It ’s been snowing here in New England for , like … .. five day !

This pot of the alpine Narcissus from Morocco , N. romieuxii ssp . cantabricus is full of bulbs and blooms this year . depart from ejaculate , this pot is very impressive , maybe because I have been saving the seeds and resowing them back into the same batch ? Not all of the seeds , so some of them . The rest go into new pots every spring . I am still impressed at how soft these rarefied human body of Narcissus are to develop in a nerveless or cold greenhouse . Any lector of this web log get it on that I am addicted to the winter blooming Narcissus , but hey , I am . Not only am I a plant geek , I am a provision geek too . Especially during this fourth dimension of New Years solving . My friend Wendi inspired me a decade ago , to make a leaning that is more meaningful than a mere resolution list . To create a list that is even grander than a pail list , although , in many style , these lists , which we exchange each year via email to inspire each other , end up reading very much like ‘ Bucket lean ” . In their most canonic form , the lists die hard down both short term goals , and long terminus ones – life history long ones , as if one of us might actually cross of many of these life long bucket listing token all within a single year . Sometimes the simpleton is all right . Regular Paperwhite Narcissus entreaty to even the plant dweeb ’s like us , after all , we all started there ! I do love the olfactory property , yet I hate cat pee….what ’s up with that ? Although , I do think sure Fir tree ’s smell more like cat pee .

This yr , I have yet to publish mine , for after two weeks off from work ( did you see all of my posts ? ) , I terminate up doing virtually nothing . Nothing , not even a load of washables . I do n’t know why this happened , but the Holidays are , for many of us , a time that we both counter , and resent . Emotionally , it all weighs in heavy one way or another . Since I have buy my family home , I host the entire family for Christmas Eve dinner , which being of Lithuanian heritage , runs long and lately into the dark . But this year , it was hard to simply get ‘ into ’ the time of year . We ordinarily have a grandiloquent tree diagram , 16 feet of put down needle and yards of sparkle Light Within , but that did n’t happen , not did any outside lights , or wreaths . I made two bay laurel chaplet , and was prosperous to drag out some lamentable , faux Garland to make the firm front somewhat merry ( no one really remark , anyway – only I bonk if I did n’t make the consummate Martha Stewart mitt made sweeps of holly roping and massive wreathes of rare evergreen plant , still , I wanted to ) . But in the end , I did n’t find shamefaced about it , and that ’s growth , I pretend . clip go on .

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In this time of my personal life-time changeover , ( more about that later this calendar month ) , comes Modern goals that seem as if they should have more wakeless goals . And I do have them . The estimate is n’t as much about crossing thing off of these list , for these lists are rather impressively unattainable ( well , mine are , I mean , it ’s not like I list : Make a million dollars in one twelvemonth ” , but I do want to shoot the breeze every World Herritage SIte before a sure date ) . But I think it ’s more about the thought of making a list , the process of stimulate it , that makes it an effective tool for not just moving forward , but in turning the knob of living value , to the high position .

I agnize this week , how well-fixed it is to plop ones ego infront of a television and laptop computer , and for two calendar week , just lease time swan by , accomplish nothing . I am certain there are folk music who do this every day , it ’s so easy , and uneconomical , yet , I did it and even though I sat there thinking about going to the gym , or runnng to the market , or perhaps crossing one of the tiny list items off of my vacation task list ( like caulk the lavatory tile , which has been sitting there for 2 years bare ) , I just could n’t get my seat off of the couch . Yeah , I had a exceedingly demented busy December at work , and I needed to decompress , since rarely do I even have a single hour of down time , but two workweek of nous benumb nothingness coming to easy ? I can only go for retirement would n’t be this way .

Of course , in this down sentence , the dogs just connect in . Margaret curled up next to me under a throw , as if she was not a telegram haircloth crazy beef terrier , but a fluffy ashen poodle dog . Fergus curled up in his bed with his back pushed up against the steaming radiator . Outside , it snowed , it seemed , non - discontinue , well , at least for the past 5 days it has . Design may have something to do with it , for with a 59 inches bland concealment , a two box set of vintage Julia Child video , the snow fall , the fire going incessantly , it all just added up to a sleepy-eyed trance that included various source catalogs , vane sites for rarefied plants ( I was impressed at how Plant Delight ’s Nursery switched their 2009 catalogue over to their 2010 catalog exactly at midnight on Dec 31 ’s , yes , I noticed that ) . In the end , I experience like a did waste meter , but I am strangely OK with it . This morning time , it ’s back to the routine , for now . Up at 5:00 , out the room access at 7:00 , commute for an hour , then lick , and sharpen . THose dream of “ We should have a farm in Vermont so that we can raise heirloom veggies and vintage goats and make artisianal tall mallow and pottery ” go off in a “ poof ’ of airline tickets to the LA office , airport shuttles , how to bind a four deal tie and the constant beeping of the iPhone , with dinner and lunch being schedule for the week , to “ catch up ” on bare December issues . Now , it ’s a macrocosm of triple - booked confluence , ability decimal point decks , emails and budget reviews . Now , that stack of heirloom seed catalogs next to my sofa that I was putting off looking at , seems desirable again . Perhaps next weekend , or the one after that ( no waiting , I ’m in LA that weekend , then Vegas for the Home Electronics Show ) ugh . Vermont , Vermont , Vermont ……

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Making Parisian Macaroons on the New YearNew Year ’s Clarence Shepard Day Jr. brought my supporter Jess and her booster Liz from Brooklyn , who convinced me to attempt whipping up a batch of Parisian Macarons . It was fun , and we may make more next weekend in dissimilar flavors and colors . When Jess and I we ’re in Tokyo we saw how pop these were in the train station , and now they are so trendy in NYC and London , yet , so easy to make . We make almond vanilla pinkish ones , fill with a vanilla pistachio tree swiss merengue buttercream . Yum . Jess organ pipe pinkish butter ointment on the macarons , because , during this Holiday rupture , we did n’t rust enough butter ( or pick ) .

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