A Very Quiet New Year

Compared to the weeks before it, the New Year weekend was very quiet. Thank Goodness. After a trip to LA, then to Beavercreek, I was ready for some at-home R&R. Matt and I spent a restful, yet productive three days at home. I did some end of the year garden pruning and trimming while Matt cleaned out the chicken coop. I took down the tree (which always makes me kind of sad) and carefully packed away my ornaments. We finished the first season of Heros which Matt got from his grandmother and I read Cleaved, given to me by Val.
I also managed to finish knitting Matt's socks which I had started at Jan's house over Christmas. Mom sent me some Fireworks (since his favorite color is black), which I knitted double to make some very thick, sturdy socks.

These are the second pair I've ever made. Ever. I'm afraid one of Matt's legs will be an inch warmer than the other. Sigh...

I was really sweating it by the time I started to decrease for the second toe. There was about three hours there where I was convinced I didn't have enough yarn, yet I continued. This was how much I had left from the two balls:

I was blessed by the yarn gods.
After that project was finished, I moved to the kitchen for another. Val sent me four silicon tart pans for my birthday, which totally got me craving mincemeat tarts. I had meant to make some to take to Jan's for Christmas, but the Lemon Meringue pie used up all my kitchen stamina that day. So, last night I made a double batch of dough and used up all the odds and ends of jam in the fridge as well as most of the jar of mincemeat I'd bought.
Rolling out the dough and fitting them into the pans:

These are plum and strawberry tarts made with my own jam.

Here are the finished tarts! 33 in all and delicious!

Next time, I plan to roll the dough even thinner, since they took much longer to cook fully than the recipe said. Also, the strawberry jam was too wet- it made the dough underneath soggy. I've already promised an encore perfomance for Mom when she comes up next week.
Hello 2012!