Documenting Counterweights

The current situation in my state is difficult and the effects are felt far and wide. Here are some counterweights, little beautiful things:

• Golden light coming through the dining room picture window and bouncing off green houseplants, safe from the subzero weather outside, and illuminating the harp is warm and joyful.
• My favorite neighborhood flower shop closed at the end of the year, which was much more sad than I would have anticipated. Just the presence of that little shop was joyful! But before they closed I managed to use a gift card for weekly flower wraps that someone had given me, and I had fresh flowers all through the month of December. I had been holding that gift card for months! And I would have never used it in consecutive weeks like I did if the shop had not been closing. Since flowers last a long time in my chilly house, we had a house full of flowers for several weeks. Finally they were looking pretty wilted and rought, so Peanut Maximus and I used the petals to make ice ornaments that we hung in the tree outside the back window, and now the sun shining through the flowers in ice disks has been bringing happiness on the super cold days we have been having.
• There are no mosquitos in January. I’ll just point that out.
• We have had a string of subzero days that has lasted for a couple of weeks now, and thick wool socks, tall muk luk boots with wool calves, and fleece lined wool mittens have been helping my disposition. I’ve also been wearing my knitted chicken hat, which is such a fun and ridiculous hat.
• You know you are in the Northland when you look around at your choir rehearsal and literally 50% of the singers are sitting with muk luk boots on their feet! This also made me smile so much! Additionally, getting to go to choir rehearsal is a great way to take your mind off the news and other circumstances for a a few hours.
• I will never get tired of little dimple-knuckled hands building interesting things with colored blocks.
• I often read blogs with book lists, and I ended up with a fantastic library bag full of amazing new picture books that I had requested from one of those lists. They were so fun to read!