Are you ready for the new year? I haven’t had much excitement for
challenges or revamping my life right now. Actually, I’ve been taking the gentle advice I’m about to give you.

December was active, mentally and physically. Christmas activities begin at school long before Christmas day arrives. We had family visit during the holidays. We hosted a couple different Christmas parties. There wasn’t much time to rest and relax. After the festivies were over we all four came down with a nasty bug. I think it’s influenza. The forced rest was just what I needed. I came into the New Year rested and quiet. Even though we have been sick, I feel recharged and ready to face the today.

The Nature of Winter
When I look out my windows, I see the garden sleeps under a blanket of snow. The naked trees wait. My chickens spend the day roosting in the coop, with only an occasional murmur. Eggs are essentially a seasonal product, in spite of the fact that electric lights make them possible in December.

Most wildflower seeds need the cold to soften their hard seed coats. Fruit trees that experience the frosts produce more and stronger buds. The extended freeze kills bugs and helps to contain diseases. The quietness is all you hear. Nature appears to be doing nothing but it is busy getting ready for spring. The world outside seems to know how and when to rest.

I’m not a robot, running at top efficiency all the time. I needed a recharge. But I can’t hibernate because I have obligations to my family and community. The schedule seems to fill up without any help from me. And a niggling worry that rest is laziness makes me hesitate to allow it. Yet the benefits of rest are many. A good night’s sleep boosts the immune system and puts us in a better mood. Regular rest promotes clearer thinking, reduces stress and boosts creativity. These are things I want in my life in the coming year.

Rest is something I can do on purpose. It’s all right not to make the most of every minute. Maybe it’s better to make the best of it. If you need someone to give you permission, I’m here to say, January is time to rest.

The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.
-E. Joseph Cossman

How to Rest
Even if I am working to meet a deadline, there are little ways to make it not so exhausting. Doing one thing at a time is always good. Even if I love to stir and shape my sourdough bread, it doesn’t nurture me as it could if my mind is elsewhere. Doing the daily tasks in a leisurely way lets me notice what I like about them- like the scent
of clean clothes and the texture of the fabric and the neat stack of folded shirts or towels. Laundry and sourdough bread are some of my favorite homemaking tasks, but even cleaning can be better if I let it catch my interest and thoughts. Good-smelling, homemade cleaners always help.

After lunch a little reading* (and even falling asleep a few minutes) is so rejuvenating. Sometimes I wonder if I actually get more done when there’s time for a nap. I do get it done in a more relaxed and easy frame of mind, anyway.

I try to encourage lingering at the supper table. I can light candles, use cloth napkins or serve hot tea to finish the meal. A cup of peppermint tea and pleasant conversation aids digestion, refilling nutrition stores. After supper is
cleaned up, I consider the day basically done. Why not journal a bit or put a few pieces in a puzzle? I think this idea comes from my mom. She never did more than clean up supper after the meal. Then we could take a bike ride (in the summer) or she would read to us (in the summer and winter!!)

One evening this week I sat on the couch looking at some very old songbooks we had acquired over Christmas and singing all by myself. The idea is to get a little bored in the long quiet evening and maybe an inspiration will surface in my mind.

Occasionally a long shower or bath relaxes and restores my emotions.
Another way to rest is in acceptance. Now is now and it is what it is. Accept the darkness, the cold, the wind, the rain, the mud. Quietly do what it takes to deal with it. Accept the flu and just rest in it. Accept the children who interrupt my train of thought. Here is where I am, and I must go through this to get to the other
side. When I get there, I don’t want to have missed all the good I could’ve gotten in this season of life.

Try looking for a mental shift. See things in a new way. I can also choose to embellish life with a bit of romance or novelty. If this was a day in a story, how would the author describe it? One very bad weather day, my mother came in from the outside with a blast of cold air and said, “That wind is cruel.” My brother spoke up, “That
makes it sound way too interesting.” That’s what embellishing our everyday life does, it makes it interesting.

Would you like an adventure now or shall we have our tea first?
-Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie

Rest is Good
How will resting make your life better? It will bring inspiration, focus and strength to the decisions and goals you make for the rest of the year. Starting from full reserves brings about a momentum to keep you going.

Focusing our energy inward to the basics as we begin the new year prepares our hearts to be resilient and our minds to be open to new ideas. Today, create the quiet sanctuary where you can begin to imagine the future. As the days lengthen you will feel your energy build to meet the demands of the next season. Ideas will sprout.

Your heart will be ready to help them grow.
We don’t have to rush headlong into the new year. Choose to rest and recharge.
-Eva and Liz

• Some titles you might like: The Life-Giving Table by Sally Clarkson, Hygge by Meik Wiking, Love the Home You Have by Melissa Michaels, Fresh Eggs Daily by Lisa Steele, The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith, A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen, any seed catalogs, or anything you are curious about. Some of these books are new to me this year but most of them I come back to time and again to remind myself of their good
  thoughts.
  *Eva’s list (for some fiction): Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher, anything by Kate Morton or Agatha Christie (if you like easy read who-dun-its), A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy, The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir by Jennifer Ryan, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society by Annie Borrows and Mary Ann Shaffer