Happy New Year!

There are a few projects to tell you about, that just need photos.  (Oops, mailed one of them without snapping any photos!)   So let's talk about 2009.  Amazing year.

1)  My oldest daughter started talking.  At age 3 1/2 she had about 10 English words, and 20 other nonsense/signing words.  The downside of this is she is going through the NO stage of the terrible twos, the I DON'T WANT TO stage of the threes and the WHY stage of the fours...all at the same time.  No, no.  Don't envy me.  Please.
2)  About 9 months after she started talking, Ernie learned to read.  Sakes alive, the girl can read!


3)  Wonder Daddy passed his final CPA test.  For the first time since I've known him, he ISN'T studying at night.  Can't tell you the difference it's made in our home to have a daddy that isn't always off-limits to the kids.


4)  Went hog-wild on an "I can make that" bender.  Bread, cookies, snacks, cleaning supplies, toys, clothes...apparently I'm enough of a recluse to prefer making to shopping.


5)  Completed another year of almost all handmade gifts.  Again, with the no-shopping thing.





6)  Got better at canning.  Lots  better.  (plum jam, tomatillo salsa, peaches, peach honey, apple butter, marmalade, applesauce, apple chunks, fig preserves, figs in syrup, figs in water, blueberry jam... and all but the peaches and citrus were home-grown by me or family!  Hello free!)


7)  Went from 159 pounds to 139 pounds.  I love nursing.  I love cooking my own food.  I love fishing "these are never going to fit again" clothes out of the scrap pile and finding out they're too big.  I love the lovely ladies who joined my sister and I in our weekly weigh-ins in the weight-loss challenge this year.  I love being able to run without being weary.

From I Wonder Woman

From I Wonder Woman

8)  Started cloth diapering the baby.  Love love love the cloth diapers.



9)  After a long and dark winter, kicked the baby blues.  Remind me to never have another Fall baby, so long as we live in dark and dreary sun-free-in-the-winter climes.

10)  Called to serve in our local Spanish branch of the church.  Desperately praying to remember what I learned in high school.

11)  A mildly productive garden.  For me, that's a raging success.  Three tomatoes!  60 pounds of tomatillos! Plums from the tree before the squirrels ate them all!  Plus raspberries, blackberries, mint, lemon balm, basil, and 4 twenty-inch-long beans.  I won't mention the (many many many) crops that completely failed.  This is a new year, and we're only looking at successes!

Thank you thank you all for being here.  For being so supportive.  For being so generous in your own bloggy homes.  I'm looking forward to another great year!

And, after nearly two years of this bloggy business I've learned something: There are about 15 of you here to see ME...and hundreds of other visitors looking for tutorials.  Instructions.  Tips.  (And inexplicably, information on Amanda Barnes Smith.  Truly.  One of my top search results right now, right after Rolo Treats.)  And if there's something I love, it's telling people what to do.  So, look for more tutorials, instructions, and tips in 2010!  Oh, and look for more music.  Hopefully lots more music.