Looking forward to the New Year.

With a pressure canner and serger, which my mother and hubby (respectively) got me for Christmas, I'm excited about learning a lot and experimenting even more this coming year.

We have plenty to look forward to on other fronts as well, what with everyone getting older and interested in so many more things.  And, of course, there's Ri's wedding to look forward to and plan.  A couple of the girls have been going shooting with Dad, and Bree is starting to spend time with him, learning how to make guns (he's a gunsmith).  One of her gifts this year was bullets. :)  And one of Ri's gifts was a beautiful recurve bow and some arrows. Everyone was in the backyard earlier, giving it a try.  Now, if we could only find that one arrow...

Oh well, plenty to look back on and be thankful for, and many, many things to look forward to.

I hope you all have a great New Year.

The Christmas Octopus

What?  You don't have one?  Everyone needs a Christmas octopus.

This photo doesn't quite do him justice, but he realy does look like an octopus.

He came about one year when my younger brother was making ornaments with the girls out of beads and pipe cleaners.  He started stringing on the beads and adding more pipe cleaners, I think in an attempt to make a star. After a whole bunch of fiddling with it my brother made the mistake of asking the girls what they thought of all his hard work.  One of them proclaimed loudly that the only thing it looked like was an octopus.  He wasn't offened in the least.  Instead, he worked with it a bit more, shaping the head, adding a couple of red beads for eyes, and voila!, the Christmas Octopus was born.  We've had it on the tree every year since.  There's always great care taken in placing him in just the right spot.  Up front, near a red Christmas tree light (because he looks so cool lit up from behind with a red light), and on some reasonably sturdy branches, because he is a little heavy.  The only problem we have now is that all the girls want one for themselves, for their own, future Christmas trees, and my brother isn't really sure how he made the first one.  I'll have to buy him a bunch of pipe cleaners and beads and see what he can come up with.  You never know what may become a tradition for one of the girls, because if he comes up with something funny, they're sure to put it on their tree.

Everyone needs a weird holiday tradition or two.  They're great.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, celebrating the birth of our Savior, and spending some quality time with the people you love.

How does your winter garden grow?

Mine doesn't grow as good as it could, considering I live in the South, but we do grow a couple of things.

Around mid-November we finally got around to cleaning out the raised beds and planting our garlic.

And guess what we have now?

Well, I hope it's the garlic. I seem to remember planting it in rows, but these don't seem too straight, so I'm hoping it is garlic. It looks like garlic. :)

The Khabar seems to be coming up better than the Mild French Bree and I planted.

We have a few chives left around the deck and a small bit of parsley, but if I were really industrious I'm sure we could grow more during the winter since our winters are not bad - comparatively speaking. I know we could grow greens. Most southern gardeners grow greens in the winter, but I don't like them, so I don't bother.

On another note, the houseplants are doing great.

This is the last of my Christmas cacti to bloom, and the first year this particular plant has bloomed. I never knew why it didn't bloom since it's been treated the same as the others and even sat right beside my best bloomer for years, so they always received the same light. A friend told me that they are just picky sometimes. She also told me she has a white one, and will pot a cutting of it for me. I can't wait. I've never even seen a solid white one. One of mine has white flowers that are rimmed in the hot pink, but the others are pink.

So, how does your winter garden grow?

Blogger

Hi all!
Normally I like Blogger.  I've only had problems a few times with pictures, or for a little while when I was having trouble with the commenting. I couldn't comment on my own blog without publishing the comment under anonymous - imagine that.

Oh well, I guess we can live with a few bugs now and then.

Right now I'm having problems with my followers list. It shows on my dashboard that I have a few new ones, and I was able to visit one of their blogs before I completely lost the ability to check it, but now it's kind of stuck where it was a couple of months ago.
Normally I like to go visit the blogs my followers have, but I can't do that right now because I can't "see" you in my list, even though you are counted on my dashboard. And I've noticed you are not counted on my sidebar either - go figure.
I'm sorry.  I would love to visit - I've been to one, and would love to go back - but I can't seem to find you. 
I hope whatever bug Blogger is having will be straightened out soon.  I may see if Ri can sort it out when she has the time - for all I know it may be operator error. But she is a little busy with photography school right now, so I'll wait until she has a bit more free time before I drag her in here and ask her to tinker around.

Until then, I have tried to save the ones I can still "see", so I can check out your blogs as time permits.

P.S.  I also have to try to talk her into designing me a Christmas or winter theme for my blog. :D
If you could only see her face when I do.