Like a flash in the pan, December has come and gone, dropping holiday cheer in our laps for a bit before settling in for a dark and chilly two months ahead. I've recovered some of my blogging mojo this month and have churned out recipes, which brings me to a total of 47 recipes posted in 2019! That's nearly one a week, and may make this my most productive year ever in this space. Let's do a quick December roundup to remember what happened the past 30 days.
December Recipes
Peas and Onions with Toasted Almonds
Peppermint Vanilla Coffee Syrup
Life Outside of the Blog
There wasn't too much going on for the holiday season for us. I went to the Topgolf Swing Suite finally, which was pretty fun. My office Christmas party was there, which was an excellent choice — it gave us something to do and opportunities to talk to different people we might not normally see. I definitely want to try the real Topgolf though, where you tee off into the distance from several stories up.
I was also a little worried about Radar Love. She had a cancerous lump cut off of her leg a few years ago, and she's grown another suspicious lump on her underarm on the same leg. It's been slowly getting bigger the past month or so. We need to find a more modern vet so they can do a fine needle aspiration to determine if it's cancerous. I don't want her to have to deal with surgical removal if it's benign and not affecting her walking, which it isn't currently. She also has a skin tag that split open this month, while Patrick was out of town. Neosporin and time seems to have healed it, but I just worry about my old girl. She'll be 12 in March!
It's been weirdly warm here in South Carolina this month, which may be part of the reason it hasn't felt super holiday-like this year. For the first time ever, I started pulling Christmas decorations down before MLK Day. The Christmas tree and it's lights are still up, but I'll soon be putting the faux ficus and it's warm white twinkle lights back in its place. The rest of the decor is in a pile, ready to go into the attic on New Year's Day.
Thanks to the warmness, I've been getting out and going on a lot of walks with Meatloaf. My life is basically food and dogs. Dogs and food. And sunsets, one of which you can see in the header image above. Totally unedited (except cropping). It's a sight to behold, and really gets me outside more in the afternoons so I can see them.
What's Coming Up
I've got a lot of plans to better my life in 2020. My yearly look back is coming up on Dec. 31, and I've got a few posts to come on what culinary skills I'd like to learn in 2020, what I want to do to the house in 2020, and other goals. 2019 passed me by too quickly, and I want to cut out the stuff that's not serving me in life, and ramp up on the stuff that IS, including this blog. I hope to have it soar to new heights in 2020, so thanks for reading along. I appreciate the time you spend reading, sharing, and making the recipes here.
Speaking of recipes, you're going to want to keep coming back in January to see all-new recipes — I have at LEAST one a week all ready to go — and new ingredients that'll spice up your cooking routines.
And finally, I am doing a lot of behind the scenes work on the blog, like improving the SEO, trying to work on my Pinterest game, and depending on how those two things go (traffic = money!), I would like to do a small redesign of this space to make it more user friendly. Let me know if you know any web developers who work with food bloggers specifically, and any of your favorite traffic boosting tips!
Happy last few days of this decade, ya'll!