RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR FAVES

 

Here we are, in January of a new year.  

And another Friday to share FIVE of our  FAVE blessings from the past week. It's been a low-key week here....that lull between Christmas and regular routines beginning again on January 5th. To link up, head over to Susanne's site. 

FIVE FAVES

mid-day walks
my neighborhood

• WINTER WALKS: I do love walking outside in the fresh, winter air. As you can see, our area here in eastern New York doesn't have a whole lot of snow for snowshoeing (vastly different from western NY/upstate and the southern tier/finger lakes).  I'm thankful I had some good walks this past week although most of the time I needed layers due to the cold temps in the teens! Yesterday was just too cold for me, though so I stayed in after only making it halfway around the block!   I'm also thankful we had some sunny days to chase  away the gloomy ones. 

Smells like freshly brewed coffee!
I had it on the stove but moved it to the family room

reading and relaxing

• COZY AFTERNOONS:  Sunday was a total Sabbath for Dave and I.  We did go to church for the 11 AM service and had a wonderful conversation with our choir director who is like my third daughter (Hannah).  I had invited her to sit with us as she was alone.Her husband is in charge of Production so has to sit at the soundboard.  After church, we had leftovers from Christmas dinner and we spent the day reading (me), chatting, and drinking hot tea. Just about every afternoon this week, we have had a candle burning, books to read and just conversation. On the days Dave has had to work, I've enjoyed slowly taking down some Xmas decor and  chatting with friends on the phone.  I'm thankful our obligations have died down heading into the new year.  

Eagle View trail
in the midst of Peebles Island State Park 

• WINTER HIKE:  I really didn't expect to pop over to the state park and hike on Wednesday afternoon.  I had been at my hair stylist's to get a trim and my winter hikers and microspikes were in the trunk, along with my snowshoes. I always keep my trekking poles in the trunk and for some reason the other day I added the spikes and snowshoes. Well, I  drive through the state park to get home and decided spontaneously to try to hike. I put the spikes on the boots, grabbed both poles and off I went. SO thankful I had the microspikes because there was a LOT of thick ice on the trails. I ended up doing the short one, Eagle View, which is only a mile and that includes the out and back.  I  could have then taken a right and gone on the perimeter trail back to car but it was COLD. (24) so I called it a day.  The fresh air, quiet woods and pretty snow was nice though. I only saw 3 humans far ahead of me veer off to a  different trail and then I had  the one I was on all to myself. When I got to the end of it, I saw a woman walking two dogs on the perimeter trail.  Even though it was only 1 mile of exercise, I'm thankful I had the chance to do it. At least it was partly sunny! 

• MOVIE NIGHT:  Dave and I had an in-house date night last weekend and were thrilled to discover that the 2nd Downton Abbey movie was finally on Netflix. We watched the entire series on PBS back when we had cable and both girls were at home, and saw movie one at the movie theater with them. We don't like going out to the movie theater much due to the cost so we hadn't seen movie 2 which came out in 2022.  It was SO good. Now we will wait for the final movie to arrive to Netflix. I'm thankful for streaming services that have some good movies. 

• NEW YEAR'S EVE:  Dave and I had a very quiet New Year's Eve. Originally, I was planning on having some friends over for a party but they got the flu so it was just the two of us. Claire had to work until 7 and went home as she said she was tired. She's been fighting a head cold all week. Courtney and Tyler had their own plans. Dave bought some nice bubbly and I had one glass to welcome in the New Year.  He watched a movie on Paramount I wasn't interested in so I watched another episode of The Abandons on Netflix via my laptop. We spent a quiet evening and then by midnight we were both in bed. We chose to not watch the "ball drop" as in years past because in our opinion, it has gotten very trashy and just isn't all that great.  I'm thankful for a quiet evening at home. It must be the age as other friends texted me that they were doing the same thing! 

I hope you all have had a lovely, restful week.  We will be spending a few days in Plymouth Co MA and it will be nice to get away and have restaurants do the cooking.