Looks Like We Made It...

or hooray for the end of January. (And thank you to Barry Manilow for the beautiful croon so many years ago. I still have such sweet memories of sitting on the bleacher seat of Red Rocks Amphitheater with my mother, listening to him play away. Or maybe it was with Cub Sweetheart? Either way, I was there and it's a sweet - if not crystal clear - memory.) But this is a rabbit trail, so let me get back on track.

I don't care where anyone lives, I can't imagine that January is their favorite month. (I've actually always felt bad that our son's birthday landed in that month. Mine is in glorious June, so much better!) If January was so great we wouldn't need Groundhog Day on February 2. I assume people in Arizona and California watch the giant rodent every year, to find out if he sees his shadow or not, then they go back to their merry, sunny lives. But the people up in Punxatawney take it all much more seriously. Not what the rodent declares but rather the opportunity to have a rollicking outdoor celebration when there is little else to celebrate.

So goodbye January. And thank you, whoever decided to make February the shortest of months. Good idea there. March isn't actually that great in much of the US but it is better than January and February, even when it's only for a teaser day or two. Just enough to convince us we can hold out a bit longer and spring will once again arrive at our doorsteps.

January has actually been a busy month. Here's what I've been up to or have going on:

This dip is in my immediate future:

It's in the current issue of Southern Living, and the recipe is posted HERE.  The fact that it has black eyed peas (those possibly purchased to celebrate New Year's Day but never actually prepared?) makes it an instant draw for me. People either adore or abhor them, and I fall in the first camp, having been raised on them served over a bed of white rice. This dip sounds like the perfect one for Super Bowl Sunday. I have no idea what we're doing that day, and we don't overly have an opinion on who we want to win, but I will be preparing this dip. How much Cub Sweetheart and I eat will depend on if there is anyone around to share it with. If you think your group of snackers falls in the 'hate black eyed peas' I think you could possibly not tell them and they might not notice.....

(I may also buy some BBQ wings to make CS happy since he happens to fall in the latter camp.)

How his mother could have been raised in Arkansas and yet CS doesn't really love cornbread, biscuits, grits or black eyed peas is such a mystery to me.

I took off piano lessons for the entire time we were in Idaho, but started back up this past month. God bless my piano teacher - she has such patience and a sense of humor. So I'm in the middle of book two and still having such a good time. It's good for my brain, good for my arthritic fingers and hearing my fingers make any semblance of music is good for my soul.

Cub Sweetheart continues to ask me if there will ever be any money in it.

No.

Another oh-so-happy development - two of the women in my neighborhood Bible study asked me to teach them to knit. We'll meet today for the third time, and have grown into a group of about a dozen of us. We're labeled the very dignified Sit and Giggle Group, and we knit, crochet, hand piece quilts. Some are very experienced, some are learning to cast on, knit, purl and pick up dropped stitches. A new member has asked me to teach her to knit socks, so we'll tackle that today. I've been looking for fellow knitters here in my Texas neighborhood for the two years since we moved in, so this is such an answer to prayer! So many sweet faces gathered around the table. To start your own knitting group go HERE. 

And lastly - I discovered Overdrive. I've been an avid reader as long as I can remember, have three library cards in my wallet, but I've never downloaded an e-book free from the library. I've downloaded some free ones - and paid for a few - from Kindle, but I honestly had no idea I could go to my library's web page, request a hold and I'd get an email telling me the ebook was ready to download; with a simple click it would magically download to my kindle. To learn more about using Overdrive and Libby go HERE.  So far I've downloaded John Steinbeck's novella, Of Mice and Men and also just got The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - our neighborhood bookclub's March book choice.

Apparently I can also download audio books, rather than pay $16 a month to audible. Who knew? Oh joy! Such perfection and it's free-thirty! I also found out our local library has drop in classes every single Monday to further explain how to download materials to an e-reader. How great is that?

So that's it for here - I'll be back in February, after we hear what the future weather will hold :-)

P.S. If you have never seen Groundhog Day with Bill Murray or it's been awhile, try to grab it from your library or download it. There are how many movies about every other holiday under the sun, but this one, about Groundhog Day, is a sure spirit lifter for a perfectly timed holiday. I spend $2.99 every year to rent it from Amazon Prime - cheapest holiday celebration ever!

P.S.S Question: What are you up to? How are you getting through the winter months?