Friday Favorites

Back with the Friday Favorites! These should be the easiest posts ever, right?

And, well, okay, they are pretty easy. What I want to enthuse on today is January. Right? It's the coldest, darkest, most miserable month of the year, and it doesn't even have any holidays to enliven it. A cold, sober month. And yet I love it so (although I freely admit that if I lived in Toronto, or the Outer Hebrides, I might feel differently). (Wouldn't that be so cool to live in the Outer Hebrides? And probably much more bearable in these days of Netflix and the Internets.)

My favorite things about January:

1. All that busy, hot holiday shtick is DONE. I love Christmas as much as the next person, but man, I am always so glad to see it go.

2. My family's birthday season is over. We begin in August, with Silas, rocket through my nephew, my MIL, Hubs, my dad, my SIL, my sister, my mom, and me, finishing up with Helen just before Christmas. At which point: WHEW. There are a few outliers who require attention and presents at odd times, like May, but for the most part, presents and parties are put aside.

3. Although I am in a low swing in my affection-for-cold cycle, I do like cold weather, at least in theory, and January has plenty of it. I like the frosty hay-colored grass in the morning, I like the plumes of steam sent up by energy plants in the early morning, I like the white tufting on the mountains in the morning (you: uh, Melospiza, I think that's called frost).

4. I like the abstemiousness and frugality of the month, after all the overeating and overspending of December. Again, some years this frugality is more, uh, theoretical than in other years, but still. I likka the idea.

5. The days are getting longer again. Now when I leave the office at five it is still pale dusk when I get to Helen's school, and not pitch black. Oddly, though, the mornings are still very long and dark. I am REAAAALY looking forward to doing my runs in the twilight, instead of the dark. REAAAAAALY.

So! Go forth and prosper! Also, have a good weekend.