Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 490

Hi again. Long time no Hodgepodge. We're back now though, with a brand new month and a brand new set of questions. Answer on your own blog then hop back here tomorrow to share the love. See you there!

1. Tell us anything you want about your January. 

2. Lake Superior State University posts a list each year of words they think should be banished from the Queen's English for misuse, overuse, and/or general uselessness. The 2023 list includes GOAT, inflection point, quiet quitting, gaslighting, moving forward, amazing, Does that make sense?, irregardless, absolutely, and it is what it is.

Which of these words/phrases do you use regularly? Which of these words would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word/phrase not on the list you'd like to add? 

3. February 2nd is Groundhog Day. What's something that feels repeated in your life right now? 

4. What's a food you love that's named after a place?

5. What's the best season of the year to visit your city or your part of the country? Tell us why. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Picking Up Where We Left Off

Sort of. 

When last we spoke on the blog it was the second day of a brand new year, and now here we are rolling in to February. I might need to jump in somewhere in the middle.  

I know many people dislike January, and there are all sorts of memes about how January is 85 days long, but around here we need a January. We need time to catch our breath, rest, walk, think, figure out our calendars, and come up with a plan to organize this new year. 

We have mostly succeeded. 

I mean we definitely rocked the resting part and honestly that was the main thing. 
We were tired. 

"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."-Edith Sitwell

January here means reading books and watching HGTV curled up under a blanket. It's calling a friend I hadn't spoken to in a long while and taking care of a significant car repair. It's scheduling a couple of (hopefully) minor home repairs that need doing and it's dealing with the small mountain of paperwork that accumulated while we were holiday-ing and not January-ing.

It's spending a low key weekend out of town, saying cheers to a new year with old friends, and then everyone taking a mid-day siesta because they can. 

It's a walk in the woods on a crisp blue sky day and a swim in the lake right after...

That last bit is maybe not for everyone but some of us live for a swim in the lake. 

Mostly January says it's okay to be a little bit lazy after months of non-stop doing and I'm here to tell you it felt good. Better than good actually because we are not meant to go and do without adding a little slow and easy into the mix too. 

Last week hubs went with some buds on their annual duck hunt so daughter2 and her little guy drove over to spend the week with Nana. Her hubs was traveling for work so the timing was perfect and I absolutely loved having my girl in the house. We might have gone to bed at a ridiculously early hour every single night, but we still enjoyed chatting about all manner of things throughout the day, sipping tea by the fire, and playing cards. 

Speaking of perfect...

Be still my heart. 

This little man is just so precious. He literally lights up a room, a day, your whole entire life, with his bright blue eyes and his gentle disposition. Wednesday we drove over to my sister and brother-in-law's house because my sister is also over the moon for this little cutie and needed to see him. 

Who can blame her? 

I was reminded this week how long the days can feel when you are momma to tiny humans. Life revolves around their waking and sleeping and you learn to let go of your own agenda and needs in order to first meet theirs. 

What a special joy it is to watch my grown up girls be mommas to their littles. To realize we're not just mother and daughter any more...

...we're mother and mother too. 

Hoping your January brought peace and rest, order and energy, stillness and warmth, to the beginning of this brand new year. 

So What's New?

Besides the year I mean? Are you like me where it takes you about ten days in to find your rhythm post-holidays? I made peace with that years ago and honestly don't feel any pressure to have a long list of resolutions ready to go on Day 1. Nor do I feel any urgency to jump back into all the things or even to put up/clean up Christmas. 

Although as it happens, today I did do a bit of de-Christmasing. My plan was just to get all the ornaments off the inside tree, but one thing led to another and both trees are now un-decorated, the main tree is out of the house, Christmas dishes have been swapped out for the everyday ordinary (mostly...there's always a stray or two that hang out in the dishwasher), many many many towels have been washed, dried, and folded, and the furniture we rearranged to make room for our big Christmas crew is back where it resides the other eleven months of the year. 

Hubs and I had a mostly quiet New Year's Eve. We spent a couple of hours catching up with our neighbors, watched a lot of exciting college football, took some walks and some naps and did the tag-team thing we've almost perfected after nearly 40 years of marriage where he vacuums and I strip the beds and then I make him a BLT and he makes me popcorn and we talk about how cute our grandchildren are and how busy and how much we love having everyone here and how we also love just us. 

Yesterday I cleaned out my pantry which had gone totally rogue over the holidays and it makes me so happy to open the doors and see it all nicely organized. I was going to clean out my frig today, but I didn't have the energy for a full 'take it all apart' kind of clean. I settled for emptying all the bits of left overs and running the dishwasher. 

Tomorrow is another day filled with new mercies and enough grace to carry us through. 

I know some people like to charge into a new year as if it's something to be conquered, but I prefer a gentler approach. No big leaps, just do the next thing that needs doing while I contemplate what exactly I want this year to be and how I want to fill my days. 

I need to take some deep breaths at the start of a new year. Carve out time to pray and regroup here at home. I'll likely make a few plans and then remind myself not to hold them too tightly, and I'll let a few or maybe a hundred ideas bounce around my brain to see what sticks. 

Some people declare the first month of the year no-wine January. I'm declaring it no Hodgepodge January. I need some space right now to do all of the above so I'm taking a mini-break from the regularly scheduled random to make room for other kinds of random. The Hodgepodge will be back February 1st, which conveniently lands on a Wednesday. 

Wishing you a new year filled with lots of peace and joy...

 With pinky pink sunrise skies reminding us He's got the whole world in His hands.