Christmas came and passed quietly here with sunshine and cool weather. We managed to get the Christmas shopping done about a week beforehand with a flurry of online orders, then mostly hid out from the frantic shoppers and even more frantic traffic. We turned on the TV to watch the Christmas specials, mostly on our local Trinity Broadcasting Network station, and sipped as much eggnog as could be sneaked into our diets. Christmas dinner was centered around a nice ham, as the cats still haven't finished the Thanksgiving turkey and even they are getting tired of the scraps.

We passed out a modest selection of books, clothing, candy, and jigsaw puzzles for Mom this year. The hit present was Steve's handheld video poker game. He's been punching away at the keys and making winning hands, running up his winnings like mad. He likes strategy games, so this game ought to keep him interested for quite a while.

My main frenzy of activity currently is split between the garden and the knitting class. I've got about a week to go and I'm almost finished with the class notes. I keep thinking up all sorts of good things to include and then have to remind myself that this is one three hour class, and the beginners will need time to practice knitting while the more experienced knitters and I coach them as needed. I'll have to see if they want to explore more topics later. I promised that I would not scare them with an overwhelming amount of good tips.

The gardening looks even more like a frenzy with the frequent use of the mulching mower to reduce fallen leaves to tiny bits in the gardening beds. I'm using the paper shredder to make mulch for the garden, giving it a few passes with the mulching mower to chop it a bit more. The shredder doesn't like newspaper much and only shreds it into long strips instead of little bits, so I have to keep stopping and pulling off strips wound along its rollers to clear them. Still, it is working quite well as long as I let it cool down frequently. The poor machine was made to shred a few crisp papers occasionally during office hours, not run for hours with huge amounts of paper going through it.

I've been mixing leaves, paper shreds, fertilizer, and a dusting of lime and mulching it onto the beds. Once it is watered, it holds in place quite well and slowly turns a more natural tan color. It should break down into compost slowly during the winter. Baby and Rapunzel are still slowly making compost, and I unloaded Rapunzel yesterday onto a new section of bed with mulch over it. Baby's latest load is turning dark brown but needs more time. That's why the paper is going directly onto the garden to get as much composting as possible before the new gardening season really gets going.

The season actually started on Christmas when I sowed some cabbage seeds in a plastic container. It seemed appropriate since Christmas may be the day when Christ was conceived, to be born during the Feast of Tabernacles or at least during that general time of the fall feasts. No one is quite sure what His actual birthday in human flesh was, although we can find out when the saints can ask Him all those questions we wonder about now. Since cabbages need to be started about six to eight weeks before they are set out as plants in the garden and that falls in December in my climate zone, Christmas is a good time to celebrate new life by starting the earliest sprouts for the garden as well.

I sent in my first seed order this morning, fed Rapunzel more scraps and paper, and watered the cabbage pot lightly. We're only into the first week of winter, but the new garden tasks start before the final tasks of the old gardening season end. I picked fresh, tender mustard greens sweetened by the frosts for supper last night, then today ordered new mustard seeds for spring planting in about two months. I've still got a little spinach in its bed with its new planting season about three weeks away. The Swiss Chard is doing well, too. We've had a few moderate frosts leaving the lawns and roofs dusted powdery white, but no serious cold snaps so far. I like to leave greens in the garden to pick fresh as long as possible, and the weather is cooperating beautifully.

The reason that I can marvel over the planting dates so easily is that I put them in my new electronic organizer. I discovered that I could put the estimated planting dates on the first line with the name of the vegetable in the Schedule function, then use the date line to remind me when to plant them. I can use the same time of day to group them on the schedule for that day to make a rolling list that I can update as needed according to how closely new plantings need to be made and whether weather conditions make it necessary to reschedule gardening tasks.

I've also been making an unfinished projects list with the Memo function and moving project steps onto the schedule. That hasn't been quite as successful as I have a mountain of unfinished projects to do. I can think up more things than I can get done quite easily indeed, and I tend to forget how much time each one takes. Today I've got seven entries on the schedule with only two underway right now, this blog entry and some laundry. Most of the rest have been rolling over from earlier dates when I couldn't finish everything. I'm loathe to put the routine daily tasks like meals on the list and endlessly roll them over, so there is a lot that gets slipped in among the ones that do make the list. I'm salving my conscience by using the times more as a priority assignment rather than an actual inflexible time-to-do-it.

One project that is rolling over is a new flannel shirt from an earlier fabric.com order. I've got the pattern located and the material washed and dried, but I can't seem to find the time to cut it out. I did sneak in another order from fabric.com, and wouldn't you know it, they've expanded the sale with even more items and discounts. I really could use more clothing and quilting fabric . . . but I can't find the time to use it! I have the beautiful fabric out where I can see it every time I go to my room as an incentive.

I also have a reminder of the sale end in the organizer with the alarm on to beep at me as further incentive to keep chipping away at the list. They put a group of quilting fabrics and some fleeces that I had been drooling over into the sale this week, so I'm working, working, working . . . is anyone buying this? I wasn't going to send in the last order until I got those knitting class notes done, and it got here before Christmas.