January is Coming

The days are busy right now, pleasantly so for the most part. The nice part about the bustling right now is that one knows it is a short season, that it will come to an end soon. So one can sit back and enjoy the demanding days. Stopping for tea and candle moment are even more meaningful right now. This morning I took some time and see I have two new followers! Welcome Rebecca and Ames. You join Betty, Sara and Lady Estelle from a short while ago. I am glad to see a “crowd”!

On the other side of Christmas are the long days of January. I never minded that month myself. I mentally prepare for hibernation like a grizzly bear. I eat and party in December, but I curl up and hunker alone inside during January. I am socialized out and ready for a hide away. I use this dormant period for reading, writing, knitting, movies, and just restoring body and soul.

I usually have a January project list by now, but this year I am running behind on making one. I know I want to write, but I have no inspiration, at the moment anyway, for any specific story or essay to capture on the page. I am never caught up on reading, but I do have the book club selections read for the spring months already. I did buy one batch of yarn for a possible afghan, but I am not overly excited about the pattern. I have no snazzy articles in mind to set the needles clacking.

The last couple of winters I have made various shawls and had DH on whipping out shawl pins, but there are only so many a gal can wear! After knitting about 10 full lenth shawls, I switched to these short shoulder ones that really are more like a scraf with my sized stitch.I make them from simple washcloth cotton, making them very inexpensive but colorful.                 

I love the shawl pins DH makes, so many sizes and woods. I never can choose between the woods because I love them all. Hedge has made a great pins because it yellows with age, a totally different shade than the darker hard woods. Also, he gets the hedge from the family farm making them more special than a boughten plank.

DH also has been making biscuit cutters from hard woods. I love them even though biscuit making is not a daily job here. I first saw a hard wood cutter at Branson in the mill at Silver Dollar City. DH has been working on getting them right since then.  While he made me one from dark walnut, my favorite, I can't stand to see the rejects thrown away so I line them up on my kitchen window sill. These are cherry, hedge and walnut.

The dark dawn is turning light so I had better move on for today. I know December is here in force, but January is a coming!