January

All of the calendars in the house say January. In fact it's the 4th of January already. How did that happen?

On Saturday, the 1st, we began packing away the Christmas decorations. Since it takes days to put them up, it also takes days to put them away. Several tubs were filled.

On Sunday, the 2nd, I packed up all of the Santa Claus collection. That's four tubs. That left bare shelves.

Since I had already done my hour plus of PT that day, it was time to rest and watch football. Oh, and make a big pot of beef stew. 

On Monday, the 3rd, I had to go get a COVID test. That took three hours and a lot more patience than I had. Since it was stormy most of those three hours I was glad to be waiting in my car. 

I got home just in time for my pre-check in phone appointment for my angiogram in Wednesday. Then Tom brought in the pottery tubs and the tub of pop up books, my collection and his. We had spent quite a bit of time over the two previous days searching the house for those pop up books. Finally, at the same time, from different parts of the house, we realized they were in a tub sitting in the garage under the pottery tubs. Duh. There are lots of ways to feel old these days. Now everything is back in its place. 

The TV news was showing long lines of people with their kids standing outside waiting for their COVID tests before going back to school on Tuesday. I was thankful to have been in my car. 

Now it's Tuesday, the 4th, and after a busy day, darkness is beginning to settle in. Today we took down the two Christmas trees, packed up all of the ornaments, and then "stuffed the tree up", sort of like the Grinch, except most of it is now stuffed in the attic over the garage and not up the chimney. 

The calendar is filling up, some with fun stuff and some not so fun. Tomorrow is a not fun day. Saturday we will celebrate Isaac's 19th birthday here with birthday dinner. Jill wants to do most of the cooking. We will also say "So long" to Jake, who has taken a new surveying job and is moving to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. Visiting him will be a 5.5 hour trip involving a ferry ride. We'll miss having him close by, but he is excited for a new adventure. 

I have added all of the Sounders soccer matches to the 2022 calendar. The games start the last day of February and I hope to be there. The season ends in late October.

No date has been set yet for my valve replacement surgery. My team is meeting tomorrow, and all of my tests should be done by late Wednesday as well. Then we'll see. Will COVID cases mess things up?

Outside the snow is nearly gone.

As the snow melted away the primroses emerged unscathed. They are hardy souls. 

The sarcococca buds will soon pop open, filling the air with their vanilla fragrance. 

Hellebore are getting ready to bloom even as they emerge from the snow. 

So too the snowdrops.

While winter here is dark, it is certainly not dead. 

So on we go, marching into the new year. Bon voyage, everyone.