Ten Little Celebrations – January 2024

There are so many little celebrations every day. Here are my top 10 for January 2024.

51 years of being married. OK – perhaps this one is not ‘little.’ We marked the day by getting a special meal (picked up, eaten at home)…but the more significant part of the celebration was the savoring of being long marrieds…of always being supportive of each other, particularly when things are stressful.

Spider lily bulbs. I celebrated getting spider lily bulbs (and some iris rhizomes) planted before the very cold weather in mid-January.

A fragrant candle. I finally used up a very fragrant candle I had moved from Maryland (in the car since they are not permitted on moving trucks). When I entered my office each morning, I celebrated how it smelled from the candle I’d burned a few hours the previous evening!

Being home. Being away from home for 7 weeks and then leaving again for Texas 2.5 weeks later for a few days gave me several opportunities to celebrate coming and being home!

Braum’s Strawberry Poppyseed Chicken Salad. Yum. I had about given up on finding something at a fast food place that I liked…so I celebrated this discovery. The greens are fresh, the grilled chicken tender, the strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple make it special.

First Snow. I celebrated being home for snow…not on the road between Texas and home!

Patterns in the snow. I celebrated my first pattern walks in the snow…hope to try it again soon.

Old friends. I celebrated that two old friends (that I hadn’t talked to in years) contacted me just when I needed to talk to them…before I even realized how wonderful that would be.

2 years cancer free. Celebrating a 2-year mark of a 5-year monitoring regime for cancer after surgery…and all the checks are indicating no cancer.

Being indoors. When the temperature is single digits or below zero…it’s worth celebrating an indoor day in a warm house.

Everything Pumpkin

Pumpkin (and associated spices) is everywhere since I’ve been home.

I am slowly but surely beginning to use the pumpkin puree that was prepared and frozen in the first weeks of November: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies (Quaker Oats has several more pumpkin and oats recipes I am going to try as well), soups (just add a little broth, some protein, and some other veggie to the pot…fried onions or pumpkin seeds on top), and custard. The soups don’t have the pumpkin-pie-spices but just about everything else I am cooking with pumpkin does. The pumpkin just melds together with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves to create my favorite late fall and winter smell.

Recently I have been burning a pumpkin spice candle in my office too…carrying the smell far away from the kitchen.

Recently I have been burning a pumpkin spice candle in my office too…carrying the smell far away from the kitchen.

It provided the scent for one of my favorite afternoons recently – hot apple cider rooibos tea, snow outside the window with the dried hydrangea from last fall on the sill, good books and music on the computer.