2013 Resolution: Blog More

I started i [heart] mountains back in 2007 as something fun and for a long while I blogged as a way to share some of my more creative outlets and inspiration from around the web.  These days I'm seeing it as motivation to keep looking for creative inspiration and occasionally knit/cook/make something worth blogging about. If sleep begets sleep and exercising makes you want to be more active, can blogging regularly make you blog more? Let's hope so.

We spent Christmas in Virginia with my family and had a great time. Ford was a happy, curious little guy all week:

 That last one makes me giggle every time I see it.  Ford and his great grandmother Nene Ann!

Meanwhile back in Missoula it has been really, really cold and we are all hoping for a slight thaw so that we can do something outside.  We are certainly realizing the full value of our Missoula Children's Museum membership in the meantime.  

I had a few people over for an impromptu New Year's Day gathering.  For good luck we had our black eyed peas in a truly easy Hoppin' John recipe from Southern Living, as well as our greens, though I made it more fun and served those in a warm dip.  

Finally, the Christmas elves delivered one last present today.  After years of making coffee with a kettle on the stove, Melita cones and paper filters,

 

(If you're thinking that this looks like it wants to tip over and spill coffee and grounds all over your counter, you would be right.)

we took the plunge and plonked down some serious coin for a Bodum Bistro Pour Over drip coffee maker.  The MM and I spent a truly ridiculous amount of time researching this and reading far too many customer reviews.  In theory this machine does a good job of properly heating the water and spraying it evenly over the grounds in a gold mesh filter basket and then it drips into a thermal carafe that keeps the coffee hot, instead of burning the crud out of it on a hot plate.
The thing is taking up a lot of kitchen counter real estate, so I hope that I'll love it as much as the MM promises I will (he did a little taste test this afternoon).  It's not quite as simple as a Keurig, no, but the MM is something of a coffee snob and likes to buy whole beans and grind them himself, so this is as automatic as we'll ever get.  Maybe a full thermal carafe of fahhncy coffee in the morning will inspire more blogging.  See what I did there?