I hope you survived the holidays. Oh my.
And now we come to Winter. Real Winter. Winter without tinsel and a sugar-induced stupor.
Winter like you wake up in the morning to find that the sink pipes in your nearly 250 year old house have frozen solid and the Mr. has to rip the entire wall apart because the pipe actually just drains into the backyard (because it's Maine and that's how we roll) and therefore has to be completely removed and replaced. Winter like the frenzied stoking of the wood stove in order to keep the little bear from also freezing up and frantic rushing down the broken basement stairs (the stairs collapsed during the rain storm we had which flooded the basement) to make sure no other pipes are in danger of the frost.
I admire this sort of Winter. I do not like it, but I feel the more honorable for having decided to face it head on, with no whimpering or cowering or whining. Ok - sometimes whining - but I slap myself out of it.
This winter means business.
My rambling house feels tauntingly big and empty due to the fact that we are living in the kitchen, huddled around the stove in order to preserve furnace fuel. I feel a little cheated, but I enjoy the challenge.
I am constantly decluttering and cleansing and purging because even this spacious room gets a little claustrophobic around the edges by the end of the day and dinner is being made and there are toys scattered all over the floor and laundry tossed hither and yon (the washer and dryer are in the kitchen room) and the sun sets, completely closing us in at last. Sometimes I want to scream and run into the frozen woods - - but I don't.
So what's to do? The holidays are over, thank God, and Winter has set in forever, or so it feels.
Now I can get to the Winter activities I enjoy doing, such as:
*Drinking Lots of Tea
*Cooking up scrumptious things to eat with tea
*Reading a novel (I'm really feeling a Louisa May Alcott binge coming on)
*Knitting some thing(s) for my Little Men (did I say - we are expecting another man child?)
*Decluttering without Mercy
*Moisturizing. Everyone. Every day. Again, without mercy.
*Perusing Seed Catalogs
*Ordering Seeds - lots of them
*Planning out the garden(s) - I have 8 acres to fill with Eden if I so choose
*Being able to fully engage in preparing for this second child
*Learning something - this year I am tempted by greenhouses and four-season planting schemes
*Keeping Little Bear occupied
*Watching the days wax longer by minutes
How are you passing the whiles before Spring?
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