Mastitis, Good Things, and Wizards

We are entering our first weekend of 2012. I began the New Year with a household full of sniffles and coughs. Then, Tuesday, I was struck with mastitis. For anyone that may not know, mastitis is a pretty nasty breast infection that usually occurs in breastfeeding women. Its symptoms are similar to those of the flu plus the infected breast gets swollen and does not feel good at all. It cleared in a day and a half (and thanks to my Mom who came bearing bagels for lunch the day I was incapacitated). I am almost brand new again! 

The Christmas tree is dismantled and finally out of the house and my husband kindly dropped it off in my parents' backyard last night where it will hopefully house birds and squirrels this Winter. Perhaps it can even provide some firewood in the Spring for a few backyard bonfires.

With the tree being out of the house, I had only today to attempt to clean up massive amounts of pine needles. Unfortunately, no matter how meticulous my sweeping, I will no doubt be finding stray ones for the next 6 months. Ha!

I hope to settle into January next week with a fresher outlook. I am looking forward to a big Winter purge of items. An eight person household tends to collect more than needed and I want to bring us to a manageable level.

I also have a wonderful stack of books that I borrowed from the library that I am anxious to start reading. I set a goal to read 25 books this year on Goodreads. I hope that two books a month will be a nice pace for me.

Another good thing is that I hope to try more recipes this year in order to add to our family recipe book. I want to include more vegetarian (or less meat-based) recipes as well. I bought Feeding the Whole Family awhile ago and hope to find some more keeper recipes within its pages.

Which reminds me! I have a little "Winter Stay Well" giveaway coming up next week so keep a lookout for that!

I am off now to heat pretzels for snacks ( Madelyn has a friend over tonight! ) and then we will be awaiting the news on who becomes the Russo family wizard. (I know, crazy. Right?)

Nevertheless, we are taking bets.