of the season. 

Oh the difference between December and January is huge.  It is like looking at a black and white photo vs a colored one.  The black and white may be stark but it makes you pay more attention to the details.  The colored one just amazes you with its color.  Both are beautiful and both are appreciated for their differences.

December was fast, furious and loud…always busy making things, baking things, cooking, shopping, wrapping, parties, company visiting, music and a December 24 deadline.  Very much like the colored photo, amazing you with it’s color.

January is much more sedate….no holiday, colder weather  making people want to stay home, relax and appreciate the past holiday you had with family and friends.

The kids returned to school on the second and the man to work on the third.  Christmas was packed away and normalcy (hahaha!) returned.  Sometimes when I have to do things they feel like chores and I don’t enjoy them as much. Since I didn’t have to bake I made three loaves of white bread and two loaves of rhubarb bread.  We worked in son's room.  I started a batch of vanilla extract. I am dehydrating about 4 pounds of venison jerky.  I organized my desk and filed everything.  I sorted through fleece deciding on what I want to wash and what I want to send out.  I spun some and started knitting the squares into the first row of an afghan.  

I also enjoyed the time of just sitting as I watched the birds  congregate by the feeder during the cold snap,

 

the turkeys walking the ridgeline and the dusting of snow falling by the light on the porch. 

If all of 2012 goes as well as this first week it is going to be a very good year.