Hello , admirer ! It ’s been a few weeks , but I have to say I really enjoyed my retentive holiday hiatus from blogging ( and my laptop computer in general — I think I ’ve open it twice since Christmas ) .
Gemma was on gap from preschool , which kind of forced me to take a disruption from work as well . We build a sled James Jerome Hill in our backyard after storm brought a few inch of snow in town . We cleaned out loo , donate boxes of apparel , and broadly speaking just tidied up for the New Year .
I cooked through the holidays , and ground joy in the kitchen again after a feverish season ofwriting my cookery book . ( Not that writing a Christian Bible is n’t fun … but it ’s full of pressure to forgather deadlines and get thing just justly , when my common mode of cooking is freestyling a meal from ingredient I already have around . )
We hosted a Friendsmas dinner party political party last month that was one of our most enjoyable evening all twelvemonth . To be able-bodied to get a grouping of much - adore friend together , a year after move to a new town , was the best endowment our family could hope for and it just made our holidays that much odorous .
We smoke a costa roast on the kamado grillroom , serve scorch scallop with ginger - lime butter as an amuse - bouche ( a formula frommy extroverted cookery book ) , and put out a buffet of pumpkin mac ’ n Malva sylvestris , Southern - style collard greens , butternut squelch gratin , roasted garlic - butter mushrooms , and roast honey - butter carrots for 14 client ( plus a fistful of toddlers ) .
We happily ate leftovers for the next two day . After that huge gourmet feast , I terminate up making a ridiculous cheesy white potato bambino casserole for our Christmas Eve dinner ! ( Call it a guilty delight . )
For the first time in many years , we stay home and woke up in our own seam on Christmas morning . It was bliss !
We slept in good — a goody we probably wo n’t get for too much longer , as Gemma ’s realize the hullabaloo of Christmas presents and stocking . ( Luckily , she ’s still a dark bird of Minerva and previous riser like us . )
It was a beautiful gay day , so we receive up with booster on Mount Bachelor for a fun morning of sleigh with the kids and ski with the adult .
Then we came home , changed into jammies , andfinallylet Gemma go to town on all the gifts she ’d been expect every day to open .
Hearing her squeal with every new endowment from her granny or uncle or Santa , or inquire if Santa was coming back to her house to impose her , or look out the windowpane and wonder where the reindeer were , had me permanently etch this holiday into my sentimental mammy brain as one to cherish evermore .
Two is such an awful age , you guys . She ’s talking a net ton , cracking us up with her questions and observations , and somewhat much shock us every undivided daylight with how much she understands situation and expresses herself .
I just love her exuberant “ Mama ! ” ringing down the entrance hall when she listen me afford our bedroom door in the morning , and her hilarious “ Daddy ! I go poopoo ! ” when she ’s sitting on the potty . There ’s so much to love at this phase and I just want to soak it all in .
Christmas was cosy and low - central , topped off with a dinner of beef bourguignon ( a Julia Child recipe that I tried for the first time , and one that might be our new tradition as I make it more my own each class ) , hot cyder , and stroopwafels . We delight our tree for another week before we finally took it down the other daylight , and life is now back to normal in our house .
If youfollowed me on Instagramlast twelvemonth , you may have noticed that I was point to post a photo every 24-hour interval in 2018 ( my 365 project ) . Well , that distinctly did n’t take place and I drop the egg mid - summer while ferment on my script . I made it to pic 283 , and I ’m quite content with that .
I ’ve pull in that I ’m just not large on social media in general , so much that I ’ve adjudicate my other marque slogan ( besides “ maturate . caper . Every Day . ” ) is “ Be Less societal , Go Outside More . ” Anyone else with me here ?
As it turns out , I do n’t make love to post on the fly , as I ’d rather be in the consequence . I often forget ( or choose not ) to take pictures and I ’m fairly emancipated from my telephone most days .
Even though they ’re good for business organization , I tend to do by my social medium accounts as personal business relationship more than anything . That may change this twelvemonth , as one of my goals is to get well at curating my feeds so if you survey Garden Betty , you ’ll get more content that ’s in crease with my blog . It ’s something I certainly postulate to puzzle out on .
Another thing I need to work on ? Continuing to update older blog situation with newfangled picture and newfangled resources . There are so many utilitarian article in the archive that often are n’t interpret by fresh readers , and I feel that sharing them again is good for everyone . I set out doing it last twelvemonth and received a lot of positive feedback on it , so I ’ll keep look for out well timed posts to update and republish .
I also have several new posts in the line that will do as foundational articles on the blog and strive to suffice questions I ’m often asked by readers . These will be eat up in time for the spring raise season , so stay tuned .
Speaking of leaping , who else is loving the inflow of seed catalogs in their mailbox lately ?
I was n’t paying too much attention to them for a while , as our rental was supposed to end in late springtime and I did n’t know where we ’d be moving to ( or whether I ’d have time to commence a garden this year ) . But gratefully , our landlords agreed to extend our lease by a twelvemonth , which means I ’ll be back to my container garden on the deck while we continue the house Holman Hunt .
turn substantial estate is still high , but we ’re hope for a time out by the goal of the twelvemonth . I ’m putting it out there in the universe that the right property will come out up on the market for us !
I hope you ’ve all had a happy , healthy , and productive head start to 2019 so far with a lot to look forward to .
Just for fun , here ’s a look back at our last three years of family Christmas card portraits . ( The last one — with a nine - calendar month - quondam Gemma full of baby Leuciscus cephalus ! — was taken when we lived in Southern California . ) Every year , we put more and more clothes on and I think we ’re going to end up in wry suits by the clock time the holidays roll around again !
Have a wonderful weekend !
