❈ Almost… I have one more get together with my best girl friends next weekend then Christmas will officially be over for me.

Oh and if you are wondering about those cookies in the title picture.. I got you. I got this recipe a long time ago from a site called The Vegan Beauty but sadly it looks like it’s been abandoned. Luckily I wrote it down. To stamp the snowflakes I bought these https://amzn.to/2ZTJMNj off of Amazon and they work pretty great just make sure to flour them well beforehand. Ok here is the recipe:

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I had a really good Christmas. We had our Christmas with Chris’ mom and the rest of the family on Christmas Eve. Then we drove 4 hours away to see my family and while I was there I got to see one of my best friends from high school who I haven’t seen in over 3 years. We got to talk for a long time until I realized I had too much coffee and got really jittery. We visited with all of my sisters and nieces and nephew from my side of the family. We had a big party and played some really fun Christmas games. I stayed for a few days and then as I was heading home I met up with my brother. Growing up I didn’t know my brother. He grew up with another family. I don’t think I want to go into my family tree here but to make it short he was adopted by a wonderful woman and her husband and grew up with them. I found him about 5 years ago on facebook and we’ve talked on and off ever since. He is such a sweet guy and I’m very glad that I get the chance to get to know him and reconnect.

I didn’t feel up to taking a lot of pictures this last month so not much to show here and the ones I have I took with my phone so the quality is not great. Usually towards the end of the year/mid-winter I get a bit of a seasonal depression and anxiety. I don’t do anything to counteract it usually and it never turns out well for me. This is why (I think) that I haven’t been keeping up with the blog. I haven’t even worked on our house. I did do a deep clean of the chicken coop and experimented with sprouting wheat for the chickens to snack on. They seem to like it. We also substituted the hay in the run with the leaves from our Sycamore tree that had fallen. Mrs Featherbottom is going through her molt so we have had to start buying eggs. The other 2 chickens haven’t started laying yet so now we have a bunch of freeloading birds on our hands.

These past few days Chris and I have got the sniffles and I’m pretty sure we caught colds from being around all those kiddos during Christmas. Coincidentally this is also the time I started back at work so yay to feeling crummy and working!

I have a cuckoo clock that my Granny June owned and has been passed on to me. It wasn’t working properly so I decided to have it repaired at a local-ish clock shop. The clock had been in the shop since I think September! I just got it back this week. It was really dirty inside. Its working great now but the bad thing is that now I can’t put it in the main room. This is why:

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As soon as I got it put up properly Opal jumped up and tried to hang from the chains. That cat is a menace! I love her but she is trouble for sure. The clock is still in the same place but the chain is draped on it so that she can’t get to it and I had to stop the pendulum. I will probably move it to the study and shut the door so she can’t go in but I was looking forward to having it in the living room. Oh well. She will calm down enough eventually. My other two cats do not care at all.

I’m hoping to start my seeds for the spring soon. Definitely by the end of the month. I have a huge box full of seeds just waiting to sprout. Until next time. ❈