January

This month has been a hard slog. I am sure, I am not alone feeling this way.

It's been a long year and last holiday season was so busy, busier than normal, which I am extremely grateful for, but I still get tired like everyone else. To protect myself from having to quarantine again, I had my intern stay home. She's a nurse at a local hospital and I knew the only way I could pull this past holiday season was to make sure my brother came to work to help me ship packages.

I was exposed to Covid-19 on Halloween and had to work alone for two weeks and it was too busy to have to do that. I was tired before the holiday rush was in full swing. It's funny I had already forgotten about that, until I just typed it. No wonder I have been so tired.

To ease back into the New Year I thought I would start with preparing my taxes. That may sound like a Herculean task, but every Monday, of the new month, I itemize revenue and expenses. It's a lot easier doing it once a month, than once a year.

As I was going over expenses, I noticed a strange charge, and looked into it more. It was a fraudulent charge on my business debit card, meaning I had to cancel the card and get a new one. 

As I was driving into Plainwell, to get my replacement card, I was looking at the trees. They were really quite lovely. In the winter, with all the leaves fallen, you can really see the variety of the trees. It's interesting how their branches grow in different directions, how some branches seem to spiral, while others jut out.

It got me thinking about what happens to trees in the winter? Are they dormant? Are they growing, but just much slower? It reminded me of the conversation Joe and I have every summer about the grass. 

Me: Wow! The grass is dead!

Joe: Heidi, the grass is not dead, it's not dormant. When the conditions are right it will grow again.

Driving into to town it hit me. We need rest, we (humans) need to lay fallow, we need to be dormant, like grass, like the trees, and when the conditions are right we shall grow again. 

The trees outside the studio.