Why January is a Good Month

January has not always been my favorite month. When we lived in Wisconsin and I had one, two, and then three little boys, it was a long, cold month. We did enjoy skating on the frozen lakes that we lived by, but only if it wasn't so cold that your toes froze.

The other problem with January is illness. With Camille in our family, January is notorious for illness. The worst one was a few years ago when she got her tonsils out followed by RSV which turned into pneumonia. She was EXTREMELY miserable for weeks. She watched movies basically non-stop and missed a lot of preschool.

I can't complain much about the weather this year because it's been mild. However, it has had some illness. Currently Camille is suffering with a cold and constant cough. But here are some reasons why I'm learning to enjoy January:

1. No more Christmas shopping! Maybe some people enjoy this. I'm not one of them. Actually I did have to return a few gifts near the beginning of the month but there was no pressure and no deadlines.

2. Time for cleaning out! Just ask my children. They think I would throw everything out if they weren't there to stop me. This isn't completely true but I do love to get rid of stuff. I have this idea that if we had to move on a moment's notice in a small truck, I should be ready! This week I've been focusing on the master bedroom that has a tendency to collect a lot of random stuff. Because our family has been heavily involved in music for a long time, we have collected a lot of music. I finally went through the whole collection and got rid of a lot of music we will never play again.

Good-bye to Scott's trombone music since he hasn't played the trombone in a really long time.

To help us remember it, this is what we do right before we throw out a school project. I was particularly proud of this one. So was Mindy.

3. Projects! I always have a list of projects that I need to work on, sometimes just in my mind but preferably written down. It feels really good when I'm making progress on at least one of them. It's when my life is too busy to get anything done on any of them. That's December and actually most of the summer and fall. Possibly the spring. But January! There's time in that month. This month I've started working on a family picture book for 2013. Which is not to say that all the years before that are done. But 2013 and 2014 seem doable and fresh in my mind so that's what I'm going to finish first. Maybe this will be the year I catch up on all those scrapbooks! I can still dream in January because the year is still full of possibilities.

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