Looking Back at January 2022

Happy February!  I saw a lot of comments t?  That we wish life would slow down?  Yes, January would not be my first pick of a month to go slowon Instagram towards the end of January, seemingly lamenting how long January was.  BUT I was delighted with how long January felt!  Aren't we all always complaining that life moves too faser (July, definitely, then December) BUT life does usually seem to be moving fast and I will take a month that felt very long.  It started with Christmas and ended with a pending blizzard (that we are currently living through).  A LOT happened in January, mainly puzzles and reading and realizing how many bottle brush trees I DO own (I have already forgotten but we'll just go with more than Matt would like/realizes).  And thanks to new tracking I am doing, I know I read somewhere around 230 picture books to my boys in January, 230 DIFFERENT picture books, Sam especially will latch onto some favorites so some of those we read multiple times.  Tracking is great for helping to realize how much I DO actually get done, even on the many days it seems like not much is getting accomplished.

Looking back:
1 year ago: Favorite {Grown-Up} Reads of 2020
2 years ago: Book Love: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
3 years ago: The Whole House Purge
4 years ago: Front Room Shelves (I still love these)
5 years ago: Basement Pantry: Organized
6 years ago: Book Love: Big Magic (and why I think you should blog)
7 years ago: A Big Project - Photography Organizing
8 years ago: Office Renovations
9 years ago: Things I Like - January (I was just talking tonight about how much I love these boots, still)
11 years ago: The Carpet has Landed!
13 years ago: First Post

1) January 2nd with my new planner, new calendar, and doing some planning and scheduling and it was LOVELY.
2) Sam delighted in this ~15 minutes, on sunny days, when the sun would hit the disco ball trees just right and throw up reflections around the room.
3) We had a family fun day on Luke's last day of Christmas break.  Went bowling and then tried to get the boys to like Arby's for lunch (they always INSIST on Wendy's when we do fast food but Matt & I really missed Arby's).  Since Matt & the boys shared a (large) shake, I got a frozen coke.  They are delightful, even in January.
4) Puzzling!  I got this one for Christmas so it was the first one I did!
5) Taking down all the upstairs bottle brush trees.  2020 was the first year I decorated our bedroom for Christmas and these are all the trees that were just in that room.  Aren't they lovely??
6) One of the Lego sets I got for Christmas was a floral set that Matt found on sale (What?!?!? Legos on sale??) for me.  These are the roses. 
7) MOST of the downstairs bottle brush trees, at least all the ones that went with the particular area I was packing up this day (packing away Christmas was a multi-day process).  I had to do some rearranging of the high shelves in my office so all my big ceramic and bottle brush trees could go there and not risk getting smooshed in boxes (also, they all wouldn't have fit in the boxes I use for Christmas).
8) Another day, another puzzle.  I finished 6 in January!
9) Sam "mowing" the backyard on a January day. "I guess Dad not going to mow so I have to!"
10) A quiet Sunday morning when Matt & the boys were out of the house and I got some Grey's with my breakfast and tea!
11) Back to baking with yeast!  One of my 22 in 2022 projects is off to a good start!
12) Snow!  The boys were DELIGHTED when we got some good snow to play in again!
13) A date downtown on a snowy Monday.  We just walked around a few blocks for 30 minutes (all we put on the meter) and it was truly delightful.
14) Working from home, yet again, because I am finally getting an office (I've sat in like 6 different places in the past 10 years there) and it was a slow process getting it ready for me (it's still not done but it IS functional).
15) My hyacinth, they made our kitchen smell like Easter for a few days!
16) The LAST Christmas cookie, there were times we still had truffles in to September but, thanks to hungry boys, they were all done by the end of January this year!

Books finished: 16!
Miles ran: 0.00!
Currently watching: We're working through the Marvel phase 4 on Disney+ and I'm catching up on Grey's, once I finally started I got through 6 in a week!
Most read post this month: It's going to be Stripping: Laundry Style until the end of time.  But second was Favorite {Grown-Up} Reads of 2021.
Luke's current favorite song: "Brian Eno" by MGMT
Sam's current favorite song: "We Will Rock You" by Queen

Happy February, the last month I consider winter!