January

Until I came to live in Arizona, I used to dislike January. And that is putting it mildly. It was a dark, dreary, wet month with short days. Dark when you went to work, dark when you got home. January seemed to drag on forever.

As you might have guessed, it is different now. We habitually wake up to clear skies, and although sunrise is later than in the summer, at least there is one. We see her pop over the Chiricahuas and I enjoy watching it every day. I looked at the long range weather forecast and it is interesting that our meteorologist has a variety of terms for good weather: "sunshine", "abundant sunshine", "plenty of sunshine", "bright sunshine". In Oregon they had as many terms for precipitation: "rainy", "showers", "light rain", "drizzle".

All that sun does have some drawbacks of course. I spent the morning painting the fascia of our south-facing barn. Again. But now we have a great shop to be doing it in.