Warm & Inviting Winter

While I am a transplanted NJ girl, I do not consider myself northern. I do not like the snow, the cold, or winter. This winter though I have decided to embrace it with welcome light. I left up star lights from Ikea, I light more candles. I make inviting spaces in my home and embrace the cold and dark nights. I am reading more. I am going out more and engaging friends more. I have not started baking but it could happen ;). I am filling my home with warm spaces and things I love to get me through the darkness.

Hot tea, my favorite thrifted runner, my wood coffee table I love, and my antique wooden bowl. Filling areas of your home with favorites help ward off the darkness. You are surrounded by love and constantly are feasting your eyes upon it.

The light that creeps in during the winter months helps ward off seasonal depression. This book case and everything on it keeps being rearranged to allow me to have things that make me happy on it. I am an English major so three of those book areas are mine. My daughter is also a book lover and two of them are hers. Leaving the here and now and venturing into literature is another great way to get through the winter months. Ikea book case can go horizontally or vertically and I love flipping it around from time to time and placing candles, postcards, thrifted items, and many other things on it.

There is a lake not far from here that I often wander around. They have tiny shells and goose feathers (on a good day) all around the lake and I love collecting and filling this antique bowl with different items throughout the year. Right now it has pine cones in it from another walk I took in the woods. Changing scenery in your home to whatever you forage is also a great way to beat the winter blahs. You can get out, enjoy the lake, woods, or whatever is around you, and it allows you to get a clearer perspective on life.

Candles. They light the dark months. They allow us to feel warmth. Never leave them alone, they can be sneaky and try and start a fire, but in the room you are in, light some to ward off those cold dark months. This is my little Buddha from TJMAXX. He was a couple of dollars and to the right of him is my elephant candle holder form Michaels. The feather I made in a ceramic class. The candlesticks are eco friendly. The ampersand above Buddha, well again English major geek here.

I Love Paris, I have been years ago and slowly I am filling my home with Eiffel Towers and other things that remind me of Paris. I know speak some French and hope one day to return to this gorgeous country known as France. It has rolling hills, beautiful country, fields of lavender, all things that make me dream through winter and again help me to move though the darkness.

Writing also helps with the darkness. Writing has been studied and is proven to mend a broken heart, help with the dealing of passing of a loved one, and just about any emotional trauma you might have gone through. Winter itself is traumatic to some. Surrounded by darkness, no friends, no family, and struggling to make it to the next day. To those of you I say, "Write". You do not have to be a writer as I am to write. No one is going to workshop your words. This is your darkness, write it out.

With so much darkness this time of year, remember that spring is coming and the light is just around the corner. I hope you find your own way of dealing with your darkness and hope you find your light.

Happy New Year to all my readers. I thank you for following along as I write, and make my way through the darkness. You are all a bright spot in my world.

All the best,

your story teller/ poet

Debbie

xoxox