Starting the New Year at Woodsong

The half boxes of child-friendly cereals bought for the great grandsons’ holiday visit have been passed on to a friend with a little one in her home along with the extra gallon of milk I somehow ended up with in the garage fridge.

The New Year’s Day black eyed peas are all eaten up. (They made me remember little Jeannie from long ago who couldn’t remember their name and called them “cockeyed peas.”)

With all the holiday decorations boxed and put away in deep closet hidey holes and high closet shelves for another year, the house seems very plain right now. Perhaps especially so because we have had unusually warm winter weather this week, and the sun shines so brightly into the living room that it seems to highlight its emptiness.

I’ve gone through the addresses on the envelopes of the Christmas correspondence to make note of any address changes. I still look forward to a leisurely day when I can go through the basket of cards and re-read and really enjoy them. For many years it was my tradition to do this on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, but in recent years I don’t seem to get around to it. Maybe we will be snowed in soon, and that will be my special time for this pleasure.

I have caught up with the laundry, and as of today, the larger serving dishes used during the season are finally off the buffet and back in the china cabinet. At the first of the week, Gerald folded up the little table that held the desserts and Christmas treats, The ones we didn’t eat were passed on to Katherine’s house since Sam and his friend Josh might eat them after school.

Three books I ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday, and today I have sampled a bit of all of them. Evan Hayden Pullins’ slim collection called Blogging Through Life contains his beautiful and searingly poignant sharing of the mental illness he has suffered for many years now into his young adult years. His talent is enormous and his health difficulties are huge. We can only hope and pray that he can find peace with living with this disease and that he can continue to share with us his vision of the world. If you have a loved one with mental illness, you might want to order a copy to understand what they are suffering.

I am working again on the story of my great grandfather William Felix Grundy Martin and his wife Louisa Craig Martin. This endeavor has continued for many years, but I had not touched it since last March. I can only hope I can finally finish this and get on to the other essays I want to write for future generations about loved ones I have known. Especially I wany to write about my parents’ lives. The only thing I have written this past year were four short essays on Martin family members for the new Johnson County Historical Society book to be published in 2012. I always like to imagine how someone a century or so from now will happen onto my stories about my ancestors, who are also theirs, and how thrilled and appreciative they will be of my writing it down for them. Since I won’t be alive for them to thank me, I just enjoy their gratefulness with my imagination.