Hey friends! Whew! Where has the time gone? I was away, then I was back, and now I’m going away again. And I just feel like I haven’t caught up yet. But let’s spend a hot minute catching up, shall we?

Winter finally decided to show up! We’ve had some nasty weather–snow and ice–and now some cold temps. But it was bound to happen sooner or later. We’ve had lots of plans lately that have been thwarted by Old Man Winter. You can see from the pictures above that most of the snow was just local to us. That one picture (in the middle top row) was taken about an hour South of us. We actually had dinner plans that same day about 30 minutes south of us and they didn’t have any snow either!

We finally finished updates to the living room. I’m so pleased with the outcome. I love the paint color. It’s light blue but then looks gray-blue depending on the lighting (I just looked for the name of the paint but couldn’t find it. If I run across it, I’ll update you all!). It’s fresh and really brightens up the room. It’s funny because the old paint was off white but had such a pink undertone to it (very 80’s!) but I didn’t realize it until we started painting. I’m so glad the 80’s have left the building.

I’m still in my ‘nesting’ phase…rearranging things, hanging pictures and fun things. See that chicken chalkboard hanging above? My Mom had that waiting for me when I got to TN. It says “Have a good day and be safe”. I’m not sure what she thinks I’m doing that I’m not safe at, but I guess once a Mom, always a Mom? She’s cute. You’ll see and hear more about her and the rest of the fam when I update you all about my travels! Soon, I promise!

The calendar above is the yearly ‘nephews’ calendar. I love it and it’s hanging prominently in the kitchen for all to see! I also received another orchid. This time for the Chinese New Year from a dear friend of mine rather than from the one guide who uses them as apology gifts. I could go into details about that, but I’ll wait for another time. Let’s just say that when the guide (Anchor Bob) does something incredibly silly (aka something that he really shouldn’t have done), he gives me an orchid. I have about 8 or 9 from him now.

I also got these two books (pasta and dyeing) for Christmas along with a fermenting kit and some new, eco-friendly scrub brushes (here and here). I got new sheets and towels (thank goodness! It was past time for new towels…eww. LOL). I’m excited to have some time soon to try my hand at making pasta again and starting some dyeing projects.

In other news, I’m almost caught up with our reading from last time! I might be able to join in the discussion this weekend. Better late than never, right? Speaking of, I’ll give an update on the next meeting in the comments on that post. Stay tuned. I need to do some research and figure out a date. The 25th won’t work. I’m already scheduled for 2 things that day.

I’ll save the majority of this comment for the book discussion, but one of the things that I know I need to be better about is keeping records. Barbara Kingsolver mentions in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that she keeps records of their yearly produce production, among other things. I don’t do that. I also don’t keep a good inventory of our food inventory. I have a couple of ideas in mind about how to do that. I’m thinking, for freezer inventory, keeping a spreadsheet on the outside of the freezer so when we take something out, or add something to it, we can just cross it out, or put a check next to it, or write it down. Still thinking on this. But I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for the actual discussion.

And, I’m looking into adding a ‘subscribe to comments’ feature. I’m researching which one is compatible with my blog and will be adding that just as soon as I have a minute.

And in other news, I attended a social media marketing class yesterday at my local cooperative extension. It was so good y’all. It turns out that I’m doing a lot of things right and I think that most of my issues comes from lack of. Lack of research. Lack of time. Lack of knowledge. So. I think I’ll start devoting more time to social media. And learning new skills and new platforms. For example, I just started using Canva but it does so much more than I thought. Another example is instagram. I usually resize my pictures using Instasize but it leaves that white border around the picture. It’s not the end of the world, but is there a way to resize and not have that border and not lose any of the picture? I don’t know. But I’ll find out. I also don’t do any videos anymore, and that’s not the end of the world either, but I could be doing some more quick videos and using filters more. So I’m going to work on all that and more. I’m excited!

I think that’s it, for now. What have you been up to? Tell me all about your fun and excitement that I’ve missed. OH! And have a very Happy Valentine’s Day!