January is like the calm after the storm. I like January. I like the cold weather and, yes, I even like the snow that inevitably comes with January. I’m not saying that I like to drive in the snow. No Way! I like snow when I can stay in, snuggle under an afghan with a cup of hot tea close by, and enjoy a good book. Or a knitting project that doesn’t take a lot of concentration. Yeah, that would be more me. January is the month that I need to catch up with projects that I’ve just let slide during the year. So now I have a list of those projects that, hopefully, I’ll be able to get caught up with by the end of the month.
I just got through bringing the checkbook up-to-date again. I have a BAD habit of not writing down the transactions when I use the debit card. Sometimes I get several months behind. Especially when I’ve had a couple of busy months like Nov. and Dec. was for me. I literally had to take one week or, in some cases, one day at a time just to get everything done that I wanted to do for all the birthdays that we have this time of year and then of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas. So it takes me a while to get caught up again with the checkbook. (Especially with the spending I did for Christmas.)
Now the next project is to file the important and shred all the useless receipts that I’ve neglected to do on a monthly basis during the year. Got to get ready for tax time! Woohoo! That’ll take a couple of days for sure!
The next project on my list is getting caught up with my photos. I tend to stack them into a pile also. In fact, I’m about two years behind with them. We have a digital camera now, and sometimes I remember to get hard copies of our pics and sometimes I don’t. I like and don’t like this camera. I’m used to having albums that can be looked through. I guess I’m still a little old-fashioned.
Daughter #1 gave us a digital photo frame for Christmas and we really like it. The little chips are getting so cheap that we could buy smaller ones just to keep our pics on now that we have the frame to show them. That huge chip we originally bought for our camera is so big and holds so many pics that it takes forever to find the pics that you want to show someone.
Daughter #2 gave us a smaller digital frame that’s key chain size. I can download just the pics I want on it and show it off to my friends at work. I love how handy it is. Hubby gave me a picture printer so I can print off the pics I want to save into an album. I’ve been wanting one for a long time. I love having that option! I knew I’d love a printer if I had one. If I didn’t know my family better, I’d think they all got together to give me all of these. But they do know that I love pics, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to me.
The next project that I’ll tackle is one that I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time. In fact, every new January I’m hoping that I’ll get this done, but I get side-tracked and it’s not done yet. How many years have I been wanting to do this? I don’t think I have that many fingers and toes to count them! The project? GET MY RECIPES ORGANIZED! I love to try new recipes and occasionally I try one that I’d like to keep. I love to bake so most of the recipes are for baking — breads, pies, cookies, etc. The keepers I’d like to save for the Fair competition that I enter every summer. BUT my recipes are a big jumbled up mess!! And that’s putting it mildly! I have several cookbooks that are blank and titled, “My Favorite Recipes” so I really don’t have an excuse for this mess. I dream of it all being put together and organized. How great would it be to just go right to a favorite recipe that I KNOW I have and get started making it. Well, maybe this year it’ll happen.
One more smaller project is to finish getting my Fair ribbon scrapbook brought up-to-date. I just have last year’s ribbons to put into the scrapbook, so that project shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, if even that long. I’ve been keeping it up pretty good over the years. I’m kind of proud of that accomplishment. At least I’m not totally disorganized! 
So it sounds like my calm-after-the-storm January is going to be pretty busy. But it’s a calming busy, which is good. I just hope I can stick with all of these projects to get them done. What a nice feeling that would be! So, not much knitting for me this month. Unless it snows and I don’t have to go out in it!
