Avoid These Exercises

As fun as it may be, piratin' is an exercise best avoided. Yaaaar!

 For good health in the New Year, avoid these exercises:

• Carrying grudges
• Jumping to conclusions
• Flying into a rage
• Stretching the truth
• Digging up old gossip
• Patting yourself on the back
• Raking people over the coals

Happy New Year to all!

Why Didn't I Think of That? Wednesday

Each Wednesday I'll share a tip to make your week go more smoothly or just make you say "aha!"

Today's tip comes to us from FishMama, over at Life As Mom. I normally don't repeat tips from other bloggers, but this one is too important not to share.

We all know that you have to keep your Christmas tree watered to prevent the danger of fire. An easy way to do this is to water the tree with ice cubes, since the ice melts quickly and doesn't spill. This is a perfect responsibility for kids (as long as they don't shake too many presents while under the tree).

Making Money With Surveys: The Check

This summer, I told you about earning extra money doing surveys with MySurvey. Some friends have asked me if I really do these surveys (yes) and if I really get paid (yes).

Check out what came in the mail yesterday (click to enlarge):

Yep, that's a check for $90.00. Wouldn't that come in handy this time of year? It sure does at our house.

Give them a try! It only takes a few minutes each month and you sure can't argue with extra spending money at Christmastime.

Jica-what?

This hasn't been a great year for green beans or potatoes at the BrownThumb house. But we harvested our (only) jicama yesterday and it was gigantic!

This was the last holdout of the Spring/Summer veggies. Everything else succumbed to the freezing temps over the weekend.

The garlic, onions, and shallots are happily nestled snug in their beds of leaf mulch. The hardier herbs are doing fine, but only one of the cauliflowers survived the bug attack--next year I'll use cloches.

How does your winter garden grow? Please tell us all about it in the comments.