Into the new year

We are now a week into the new year, but I couldn't tell you what I've done with it. Because we never had our family Christmas, the tree is still up and the wreath is on the door, but I've put other little things away. Traditionally I take everything down on Epiphany, but since we won't be together till the kid flies out in three weeks, up it will stay. I'll probably have to dust the presents before they all arrive.

I finished The 19th Wife and found it sad and perplexing. This is our Book Club book, but I have some weeks yet till it's discussed. Now I'm reading a mystery that won the Edgar Award for best first novel by an American author, In the Woods by Tana French. There are hints that create foreboding, alas, and I hope this is not going to have a dreadful ending. If so, I may have to resort to extreme frivolity for a while, and not the bio of FDR that is waiting.

Yesterday was my volunteer afternoon, helping with homework and teaching the complexities of double-digit subtraction and addition to girls who haven't quite learned it, and then Art League in the evening. I confess I nearly fell asleep during the demonstration, which was very interesting and well done, by a plein air painter named Cynthia Britain. I'd love to do one of her workshops, so I hope she didn't see me yawning. The first Wednesday of each month is long for me.

It was a lovely day here, in the mid-70s, and I spent the morning in the front garden, weeding and picking up sticks. We have some white birch trees, and the winter winds break the deadwood, as if the trees, having shed their leaves, go on to shed their exhausted, useless branches too. My daffodils are coming out, but so are the dandelions. Oxalis is encroaching on the few iris that have appeared, so tomorrow I will rout that out. I have nothing against oxalis in other spots, but not in that bed.

I have not seen the baby this year, which means she will be more than twice as old when we visit them on Saturday. Her happy parents report that she is sleeping for two hours at a stretch and is eating well. That's about all she has to to right now.