My plans for Wintery Seasons of Joy
Welcome to Wintery Seasons of Joy, I am so glad you are here! I have missed writing these posts, but y’know what? I have also missed looking back and reading them too. The next few months will be exciting as I seek to explore this side of my life again. Home is so incredibly important to me (as you all know), but, and I don’t say this lightly, how my cottage looks and feels is important also. I am learning-challenged when it comes to the whole ‘keeping home’. Mess and clutter abound. And until the homeschooling stops, I don’t believe I will ever get a handle on it. It is simpler, and so much more fun, to accept the mess and move on to the things I can change.
I love a cosy home….with lots of niknaks. I love that ever so hard balance to achieve when one’s home is messy enough to be comforting and welcome but not so messy it is dirty and unwelcoming. My desire is that one walks through the door and is enveloped by a feeling of peace. So the Wintery Seasons of Joy posts will be all about the bits and pieces I do, make, buy, create or read about to move ever closer to these goals.
I am not a house wife (really, I am very naff at that), but I am a homemaker in every sense of the word. Home is where I love to be. My family are who I love to be with. And home is where I want them to always return to, and feel safe and loved in. Home is a place where they can forget their worries for a while, take a deep breath and relax.
Wintery Seasons of Joy: Hand-made Christmas Presents
I had so much fun jotting down ideas for what to include in these posts. The goals parallel my hopes and dreams for my spare time. This Christmas, I did not make even one of the presents I gave, due to a severe lack of time. I overspent, buying gifts that were not nearly as exciting to both give or receive. Christmas has never been about the presents for us. It really spurred me on to be thinking about next year and trying to find some moderation.
To this end, I will be attempting to make Christmas presents throughout the year. I am not sure whether my children read all my posts (they certainly read the Precious Moments) so I’m not sure how much I will share.
Wintery Seasons of Joy: Photos Around the House
I take lots of photos, capturing all the wonderful moments of our family life. And, I blog fairly regularly, journaling those same moments. But I realised something horrible. I have very few photos in my home of the children, just a handful. Really, if you came to my house, you’d probably think it was a quintessential English cottage, nice and homey, if a bit messy. But you wouldn’t have a clue who lived here. So, each week, I intend to frame a photo and put it on a wall, or mantle piece, so by the end of the year I will have about fifty photos on display.
As you can see from the picture above, I have already been collecting photo frames from charity shops. The ones you see here cost £1.50 each! Aren’t they lovely? One was still in its original packaging, unused. I love me some charity shops. They are the equivalent to a treasure trove 🙂
Wintery Seasons of Joy: Christmas Decoration
Whenever I watch anything on the telly in the evening, I like to have something to do with my hands. Sewing simple Christmas decorations is a wonderful way to create something cosy for next year. I always use pyjamas the children have out grown. So, I hope to make at least one a week and I will post a photo in my seasons of joy posts.
Wintery Seasons of Joy: In the Home and Garden
Gary and I have declared Saturday a day for getting things done around the house and garden. Sometimes, especially for us in the last year, the general maintenance and upkeep of our cottage has fallen by the wayside. We are so blessed by the home we have, and it is the least we can do to maintain its beauty. We did loads over the holidays which I shall share next week, and we still have a long list to get done. But it feels good. It feels good to be telling time what we will do with it rather than time limiting us 🙂
Wintery Seasons of Joy: In the Kitchen
Lillie is now vegetarian. Thomas is needing more and more protein. Gary and I need to lose weight to be healthier. The little ones need to decrease their sugar. So many needs and not one really decent cook between us. I can cook, but my repertoire is small and very repetitious. This year I want to try out at least one recipe each week which seeks to meet at least some of the needs above. What with the cost of food going up all the time, it is a challenge to feed seven on the money we have available. If the recipe is a success I will be posting it here 🙂
Wintery Seasons of Joy: Hygge
Hygge is my word for the year. It is a Danish word and means ‘cosy, charming or special’. Every moment I have the power to change to be more Hygge, I will be taking the opportunity to do just that. I have a plethora of books on the subject and will be sharing all I am learning each week.
So, I hope you will join me. I hope we can learn from one another. Because, really, there in nothing so nourishing as creating a cosy home for our loved ones.
Click for all my past Seasons of Joy Posts