January Calm

I hope this second week of January find you well. I'm feeling happier, calmer, and more accomplished than I have in a long time which is to say, 1) I've started exercising in earnest again and 2) The sun's been showing his pretty face on a more regular basis. It's been a quiet week around here, but a good one indeed.  

This new year, I've been discovering the beauty of MITs, or Most Important Tasks. Each morning I set three MITs and write down a few other things I'd like to get done before evening. Having three things that must get done keeps me on track with the multiple projects I juggle at any given moment and then the rest of the stuff I get done in the day is just gravy. I like to live by a saying I found in an article my dad shared with me from the Irish Times: "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." There are certain things that must get done each day, but without setting MITs, it's easy to let other projects which maybe don't need to get done right. now. take centerstage while important (but maybe not so glamorous) projects languish in the background. By setting MITs each morning, I know my day will be well spent and I also know that if I put something off until tomorrow, it will actually get done. 

I'm now signed up for Shamrock Shuffle 8K in Chicago in March and the Ham Run Half Marathon in May. Last night I had a nightmare that I spent most of the half marathon hanging out at the halfway point, but never actually made it to the starting line to actually, you know, start racing. I think my subconscious might be a little concerned about actually being ready for these commitment. But yay for keeping new year's resolutions, if only on paper so far. ;)

I hit my 100th sale on Etsy today.  To sweeten the deal even more, the sale was made by dear, far-flung friend. When I first stocked the shop in late July 2012, I had no idea what to expect. Since then, I've been humbled and amazed to have so many people invite my knitting into their lives. Thank you!

Remember those firestarters I mentioned in last week's post? Here they are in action. They're essentially made out of rubbish (egg carton, dryer lint, and melted wax from the bottom of candles) which makes them an upcycling success. I kind of love that.

The polar vortex is behind us and temps are hanging out in the "perfectly acceptable" range, at least for now. This means we've stopped hemorrhaging firewood. Thank goodness.  

I hit the 20K word count mark on the current WIP. Progress indeed.

I've always had a thing for late afternoon winter sunshine. So serene.

An otter slid down the bay and then right past the cabin, leaving fun slide marks through the woods. I think an otter's life can not be a bad life. 

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Groundhogs, Candlemas, and February

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,
Go winter, and come not again 
-- Traditional English Rhyme

I've always paid attention to whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow on February 2nd, even though around these parts,we usually have another six weeks of winter in store, regardless of whether or not the second day of February is overcast. Despite having a bit of a preoccupation with Groundhog Day (although, believe it or not, I had never watched Groundhog Day until just last month!), it wasn't until a friend posted a variation of the traditional English rhyme above that I realized just how long we've been paying attention to shadows on February 2nd.

Feb 2. marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, making it a prime date to cast forecasts about if we'll be getting the full winter we're due, or if we'll get an early spring instead. The date also marks the celebration of Candlemas, a Christmas feast where candles are brought into the church to be blessed. Seems appropriate that halfway to spring, we celebrate the candles keeping our homes bright during the dark winter.

As for those groundhogs, they got thrown into the whole Candlemas weather predictions because Germans decided to use hedgehogs to tell if the sun threw a shadow on Feb 2.  Lack of hedgehogs in the New World (lame, New World, lame), forced German immigrants to substitute the way less cute groundhog for this weather predicting tradition.

And since somehow we got on the topic of hedgehogs here (what the . . . ?), a shout out to all ye Redwall fans - who remembers Ferdie and Coggs?!

I'm afraid any groundhogs in this neck of the woods who bravely showed their faces on Saturday got blasted with subzero temps and a healthy dose of sunshine. I guess this winter is here to stay.

And yet, spring truly is just a mere six weeks off. Although it's not unheard of to have snow in April (and sometimes even in the early days of May *sigh*) around here, it does the heart good to know that spring's appearance on the calendar is really not terribly far off.

Soon, I'll unplug the outside Christmas lights since Andy is thisclose to consistently coming home while there's still some daylight left. Progress!

Although I know it's a long way off until the season of wildflowers and t-shirts, I'm still amazed by how quickly this winter has gone by. It's been a busier winter than usual around here and I've made decent progress with all of my winter projects, although I need to sustain productivity levels at least through the end of this month, if I'm going to meet all of my deadlines and still have a bit of time for fun after the snow melts and before full-time work fires up again.

Even though I will spend most of February at my desk, putzing away on projects, I'm having great fun watching the activity at the ice fishing "village" that pops up out on the lake each weekend. Apparently Andy and I were trendsetters when it came to driving on the ice. I've never seen so many trucks on the lake before, which is just fine, after all this cold weather there has to be close to 2 feet of solid ice covering the lake. Still, we're going to have some fat fisherman this year, not because they caught so many fish, but because they never exercised!

Regardless of whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow in your neck of the woods, I hope your heart is filled with the promise of spring. It's closer than we think!
 

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