January Godsends:

• Office supply sales. Office Max has the paper bag to fill for 15% off and Staples has a 10% off, plus they sent me some really cool NoteTabs. I have always loved office supplies and I can never have enough blank notebooks. I love blank notebooks: love the feel of the blank paper, the smell of newness and possibilities but I loved to fill them, too. When they’re finally used up to the last page, I love the feel of the paper with all my writing on it. Even better are old diaries, ledgers or notebooks found in antique stores full of other people’s stories. Treasures.

• January thaw: The dripping of melting snow, the splatter-splash of the drips hitting puddles, the phony warmth, the little peek of grass around the edges of the lawns, the mud showing here and there in my flowerbeds.
  Knowing it’s all downhill to spring now: The days get longer after the 21st of December. Isn’t that a great thought?

• Bouquet of flowers from the grocery, just because: I’m so flower starved by now, except for my hardy, dependable, sweet African Violets, I cannot resist just one bouquet after Christmas.

• My January purge: I always purge my cupboards and shelves this time of year and promise to do better next year. But this year particularly, I can’t wait to do some cleaning out. I wasn’t up to it the last two years and I swear some of the disorganization I’ve been having since I was sick is just that. I feel up to it. Now isn’t that a Godsend.

• Birds: I spend a few minutes every morning with Maddie Rose looking out the big picture window in my dining room, watching the birds in my walnut trees. Robins, common sparrows, house sparrows, black-capped chickadees, magpies, crows, blue jays, sapsuckers, juncos visit to feed on the fallen nuts. I love watching them, but watching Maddie Rose is even better. That window is her big-screen TV and she never misses her morning show.

• Sewing: I haven’t done a lot of sewing since my children left home. The desperation to cloth growing children is long gone, but I’ve been trying my hand again on a few things for a new granddaughter. There is a pleasure in making burp towels and bibs again. Though not as relaxing as my crocheting (I’ve been crocheting every day since junior high. It helped with stress and helped form wonderful friendships with various ages of women. Sadly, most have gone from my life one way or other.) It’s still relaxing.

• Seed Catalogs: Years ago the seed catalogs never showed up until after the New Year. Not anymore. Now they’re in the mailbox early December, but I don’t have time to look at them. I stockpile them for after the Christmas Crazy is over. Well, there they are waiting for me, all luscious pictures and all. Nothing better than spending a cold day in front of the fire surrounded by seed catalogs.

• Getting my little work/desk planner up to date and set for the year: This is where I write down my writing goals: daily, monthly and for the year, where I want to submit and what, encouragements, what I actually get accomplished and how to improve my output. My planner is my writing partner, my coach, a part of My Own Writing Club (I’ll tell you all about that soon).

• Organizing my writing and setting goals: For the better part of the first half of January, I spend a large part of my writing time going through my work figuring out what needs to be submitted right away, what needs more work, which ideas still seem sound from last year, listing new ideas or changed ideas. I try to organize things so it’s easy to sit down at my desk and pick up what’s next to do.

Well, for two years I didn’t do anything about all the work I already had in various states of progress. A ton of stuff just stagnated, some things were just lost. Things were kind of left in mid-write and when I got feeling better, my mind was just not ready to tackle anything much more than this blog. I kinda took up something I heard from Christopher Reeve-Go Forward. I just moved forward and a lot of good stuff got left behind.

For instance, I was editing a Western Historical that I’d been working on for some time that was nearly finished. I haven’t opened it since. I need to decide what is best to do with that. I’m determined to finish a chapbook or poem book this year before December. It’s mostly done. I’m very proud of the poems I’ve been working on. I have several more near completion, many more ideas to work on.

My feeling is I need to focus some attention on all this and I’m actually looking forward to it. I’m excited again about my work. Story ideas have been forming again in my head, which is a relief because for so long it was as if that part of me had died. Now, I think, maybe, the energy for that was needed elsewhere.

An extra Godsend, isn’t it?