Welcoming 2011

The snow, they say, will melt by tomorrow. Saturday, New Year's Day, latest. A wind -- much warmer than the icy ones we have faced over the last few weeks -- blows the heavy branches on the trees in front of my house. The two enormous pines stand like sentinels in our front yard and sway, restlessly.


I'm a little restless today, too.


For the past few weeks, I have been a flurry of activity, preparing for the new year. I did the grand excavation of closets and drawers and desks in my children's rooms. My husband took boxes and bags of donations to a resale shop the next day. Toys that no longer hold my daughter's interest. Outgrown clothes. We found things. A piece of candy corn under a dresser. Journals full of half-written stories that my son has set about to finish. My older son moved his huge baseball card collection out from under his bed to high shelves in his closet. We painted the girls' room and our guest bathroom. I organized storage bins in the basement. I've weeded my email, hoping to start the year with an empty inbox. Email filed, responded to, under control in preparation of a new year. I've found my own share of stray candy corn in my inbox -- invitations, announcements, requests for capes and wands for neighbor's Halloween costumes, stories I've yet to review for friends, and interesting articles I hope to read someday.


But now I feel ready to move on to new projects. A newsletter for parents*, a newspaper column born of conversations with hospice and grief experts about handling the sadness that sometimes shrouds our spirits in the bleakest weeks of winter. Responding to Christmas letters and cards from faraway friends.


What are you clearing out to make way for this new year?


What stray bits of email or souvenirs of the last 12 months can you file, throw away or recycle?

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.  Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions.  Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.  - G.K. Chesterton

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* Speaking of the newsletter, you can sign up here on the blog (or shoot me an email at jen AT loveyoumorebook DOT com). In the January issue (it'll be monthly), you can read an excerpt from "Love You More" and meet parenting expert Amy Davis, among other things. The newsletter is a place for adoption stories, recipes, ideas about creating your own family culture, and to be introduced to people and books that are inventive, funny and offer wisdom about family life.