Noted: January (Over a Cuppa)

Hi, Hey, Hello!

Thank you for joining me! I’m so happy to share a spot of time with you! How the heck are you?!

What can I get started for you? I’m brewing up some black tea with milk and honey (obviously) but also have coffee or any herbal tea your heart could desire and could whip up some hot cocoa quickly, if you’d like! Don’t be shy 😉

The sun is warm but the breeze is a bit chilly today, shall we have a seat at the kitchen table to catch up?

January Was The Longest, Quickest Month, No?

I want to begin by apologizing for ghosting you and this space after my Blogiversary post at the beginning of the month. It was not intended but is what happened and so here we are, on the last day of the first month of 2026, trying to remember where all those hours went and how not a single blog inspiration made it’s way into this space.

January is not the same New Beginning for me as it seems to be for many people. January is still dead Winter and very much a quiet time of deep reflection and rest, not a time for resolutions and jumping back into the swing of anything. Luckily, as a homeschooling mama who farms full time and lives in a climate with four full seasons, I’ve had the luxury of leaning into this for the past few years and relish every moment of the dark months while counting the additional minutes of light in gratitude as we stretch towards the warmer months.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I did nothing, it just means I moved a bit slower and with deep intention as I began to set the foundation for the year ahead.

And, it may go without saying, but there was some truly heavy anger and grief to process this month.

And so it was.

All in all, how are you doing as we slide into a new month, full of promise and further uncertainty?

If you were impacted by the massive storm here in the US, how’d you fair? We were very cold, but had everything we needed and experienced zero issues. Whew, what a storm though!

Planning

While I try to stay away from Big Change in January, I decided to try my hand a new format for my weekly task lists and (so far) it working out wonderfully!

Instead of working in my old standby, a Moleskin weekly planner, I’ve decided to scale down and utilize a pocket sized notebook with simple lined pages perfect for limited (though thorough enough) to-dos.

Adding this pocket sized notebook to my growing collection of pocket notebooks, I asked for a Loche pocket journal for Christmas and my lovely wife entertained my inspiration 🙂

I will devote a stand-alone post about where the true inspiration for pocket notebooks has come from and how it’s all coming together and working out, but I couldn’t resist mentioning it all here because it’s been a big part of my January.

Do you keep a weekly planner or written task lists?

Reading

As I’ve decided to focus in my To Be Read (TBR) pile (audio and physical) this year, January helped kicked me off with four solid reads and a fifth in progress.

Finished:

• The Cat Who Saved the Library
• The Primal of Blood and Bone
• The Anthropocene Reviewed
• The House on Mango Street

In progress:

• The London House

Have you done any reading recently or looking to start something new soon?

Listening

I listened to a lot of music this month and was gifted the most wonderful surprise by my wife last week! She found my old iPod and replaced the battery in it for me! With nearly 10,000 songs on it (digitized from all my CDs about 15 years ago), I’d thought they’d been lost to the ever changing “progress” of technology when it stopped working and our (very old) Mac could no longer be updated without a whole heap of trouble.

And so now, I’m revisiting so many amazing tunes I’d almost forgotten about from everyone from Etta James to Ben Folds Five to Jimi Hendrix to Harry Connick Jr. and so many others in between!

Have you been enjoying any good music lately? Do tell!

Being

All in all, the month was spent just doing my best to stay in the present moment. Spraining my wrist mid-month helped me slow down a bit, so that helped? 😉

My slow January also helped to renew my commitment to less screen time and refreshing my home screens on my phone to reinforce my ideals.

That’s All Folx

Thank you for spending a spot of time with me here, catching up over a cuppa.

As always, thanks to Natalie for continuing to host us for the #weekendcoffeeshare. She’s asking us to link up in the comments now after some struggles with the linky platform, so please pop around and see what others are up to!

Wishing you a lovely slide through the full moon and the first days of February. I’ll be focusing on catching up on all I missed in your neck of the woods in the days ahead 🙂

Rue and I hope you are staying cozy and enjoying a little levity wherever you can find it!

Onward,

Melissa