New Year Inspirations

It's the time of the year for short days, winter blahs, and viruses. The sun is somewhere but we don't get to see it so often as we'd like because it's cold outside and we live where the trees filter both the sunrise and its setting.
It's the time of the year for too much stuff left over from the holidays: in the fridge and around the waist. The time of the year when a diet seems more like defeat than like trimming up a bit.
January has always been the month that I get decidedly bored with my house and my life. The children need to settle down to school, but nobody remembers the routine. And everything is dusty. Piles of books, games, projects, and misplaced household things are like noise in the library. Something has to change!
Yes, it's time to make changes. I am watching/listening to our daughters as they live and discuss the battle of winter depression and languor. It's real and it will get you down, girls.
So I remember. And I recognize what's happening. I see you working through these days and it makes me want to somehow wade in and help. I'll try to mind my own business then; yet I think it helps to hear from those who've been there.

     Add something new to your quiet time. I read a lot of Elizabeth George books during those days of feeling like life is grey. The greyer the day, the more needful was my quiet time. I added a journal and have been keeping it for 20 years now. Write your prayers out. Pray for a verse for you today.Write it there, too. Make a shelf or a basket by your chair where you rock the babies and put your book, Bible, notebook and pretty pen in there. Always handy and always something new to look forward to.
     Another thing I do every January is to get rid of clutter. The clutter of the holidays: Christmas decor, new gifts that haven't been put away, the movies and books we used, candy jars, burned out candles, you name it. Get it all tidied, stored, or returned.
    Last October when we had to abandon patio suppers and evening bike rides to batten down the hatches from rain and cold it was fun to set up candles and cozy corners for evenings at home by the fire. We added rugs and piles of books, remember? And it was fun to have the warming ambiance of puzzles laid out and stacks of fuzzy throws.  But now it is time for clean surfaces and cleared corners.
     The days are getting longer already, did you know that? Add some white to your world indoors to match the snow outside. White as in dusting all the furniture and clean doilies. White as in clean sheets on the beds. White as in a clean and cleared bathroom.  Add in a new laundry basket and hamper in white. Wash and fold away the extra throws from the living room. Wash that nasty kitchen rug and bleach the counters and door handles.
     Plan some simple soup suppers for these cold, sunny days in January. White chili, cheeseburger soup, and chowder.
    And take your vitamin D.  Our family doctor says that all of us girls should take vitamin D always here in our northern clime.
    Why not pack those babies all up and come over and see me? I'll get you to help me clear one of my surfaces around here. I bought a can of white pickling paint months ago for the bathroom in this house to refresh the knotty pine walls. It's time now.