January is, for me, a month to be borne.  It is incredibly cold, long and generally taxing, this year in particular.  With more animals on the farm this winter there come more chores, more outside work and that means more cold.  This year has been extremely cold, with a polar vortex pushing the weather of the central plains over to us.  It feels like we’ve been in a permanent deep freeze since the beginning of December and I don’t think it is likely to warm much between now and March.

My coping strategy this year has been to expect the weariness that comes with this time of year and try to build it into my plan.  This is a time for stories on the sofa, quiet afternoons of play or reading or even the odd movie.  It is a time to hunker down and hibernate, time to rest whenever possible.

This week I had planned to spend our time learning about Chinese New Year and getting our craft on.  I duly requested books from the library which were all ready in time for our Monday morning school time, I was going to take the boys to the library, pick up the books and spend the morning reading, reading, reading.  All was as it should be.

Until I opened the curtains to snow that is, snow which then gave way to gale like winds that blew the new snow everywhere creating drifts and covering roads; not a good day to be heading out with boys in the car.  So I adapted our day and we still had fun, who doesn’t like making dragons out of egg cartons and watching polar bear documentaries?  With a bit of sofa time reading and plenty of free play lego the day was still a success.  And there’s always tomorrow, right?

Well, maybe not.  With one boy down with a cough that won’t quit and a general feeling of just being very, very tired, and another with an upset tummy that’s making life away from home a bit tricky, the library will have to wait another day.  Ho hum, that’s the good thing about our life, if it’s not working for us we just change it.

So instead of immersing ourselves in China (we might get there yet the week isn’t done!) it’s a quiet day of sleeping, medicine (the herbal kind is what works for us) and stories on the sofa.  Is there ever a bad time for stories?  If there is, I’ve never found it.