Some favorite things today

Today, a quiet Saturday in mid-January, I'm enjoying the nice slow pace of life, and finding comfort in some warm and cozy mid-winter things...

Home-made potato and ham soup for dinner

MCP Project 52 - Week 1 - Something In Your House

Here's my first entry into the MCP Project 52.  This week's theme was "Something In Your House".  You've seen this photo before, but I thought it would make a nice entry this week, and since I did take the photo within the past 7 days, it counts toward this week's assignment.  Just barely!   :-)

Putting Christmas Away

MCP Project 52

I've been tossing around the idea of joining the cool kids and attempting do the "Photo A Day", or Photo 365, or whatever you want to call it.  The idea being that you capture snippets and snapshots of your life every day for a year.  You can of course purchase special albums or scrapbooks to store these photos in - and I've been sorely tempted to do that too.   After all, shopping for scrapbook supplies has been one of the most habit-forming addictions of my life.  I think I'm over it now.  Or, I should say, I'm a recovering shop-aholic.  Anyway, I've been tempted to set the 365 goal for myself, but then I realize that I'd be setting myself up for disappointment after a while.  (I'm not being cynical - trust me, I cannot do a photo every day for a year.) Then I saw this idea today on Pioneer Woman's photography blog.  How 'bout just 52 photos per year?  Using the MCP Project 52.  Yes! that's more my style.

True spirit of giving?

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I was reading hundreds of blog posts from all over blog land, all with so many great ideas for making the holidays merry and bright.  I don't remember where I saw this tip, but I loved it and wanted to try it.  The original post was about how to inject some creativity into the packages that we mail to someone, and showed an example of using fresh cut pine boughs and scented pinecones instead of packing peanuts.  I loved this idea, and was excited to try it on a package that I was sending to a family member.

Happy Tuesday

I've been pondering the question lately:  What becomes of a blog that's entitled "Holidays at the Harris Home" when the holidays are over?  I know that I don't want to be done blogging, but the thing is, I'm not really into any holidays other than Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.  And I'm not even all that much excited about New Year's, but I include it here because it's kind of a package deal, you know?  But I just can't get myself excited over blogging a lot for the other holidays that come up in the year.  Don't get me wrong - I love me a good day off of work!  and I do get all Federal holidays off (helloooooo MLK Day! You scrumptious day off just two weeks after New Year's, you!)  But our family life doesn't really revolve around any of the other holidays, we don't really decorate, we don't have parties, we don't do countdowns.  With the exception of birthdays and Christmas, I guess we're kind of the non-celebratory types as it turns out.  (Is that bad?)

Closet Clean-up Before and After

I'm working on getting a little more organized around here these days, like a lot of you.  Putting the Christmas stuff away is a big job these days, and takes quite a few days in a row to get it all done.  But here  was a quick and satisfying organization project that only took an hour or so.

Before:

The De-Santa-fication Process Has Begun

"The de-Santa-fication process has begun. "  (Name that movie.)

New Year's Day around here most often is filled with un-decorating and football.  And maybe a little Rose Parade thrown in for good measure.  And of course the pork and sauerkraut that brings good luck all year long.

We've made it through about 95% of the dismantling, and about 50% of the packing away.  With breaks for cleaning, eating, and watching football, I anticipate that it will take both today and tomorrow, off and on, to complete. I hope to be done by dinner time tomorrow night.  Until then, these are some of the views we have around our house.