Itty bitty basil sprouts in my new GrowBottle.

Happy new year, everyone!  Wow – it’s been a whirlwind couple of months, and I’m so happy to be back at the laptop with you all. The fam and I had a wonderful holiday season this year, and things are finally getting back to normal (whatever that is!)…

Thought I’d share with you the super cool gift my hubby got me for Christmas… my own indoor herb garden using GrowBottles (from UncommonGoods). We have a little herb and veggie garden out back, but the Texas heat just brutalized our little greens last summer, so when he came across these little guys, he knew we had to have ’em.

We’ve started with four: mint, basil, parsley, and, to be honest, one I can’t remember (and I already threw away the packaging)… We’ll just have to wait and see what sprouts! I’m loving the concept of the GrowBottle – the bottles are recylced, reusable, and pretty cool to look at to boot.  The kits are super easy to put together, and so far idiot-proof (while I’m decent in the kitchen, I’m not known for keeping plants alive).  I started the basil before we left for the holidays, and we’ve got some cute little sprouts coming up.  The others I tackled today, so hopefully we’ll start seeing some green soon!

My new indoor herb garden.

It’s not often that my professional and personal lives so totally interconnect, but in the case of bacon, there is a clear cross-over. I work in the IT industry (for the awesome IT software company Spiceworks – check out this video about zombies and, yes, bacon), and I work every day with IT pros all over the world. What brings them all together? Bacon. Yep, IT guys love bacon just about as much as we CrossFitting Paleo nuts do.  And why shouldn’t they? Bacon is quite simply one of the tastiest treats out there, and I snarf down every little scrap when the opportunity arises.

Now, I really do love bacon, but it would seem that there are some folks out there who REALLY love bacon, and they’ve got the merchandise to prove it. I recently purchased a variety of bacon-related items as prizes for our software conference a few weeks ago – I had no idea how much bacon-related paraphernalia was out there.  It’s a little scary. And a little awesome. Check out what I snagged… Not gonna lie, it would take a braver woman than me to try out the bacon-flavored toothpaste.

Bacon-Scented Soap Plus, the bar of soap looks like a huge slab of bacon. Lather up!

Bacon Flavored Mints  Hmm, not sure my vegetarian hubby would be super pleased if I started popping these.

Follow the jump for more awesome bacon-ness.

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