Little makes me happier than coming to the first day of winter, the Winter Solstice. Some might not see it my way, looking out at barely 8 hours of daylight…yet this short day brings the hope of light returning. Every day from now on to the Summer Solstice will be longer. And while many might hide inside, we spent our hours of light renewing the gardens, picking up fallen branches and pine cones, weeding. Moving earth worms we found into the garden beds. It just feels so right to be outside
If you follow my gardening threads, you might notice how many lights I have in my yards/gardens. I love light that flickers. My lighthouse lights the way – tonight we will light candles and watch the stars pass over.
Enjoy what is left of the first day of winter, and if you can…spend time in your garden. You will renewed as well!
And what to do during the longest night of the year? Get crafty! I love creating in the cold, dark months – be it a physical craft, or even more fun…using digital clip art. If you have read any of my books (both digital and print), you might have noticed I loooove clip art. My Winter picture above? Clipart from Luvly and a few minutes on PicMonkey! Have you read Oats Gone Wild? You might recognize some of this clipart. The site is easy to use, if you prepay in (via Paypal) you get a discount on the purchase prices as well (since I like buying…it has paid off for me! I have bought over 40 items from them…..). Want to have fun and not pay anything? Luvly has 7 pages of free downloads to look through as well – from background papers, clip art, ribbons, invites and more. Part of why I love Luvly so much is they host the downloads – so if you download and delete it, you can go back to your account and re-download. PS: They also carry WordPress and Blogger templates for blogs as well!