Happy New Year!

The start of a new decade. Can you believe it?? Ten years have past since we all sat, holding our breath, waiting to see if the Y2K bug was going to bring down all things electronic. I wonder at all the places I've been, things I've done, and how my family has progressed.

We have lived in Singapore, travelled a good bit of Asia. Both girls have graduated from high school, and one (almost two) have graduated from college. Stud Muffin worked, then retired, then worked again and retired again. We have gained dogs and lost internal organs. We moved from Las Vegas to rural Tennessee and bought a farm. I started back to school. I'm tired just thinking of it all!

So, I dusted myself off this morning and did a bit of clean-up work in my studio. Actually, I have been working on it on and off for a few days. It is by no means done (probably never will) but you should look quickly, because it is likely to get messy again as soon as I start a project!



You have no idea how long it took to get it this straightened away! I can't show a "before" picture because... well... 1) I didn't think to take one and 2) it was just too embarrassing to show. Someone probably would have called out the little men in the Haz-Mat suits. Let's just say that I had only about 2 square feet of table space to work with before the Big Clean- Up. But, we won't talk about this side, as I haven't started here yet:



It was a cold but very sunny day today, and I got a hankering (is that curable?) to do some gardening, but since that wasn't really possible, I decided to sort out my vegetable seeds. I'm going to need to order a few things, but mostly, I need to till up some ground behind the orchard for some of the sprawling plants I want to grow this year.

As you all know, I am not the most organized or detail oriented person, and this miserable fact extends to my gardening efforts. When I plant carrots, I usually throw a bunch of seeds on the soil, dust them with some more soil and hope for the best. I occasionally try to thin the plants out appropriately, but invariably, I get plants that are too close together to grow properly. So, today, I made a few 'seed tapes" for my carrot seeds.



In a nutshell (get it? Seed? Nutshell? Never mind!) you mark off the proper seed spacing on thin strips of paper, glue the seeds in place, and then plant the whole strip when the time comes. I am easily amused, and had plenty of time today, so I thought I'd give this a try.



Being the classy gardener that I am, I used strips cut from thin toilet paper and scrapbooking paper glue. I made strips for three different varieties of carrots and since thinning will no longer be a required chore, we will see if it improves my production rate this summer.

In the past, I have always transplanted broccoli and cabbage seedlings too late for them to grow before the hot weather arrives. Every year, I plant them out earlier and earlier. This year I swear it will be different and I will start them soon enough, so I planted some seeds in the little plastic greenhouse boxes and placed them on a heating tray. I planted two kinds of broccoli, some red cabbage, celery, and some rosemary to replace my old plant that I need to dig out of the raised bed. I will keep you posted on their progress, since I know you all are wildly interested in this!

And that is how I spent my New Year's Day. I hope your New Year's Eve and Day were at least as good as mine!! But how can you beat gluing itty-bitty seeds onto toilet tissue, and putting microscopic seeds into pop-up peat pots! I mean, really!