Happy New Year

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien

Does Tolkien speak to your stomach too? He totally makes mine do flips, in the best way possible. Garyn chose the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy for his December book choice. As we were also reading A Christmas Carol with the girls, and Jacob T. Marley (my choice) and, um, you know doing Christmas…I asked if we could start with Fellowship and see where we got to. He graciously accepted while at the same time asking if I would finish the 5 book series he is currently in love with. Sigh. Oh to be a speed-reading wunderkind and have very few demands on my time.

And that brings us back to time. This quote now hangs in my kitchen as my motto starting 2019. Not sure how long it will be my motto, but I’m calling it a win that it signifies a much more positive outlook that my last quote.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill
Heh, heh. I’m doing much better now.

I’ve got big plans for my time. For one, I’m committing to blogging again, hence the updated look. I’ll be collecting all the posts from my old blog and turning them into a book, but this space is going to be a clean start for all the other things that will be filling my time. I plan on posting twice a week probably Tuesdays and Saturdays. Here’s a few things on the docket:

Big gardens and canning (Beef stock from our first homegrown beef is in the pressure canner as I type…Squee! Turns out homegrown beef is as good as it sounds). We’re also doing turkeys, pigs, a baby cow in the fall and continuing with rabbits and chickens. Sadly we lost both our hives this winter. I’m not going to tackle bee keeping until a later in season in life when I can devote more brain space to it. As you may have noticed, our farm continues to be the third most important love of my life (behind Neil and the kids).

School all around (the kids keep getting bigger and homeschooling keeps getting more awesome. Also I’m kicking around the idea of, um, going-back-to-school-and-getting-a-masters-degree-in-nutrition-and-becoming-a-registered-diatician.) [If you say crazy things really fast and really quietly they don’t seem quite so crazy.] In that vein, I might even talk about my shift to a Keto based way of eating. There’s continuing school for our sweet service dog in training. Fun aside, I got Tatanka DNA tested for my husband guy for Christmas. She is not in fact half mastiff half lab…She’s 37% German Shepherd, 25% Labrador Retriever, 12% Siberian Husky (?!), and the other 26ish percent, is from herding, sporting, and terrier breeds. That pretty much makes her the most perfect dog ever.
Also talkative and probably too smart for her own good. Sigh.

Crafting is still a thing, especially with child number two finding her inner DIYer and loving the plethora of projects we’re doing. My Mom got some really fun toys for her sugar cookie business including a Silhouette cutting machine. Who knew cutting paper and thin plastic could be so rewarding!

So there are big happenings this year. I talked about this a few years back but it hits me every New Year’s Eve, something a friend of a friend said. She remarked on how magical it is that for one night, one day we all collectively believe that we can be better. If Charles Dickens would have us keep Christmas the whole year long, I contend that maybe we should keep the thrill of a new start, the hope and belief that we really can be better through every new adventure the year may bring. Happy 2019!