Happy New Year!

I'm going to try to be better about posting again this year... So here goes :)

January 1st. Happy New Year! It was a frigging cold and blustery night- and it's a cold and blustery day. Temps in the 20's I think, brrrrr. I'm really hoping we get in some snow or rain- it's been a pretty dry winter so far. I'm already tired of being chilled, and we still got a couple months to go, sigh.

Found out the board heaters in my office are broken. Don't know why, but damnit. So now I'm running a small space heater in my office- I also kicked on one of the bedroom heaters and the bathroom heater- cuz now I'm getting paranoid we are gonna freeze pipes. Need to call the plumber tomorrow to get them in to see why the hot water heater on this side of the house is dead again- we've been out of hot water for almost two weeks now on this side of the house. With the holidays and all, didn't think we could get in the plumber sooner for the regular rate, pttht. That's contributing to my bursting pipes fears too. Moms big Christmas present to us is the money to get the plumber in for the water heater. Still haven't figured out what to do about the broken stove burner.
Winter just sucks ass ya'll, majorly.

On the bright side, I got a bunch of buckets and pots dumped out on a tarp in the solarium, to start working up some wintersowing jugs. That was some cold and crappy work since the solarium is hovering in the upper 30's right now- but good news is the solarium is in the upper 30's, instead of the same temp as outside. I think between replacing the skylight and plasticing over all the windows and door, it's really making an impact out there to help keep above freezing as much as possible.
Today I started 4 wintersowing jugs, one breadseed poppy, two blue wildflower mix, and one mixed bachelors button. Tomorrow I will get more jugs prepped, and maybe some more filled and set out. So far the strapping down of the three greenhouse frames is working right fine. The litter jugs are too big to fit onto the lower levels, but fit 8 on top perfect and stable- so far. I'll go back in and strap up the top later if I need to. I'm extra hoping the breadseed poppy does well, I would like to start a patch big enough to yield a few cups of seeds for baking every year.
And after last years sort of failure with using paper tags, this year I decided to get a bit smarter with the labeling- I started cutting up some recycled sour cream containers and used a sharpie- I'm hoping this will work better, lol.
Sadly, my little yellow tomato seed never sprouted. Hahms Gelbe Topftomate- it was from a trade last year. I had 5 seeds, and tried to pot them up to germinate indoors- first in the library which I thought might have been too cold, so I put them on top of the fridge- and three weeks later, nothing. So yesterday I used up the patio tomato seed I had and we shall see if that sprouts up or not. That seed is a couple years old too, so who knows what will happen. If I'm lucky, I'll get a couple plants for potentially some fruits in February, wouldn't that be nice?

With cooking, I had planned on doing up a nice New Years dinner- but the elk steaks were still frozen, as was the lump crab. Sigh, so I made up a shepards pie with a bunch of leftovers based on stuffing instead of mashed potatoes... and planned on the nice dinner for tonight. Crab is still frozen in the middle, sigh... So I'm doing up a batch of creamy veggie and sausage soup instead. Got some leftover fresh cauliflower, broccoli, one green pepper, and some shredded lettuce to use up, and plenty of turkey stock on hand. And since my sister is out of town, I could use some white wine in it, yum :) I also used some fresh celery, carrot, onion, and garlic, plus plenty of herbs. I'll cream it up with some leftover french onion dip and milk. Yeah, I know, all that sounds weird as shit, but it will work. After all, homemade dip is just onion soup mix and sour cream.

January 2nd...

Chilly as hell today, but way less wind, yay! We are supposed to be getting in precipitation over the weekend, I'm pleased with that. Driving through the enchanted forest today, you can see the water level is a few inches below the ice level, so we for sure need the wet. It's supposed to be cold, so still don't know if we will get snow, rain, or freezing rain.
Great news, the plumber was able to come in today! Woot for having hot water on this side of the house again. It ended up it was the fuses, even though they really didn't look blown at all. Weird that- we are still thinking of getting the darn thing replaced, thanks to my mom. The plumber is recommending we do so too, as we can get it done.

Started up 4 more litter jugs with seeds today, two each of honeybee mix, and flower garden mix. Nice thing about where the greenhouse frames are at is that I can easily access and see these jugs from standing on the porch. The milk jugs will be on a lower level, and visible from the ground.

Tonight will be crab cakes, elk steaks, and smoked salmon for dinner. Bout darn time everything is defrosted nice, lol. Sides are gonna be roasted garlic taters and sauteed mushrooms in red wine, yum. 

January 3rd...

Cold, wet, crappy. Woke up to a rather nice dusting of snow, that turned to cold ass rain and wretched driving weather... So of course I decided to go out and get the monthly shopping done today, lol.
It was nice to just take my time wandering from store to store, getting a bit of this and that. No stress or worries. Got some good smelling jar candles on clearance for 1.19 a piece. I only picked up four, though I was tempted to pick up all dozen of what they had left. Picked up some clearance jewelry components too, neat ones- almost looking forward to using them, lol. My creative bug has kind of taken a big nosedive since my work area is steadly a refrigerator as far as temps go, heh. Kind of hard to do fine work when you got the chilled shakes.
Got to wear my new vintage turtleneck while out and about today. It's a nice sunny yellow, and paired with my good blue wool coat, I felt like I looked right fine and bright for this time of year. Hey, I'll take happy any way I can get it right now. 
And happy coupons, I saved 10 bucks at GFS today :) Picked up a heap of chicken and frozen veggies, and a new jar of thyme- I seriously need to get my ass in gear with harvesting and drying thyme this coming season, I use loads of the stuff. I got two plants in the herb garden, and one sickly plant I rescued in the solarium that I hope will make it to planting in the spring. Heh, so now that the parsley hedge is starting to come along, I need to bump up my dill and thyme action. Though my last bucket of dill is still green in the solarium, so that rocks.