January is OVER!


It's February 1st!  Can I get a Hallelujah?  Surely I am not the only one who thought that January lasted an eternity, am I?  While I know February is the shortest month of the year, usually it feels like it is the longest.  I hope that is not the case this year because January was just KILLER.  There was snow.  Snow that won't melt because it's been (and continues to be) too darned COLD.  If we are lucky here in the Poconos we may reach a temperature above freezing (by one degree) two weeks from today!  And things are not much better in my home of NJ where it may reach above freezing (again by one degree) in 13 days.  Just for reference, today in Greenland it will be WARMER than it is in many places in the United States (including NJ and PA). (Maybe Greenland is trying to send us a message?  If it were up to me, I'd leave Greenland the heck [okay, I'd rather use a stronger word than that, but...] alone!  Let them keep their land and their temperatures; let us stay the heck out of it.)

January was just overly cruel.  And I'm not just talking about the weather.  I'm talking about the people who died:  Catherine O'Hara, Bob Weir, Valentino, Claudette Colvin, Floyd Vivino and the list goes on.  You may not know all those people; feel free to Google them.  There were also the deaths of Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Víctor Manuel Díaz, Parady La,  Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz, Heber Sánchez Domínguez,  Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.  You probably know the last two names, but they were all human beings who died, either directly or indirectly as a result of what I consider cruelty and inhumanity.  (You are free to disagree.)

I had (have?) hopes for 2026.  I always have hope when a new year comes in.  Thus far 2026 hasn't been living up to my hopes.  My gratitude jar only has two small slips of paper in it.  And while I continue to be grateful for what I have (and I hope you are too), finding things and moments that stand out for gratitude are too far and few between.  I keep searching, but it was difficult in 2025 and January 2026 has been even more so.

But here we are in February.  A month when we celebrate Black History, the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, Valentine's Day and the birthday of George Washington.  Those things give me hope.

And we are inching our way to spring.  (Oh so slowly, but...)  While the days are still too darned cold, I know that warmer day are ahead.  (46 days to go...yes I am counting down every single day because I NEED spring.)  The days are getting longer/lighter.  My outdoor lights come on and even before it is dusk.  Of course most of them are buried under the snow.  It's pretty funny to watch patches of snow glow at night because underneath it is a light trying to shine...maybe that's a message to us all?  Maybe someday I'll be able to find my holiday lights and the solar panel that feeds them?  (They can't light up anymore because they, and the panel, are buried under huge piles of snow.)

I'm going to do my best to embrace February.  Maybe you will too?  Maybe if we all went into this new month with renewed hope, energy and determination, this year will turn out to be...well...okayish?


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