Saturday in the Garden | Get Outside

my office window view

OUTSIDE

We need nature, pure and simple.  In a weird flip flop my family back in VA are getting slammed by all kinds of snow while we here in Iowa had a cold but quite lovely day.  It's been a "nice" inaugural week of 2017 and by nice I mean sunny with gorgeous sunrises and sunsets but insanely cold.  I refuse to walk the dogs when it's below zero, for both our sakes, so that makes it hard to spend any time outside.  Thankfully I don't think I have any significant issues with Seasonal Affective Disorder but the low light and less time outside does get to me, just not to the degree I see others struggle with. The way mood is tied to the environment is a significant piece of evidence on how important nature and our natural environment is to our mental health.  During winter I need to continually remind myself of this and force myself to spend some time outdoors.  Some ideas how I can do so:

1. Walk and/or play with the dogs.
2. When dry, build a fire in the firepit (might do this tomorrow).
3. Feed the birds.  Make sure the feeders and bird bath remain full, clean and unfrozen.
4. The world is different in winter and finding beauty takes more searching - find it and record with photography.
5. Putz around in and re-organize the garage.
6. Start dog sledding? Ha, HA.  My goldens would not make good sled dogs.

What do you do to get outside during winter?

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching 

I've continued with the anime Inuyasha and it's a lot of fun.  I found dubbed versions rather than subtitles,  so I've been able to go back to multi-tasking - yay?

Reading 

Finished Since the Last Time I Posted

• A Plain Malice (Appleseed Creek #4) by Amanda Flower:  I've been kind of obsessed with this Amish country mystery series and this was the last book in the series:(.   It was a fair ending and enjoyable.
• Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger:  Really great mystery/coming of age novel set in a small town in 1950s Minnesota.  
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by Frank L. Baum: I listened to the audio of this read by Anne Hathaway and she does a fantastic job.  It is easy to see why it was made into a movie and it was cool to read the source material for the film which I love (who doesn't?).

Currently Reading:

• Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym:  The last few years I've started the year with a Barbara Pym novel.  This one, about two spinster sisters in a small English village isn't letting me down.
• Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin (author) & Chi-Young Kim (Translator): I don't really know too much about this book except that it got a lot of buzz when a translation was released and it was a bestseller in Korea.
• Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #) by Patricia Briggs:  Recommended to me highly many times because I love the Kate Daniels series.  

Added to the TBR:

This is a list of books that I have added to my Goodreads TBR list this week.  It helps to burn the books I want to read a little more firmly into my mind, maybe get them on some other folks TBRs and gives me a chance to recognize a lot of the awesome bloggers that add stuff to my TBR!

• Wayward Volume 1: String Theory by Jim Zub:  This is a graphic novel series that has been described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Japan.  I did a horrible job recording where I picked up all the books added to my TBR this week, dang so I apologize for not thanking the recommender!
• Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) by Neal Shusterman:  The author has been recommended to me a lot (because of his book Unwind). This is a book about a world where no one dies naturally so to keep the population under control some folks must be culled.  Sounds delightful doesn't it,lol?
• The Keeper of the Mist (Rachel Neumeier):  I think this was recommended as an excellent YA fantasy.  And there's a Bakery involved so I'm in. 
• Dreaming Death (Palace of Dreams #1) by Kathleen Cheney:  Looks like a fantasy/mystery series. 

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

MONDAY:  2016 Wrap-up
WEDNESDAY: 2017 Resolutions
FRIDAY: Confessions of a Book Series Addict | 2017 Edition  My attempt to gain some control of my insane pile of series that I read.

Onward and Upward with 2017!