not as quiet as it sounds

I keep chastising myself, feeling like nothing is getting accomplished around here.
January is a weird month. The days are so short, and as the sun goes down my internal clock is set to wind down with it. This year brought a cold, frosted winter, and it finds me indoors much more than usual, but a quick look back reminds me that this month has been just as full of things to do as any other... it's just that I'm not quite as willing as April or May will find me.
There's the year end paperwork, and then a couple of birthdays. Molly was home until mid-month, and managed to squeeze in a nasty little intestinal virus. That was fun. We've even had a couple of days where we took off and just didn't work at all. But we did lots of work too.
At the moment, we're finishing up the Mar/Apr issue of The Essential Herbal, and it will probably go to the printer in the morning. The early spring issue always surprises me because of the volume and number of great articles that come in. Here I am slogging along, but thankfully others are not. In fact, although we haven't done it for almost 2 years, we felt that we needed to add pages to this issue, and it's still packed with page margins as small as we can safely make them. Every time we send out a new issue, it is exciting to think about readers receiving them, but this time... well, I can't wait!We've also been busy with Maryanne's soap biz. In fact, we finally broke out the oil melter (from soapequipment.com) that's been stored in my basement for 3 years. We are VERY slow to change the way we do things. We got the whole set-up, but are implementing the parts one at a time. For a long time, the cutter made enough difference in the process that we were able to keep up, but it became clear that it was time to start using the melter. Weighing up solid oils in the winter (especially after they've been in "cold storage") is really difficult. We used to be able to pre-weigh them in warmer weather, but no more. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut of thinking small, and need to be forced to step up. This soap making equipment allows us to do it in our own way, and each step seriously changes our lives for the better.
As with any big change in a routine, there are small bugs to work out, so we've been doing that. We think we've got it now :-).
It's become boring for me to take and post pictures of COLD, so it's seemed quiet around here - but I guess it isn't after all.