Hello Friends and subscribers!

I am so happy to be here with you in this space. I posted very little over the course of this year as I dealt with months of treatment for a life- threatening health issue, and I just am happy to feel cozy and snug and looking forward to replenishment for 2024. I love January – the possibility of cold and snow, the bright days perfect for walks, the many possibilities of decluttering the physical environment and the body and the soul in January!  It’s going to be a terrific month and year, and I hope you feel the same way about a New Year on the horizon.

Here are some of the days we will be celebrating in January:

January 1 – New Year’s Day

January 6– The Feast of Epiphany and Epiphanytide that stretches until Lent begins on Wednesday, February 14 this year (and Easter is on Sunday, March 31st for those of you planning ahead!)

January 15 – Martin Luther King, Jr Day – also celebrated January 15 and April 4 in The Episcopal Church

Janaury 18– The Feast Day of St. Peter

January 25 – The Feast Day of St. Paul

Replenishment - Rhythm is strength, so I am working to create new weekly and monthly rhythms for 2024. A lot in life changed this past year, so this feels like starting anew. The things I want to coordinate mostly include time around things I need to do for my health; time with family and friends who are like family; homeschooling our youngest who is finishing up eighth grade and will be entering high school in the fall; daily, weekly, monthly farm and animal care; daily, weekly, monthly homemaking; and of course work. I still work for two different companies providing physical therapy and lactation services plus have my own business. It sounds like a lot, and maybe it is, but I find if I work in smaller stretches with lots of margin I can do many things so long as I keep things simple.

Creating is high on my list this year, including writing more, seasonal crafting, and watercolor painting. It feels really nice to have enough energy to be back in that space! I even got some new paintbrushes for Christmas. ❤

I usually pick a word of the year instead of making resolutions, and I almost picked “Create” for this year but instead I am going with “replenishment”. I still have some residual fatigue and strength to build back up, so I like the idea of nourishing myself in whatever form that might take for the day. Do you have a word of the year to bring you focus and clarity? My past words have included words such as radiant, abundant, vibrant, and bold. 

These are a few of the things we are enjoying this month:

• Daily outside time – when our children were small and we lived in neighborhoods, this was mainly in the form of a daily walk, and park time. Now it is mainly in the form of barn chores!
• Puzzles and board games
• Green smoothies and juicing
• Making some freezer meals
• Exercising as I can
• Creating
• I have been having fun using Duo Lingo for French
• Going out as a couple – my husband and I are getting away for a few days to celebrate the beginning of 2024 (and maybe to catch up a little from not being able to do anything for our 31st wedding anniversary this past year).
• Playing with our horses, dogs, and cats
• Learning more about beekeeping. They really were not tended from May onward, so this will be a rebuilding year.
• Indoor and outdoor gardening
• Baking
• Indoor microgardening!  So fun – and having bulbs blooming in the house
• Decluttering the entire house and creating space. As often happens with illness, things get behind. So I started small yesterday with decluttering the master bathroom/master linen closet and unsubscribing from email and youtube channels and have a plan to move forward with every room of the house. I am very excited about this! For me, order is life giving and helps me so much!

If you are looking for fun things to do with children, these are things we have enjoyed:  Cut out paper snowflakes, including really cool 3-D snowflakes; dip candles; roll candles; play board games or card games with your children;  draw, paint, model; whittle wood; make popcorn together; bake together; play in the snow – build snow forts; have snowball fights; snowshoe; downhill or cross country ski;  ice skate on a pond; read and tell stories; build forts inside; take a walk outside in the cold – look for animal tracks or berries or birds or all of the above; knit, crochet, cross stitch, finger knit, spin, sew; sing and make music together – learn some new songs; clean, scrub, dust, work around the house – rearrange furniture; go bowling or find an indoor swimming pool to swim in; write letters to family and friends; write stories together; snuggle on the coach with hot chocolate and marshmallows; cook for a neighbor; find a place of worship to attend and get involved; throw a party; clicker train your dog, cat, or other animal; take care of plants; start seeds indoors when it it is time

On the parenting and  homeschooling front, our oldest graduated from Clemson University this month and will be living and working about an hour from us. She got her dream job in medicine so that’s exciting! Our middle child left her university (equine studies) because she got her dream job working toward becoming a professional rider. She lives about six hours away from us, but will be spending a decent portion of the year traveling to show other people’s horses at large venues, so it will be fun to go see her work in different places. 

Our little (very tall) fourteen year old is finishing up eighth grade this year. We used a hybrid school (which is still legally homeschooling in our state and we do a portion of the teaching at home), We normally use something like this for outside classes for all or part of high school, but I needed help this year. For high school in the fall, we will be using a combination of homeschooling with classes from a hybrid school and dual enrollment at our local technical college starting in tenth grade. It’s exciting to see him start working towards goals for his future. So, I still have homeschool planning/facilitation and transcript keeping for future college to provide, but nothing as intensive as previous years.

I would love to hear your plans for 2024 and for January plans! Wishing you all the best and brightest things for this New Year!

Blessings and love,
Carrie

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