Not a good way to start a new year

I seem to be coming down with a cold - for the last three days!  Sore throat and feeling rotten, but no other symptoms.  It's weird and very frustrating.  (It isn't flu, as I got a shot for that in the fall.)   I've been going to my volunteer activities (in the mornings) because I'm not sick enough to justify staying home, but am wondering if I have thus spread my germs to all the people I was near!  Afternoons, I am too tired to do anything but rest or nap.  I want to be well or really sick, not this halfway state! Today I have an appointment for a haircut, which I will probably go to.  Haven't decided about lunch with friends.  I'm not sneezing or coughing, so maybe I could go and not give my friends all my germs.  Our lunch bunch didn't meet over the Holidays, so it's been several weeks since I saw most of them.

Last night, I was tired of reading, so decided to watch the evening news on TV.  FYI:  I got FIOS from Verizon last spring in anticipation of my grandchildrens' visit over the summer.  They loved the many channels available and watched TV quite a bit.  They had no trouble, of course, using the remote, which to me looks like something that would control a 747!  Anyway, I did manage to use the menu function and find a news station at 6 PM.  Local news went on and on about three exploding packages mailed to Maryland government offices.  They could have summed up the whole broadcast in about 5 minutes, but instead they took at least 20 to go over and over the same thing.  BORING!  Finally, the national news came on.  Obviously a slow day.  Showed some folks in the House reading the Constitution.  One would think our representatives have something better to do.  However, at least they did no harm.  Then national news repeated the info about the letter 'bombs' in Maryland.  Had a weather report and the wrap-up was a human interest story, which was very sweet, but not really 'news'.  I wish I had counted the commercials.  I'm estimating that there were about 20 during the hour I watched.  I sure love that MUTE button, but I still had to watch in order to put the sound back on when the newscaster came back.  All in all, this was not an experience I want to repeat any time soon.  I'm going back to getting my news from the Washington Post paper every morning. 

I finally found a small rug to put by the back door in the dining room.  The rug I had there did not look good with my new floor, so I've been looking for a new one.  I found one at WalMart that has the same colors as the floor.  What luck!

Here are some photos of my winter decorations.  Every year, after the Christmas decorations are put away, I hang various snow scenes and limit my knick-knacks to black, white and red.  It's a relief to tone down the decorations, after the overkill of Christmas stuff.  The large painting of trees and snow is one by my niece Terry.  It's an old one of hers and was hanging in her garage.  She doesn't think it's a particularly good painting, but I like it.  The two photographs I bought in Wisconsin some years ago.  If you click to enlarge, you can see, in the larger one, a canoe with a person in it.  The person is Terry.  The wildlife photographer is a friend of hers.