I think my resting January is ending

 I resolved to rest, goof off, hibernate for all of January. That was in tired December. Here we are, the tenth, about which more later, and I'm definitely looking forward to a new round of Winnowing.

This is like my beach time. After half an hour of just sitting watching waves and vegging, I'm ready for a nice hike along the shore, a walk to the paperback shore bookstore, birding, drawing, shell collecting. Several hours later I return and find the same people still lying in the sun, chillin.  I think I rest fast or something.

Anyway, January two years ago, pre pandemic, I did  a Great Winnowing, literally emptying my art studio, giving a lot of great materials to younger artists to use, donating to various organizations. Also a lot of other household items to various organizations. Longtime readers will remember the pix of stuff being boxed and bagged and moved, endlessly.

I filled the car to drive useful kitchen and other stuff to the thriftie. Then the pandemic caused the thriftie to lock down. 

Then I ended up, when I really had to replace the  twenty year in old car with a less old one, moving many bags and boxes hither and thither, old car to house again, then out to new car,  till I was able to donate. The  mileage on that stuff..

Since then I've Freecycled a lot of useful home improvement stuff, snapped up by diyers during lockdown, and have had a simpler house.

But here we are, itching to do a bit more, largely because hunting up bits of fabric for underwear repair, still in progress, I noticed how random it all was. 

Things that belonged together turned up in half a dozen places. So that's going to happen.  Reunification of the fabrics and threads and tools, winnowing of surplus same..

Since we're in a new lockdown, I may be carrying a lot in the car again,  till the thriftie opens.

Sandra Boynton gets the feeling.

In other vital news you need right now (predictive text turned my "right now" into "next week". Somebody's not with the program) here's the next bit of fancy repair. 

Owing to overwhelming demand. Well, Becki mentioned it. Note the nice doorway effect in the hem.

This cardi really is near the end of its life. These aren't moth holes, we don't have any, but places where the thread is collapsing. Cashmere is soft, not designed for hard wear. And this is an ancient piece.

I think soon I'll felt this one and use the fabric to stitch cosy bed socks. It's very warm. Meanwhile, it's hanging in there.

And today is my dad's birthday. I have little memory of the deaths of family, probably too traumatic to remember, but I know every birthday.  

He would have been 126 today. Since he died at 63, it's symmetrical. My Mom will register the same numbers on March 6. I've now  been without them for the equivalent of their lifetimes. 

Yes, I was young. They both got sick and went in the same yeara few months apart, before I graduated uni. First university degree earned ever in my extended family. So I hoped they somehow knew it. 

They left school at 12, and had a large family every one of whom emigrated to better things,  had  careers, some spectacular,  and became homeowners into the bargain, all family firsts.  

Emigration wasn't a first --relatives on both sides of the family came to the US in the 1850s, when there was widespread strife and unemployment in Europe. Their descendants are still somewhere about in northern New York State, don't ask me where. Not skilled at tracking, also one family was named Smith, very helpful!

Anyway, I learned a new cardgame this morning in Dad's honor, he being a card fan. I tried Beehive patience. Simple enough for my early morning brain.

So that's all the news that's more or less fit to blog. Did I mention it's also Plough Monday, when, centuries ago, ag labor used to start up again after the Christmas break? Maybe it's in my DNA, to get going again today.