January 1 Merry Christmas!

I am sitting at the kitchen table with a homemade chai latte and plate of cookies. I need to get all the cookies and Swedish Fish eaten by Monday, so I can get back to logging calories and nutrients.

We celebrated Christmas with my parents and brothers family yesterday. We did the same last year (different reason,though)
I think I like having Christmas spaced out like that. It's less overwhelming.
I had made sock puppets for my 2 yr old nephew. Whenever I watch him, we always wear socks on our hands and make them talk, so I thought he'd like some sock puppets.

And for his mom... A box with easy lid for storage of the puppets on his toy shelf.
In addition to hot glueing the embellishments, I tacked them in place with needle and thread. It seemed for "Toddler Friendly" that way.
Here is a quite visual guide:

I spent News Years Day (morning) charting out my revolving garden. Those parts of the garden I plant to rotate crops for a more year round harvest. I have 5 garden areas for this,  my 3 boxes to the left of the back porch, a box on the right side of the back porch, and a section in the ground I will rotate winter carrots and summer bell peppers. I have sowing dates for all 10 crops, along with dates to prep the soil between plantings. I put all pf the dates into my smartphone calendar with a reminder set for a few days before. 

I felt Quite Accomplished. Too bad I can't devote this much effort to cleaning the kitchen.

HEALTH NOTE: on the first day of the year, I took my vitamins, drank my 2L of water, and met my Fitbit goal! 

my 21 yr old son found an app for my smart phone called HABITRPG. I earn gold by meeting daily goals and tasks (that I list) and can go on quests and buy new armor and swords with my earned coins!

YES, I did!

Yes, I did pick spinach from my winter garden today!! Fresh picked spinach for BLTs!

Yes, I did plant carrots seeds in my back yard today on December 26 in Ohio! I hope my Winter Harvest book is right! The author plants carrots the last week of December at his commercial farm in Maine!
He then covers them in plastic. I will do that on Moday. We actually are in a warm pocket this weekend. It has been  in the high 40s to 50s the last two days.

The variety recommended for December planting is Nelson Carrots.

I received more year round gardening books! I got Winter Harvest (by Eliot Coleman) last week. Yesterday I got Four Season Harvest (by Eliot Coleman). Also a little handbook on cold frames.

Combine these with the book of herb growing from my brother earlier this year and I should have a wonderfully productive and yummy garden soon!