'Tis the season to be makin' baby blankets. Seems like I am always making lots of them at one time!! My friends never seem to have babies one at a time, it's like a group project. If one is pregnant, at least 4 others will be as well. I just wish I could join them. But we won't be going there right now. So, I have 5 friends in my ward that are pregnant, 3 of which are due before the 1st of August. Uh, yeah, luckily I got 2 of those blankets done today. This doesn't include the 2 in other states that will be having babies and I have to mail their blankets. Yes, if you are keeping count that would be a total of 7!!!! Anyway, the yellow one is for a girl, the green for a boy, both have a fuzzy fleece side as well as a silky side. I have a red one for a boy and a torquise one for a girl that I have to finish. They're really pretty simple, they just take a while because the fabric likes to slide EVERYWHERE!! O well, I think I might be busy this week:)
Our relief society planned a little trip to the cannery this past weekend. I'm so bummed that I forgot the camera, cause boy, we were a sight!!! Hair nets, aprons, and bright blue gloves. And for those that possessed beards, face nets:) Our ward ordered the largest amount of food the cannery has ever seen, or something like that. It was HUGE!!! but that is what you get when you have 300 people in your ward. We left here at 7 am, since the cannery is in Ohio and we had to drive 2 hours. There were 3 other wards there at the same time, doing their stuff. There was 95 bags of wheat, about 50 bags of flour, a lot of sugar, as well as oats. And we had to can it all!! We were there FOREVER!!!!! We didn't leave until 5pm. We forgot to bring lunch, so by the time we were doen we were all starving and everyone had to hit the Wendy's on the way home. We tried to tide ourselves over with some leftover apples that didn't fit in a can. yummy, but just not enough. So I came home with some bulk flour and oat to put in the freezer until I can get a better container for them, and some sugar, apples and hot chocolate (of course). The flour, oats, and sugar should last us the year, so we won't have to buy that once I am in school, which will be very nice. If I make too much more jam though, we won't have much sugar left:)
I was officially hired yesterday at Target. Oh, yeah, now I get to see all the sales right when they happen. Hmmm, this could be a bad thing. I am working th 4am to 12 noon shift. What fun:) Not sure how long it will last it will Depend on when my classes are in the fall so I might have to give up the craziness for a while in the fall. But this works with my schedule of classes, and Abby and Sabrina's shedules, so it'll be good for us, for now. All I have to do now is actually go to bed before midnight. Uh, yeah. I need to cure this insomnia SOON!
Strawberry time in the north. I hate having to wait so long, but it's soooo worth it! I took the girls with me, but forgot the camera!! Duh. They did a great job helping me, but were soon ready to go home. I didn't realize how much I got until I went to pay for them. Oh, yeah:) I just remember how much we used to pick when I was a kid, and that almost got me into trouble! 30 lbs of strawberries later........
I LOVE strawberry jam. I better cause I made A LOT!!! I smashed a large, large number strawberries.
Yesterday I made 17 half pints and 8 pints. Today I made 6 pints of strawberry rhubarb jam. Yum. I had one batch that didn't quite set up, I'm hoping that they will by this weekend. If not I'm going to have to cook that batch again.
I also put 8 quarts in the freezer. Which will last a little while:) I love to make a dish called "strawberries and biscuits." We used to eat it all the time when we were younger. Warm biscuits, then strawberries, then milk. YES, it's really good. Sean and Abby love it, Sabrina is weird and doesn't like it. I don't know how she couldn't:)
My poor Begonia's :( There was still hail left when I took the pictures.
Cool, eh? Not!
This is what is left of the Impatients. I think they'll be okay. And there were/are tree leaves everywhere.
My squash plants. I trimmed off the ripped stems, there weren't too many. I hope they can recover from the shredded leaves.
This was what I put over the garden itself to protect the tomatoes and stuff. Although I think the chicken wire deflected a lot of it because the beans look like they didn't get hit.
I wish I had a picture of me when I put this on, I did it in the middle of the storm and made use of the top of the turtle sand box so I didn't get pummeled:) I'm sure I looked interesting with a turtle shell on my back!
A lovely thunderstorm rolled through town today. For some reason this blog won't let me post the pictures. When it lets me I'll show you what happened. I was able to protect my plants a little bit, but some of the squash leaves got shredded as well as some of the peppers. Amazingly the flowers were what got really shredded, and they are mostly under the trees, so I'm not sure what happened. Luckily no damage to the car, I guess you have to have more than marble size hail to get any real damage. Maybe I shouldn't mention that, next thing you know, we'll have at least golf ball size hail.
Sean and I are trying to cut back on our grocery bill and this is one of the ways we are trying to do it. I'll start by saying I put black beans in everything. And when i say everything I mean everything. The other day I put them in my chicken salad sandwich. Sean made fun of me, but ya can't taste them and they are WAY good for you. So, I do what I do:) My in-laws have lots of food storage in the house and when they were here last month they said I could use the beans that were in the storage. Yeah. As you can see, there is a bunch! So yesteday I started the process of trying to can them.
Here they are soaking over night. I'm hoping it was enough.
Here is the mess that I made while putting the beans in the jars, that Sean says will be there for another week :)~ Whatever. And as you can see, I have my new toy. The pressure canner. Oh, yes, finally I got one. We're hoping to use it for the stuff from the garden too, so it will get lots of use before this year is out.
The final product. This is not all the beans that were in the first picture, it's only one bowl of them. I didn't realize how many fit into a quart jar. I also do not have a soup pan big enough to boil all the beans at one time. Meanwhile, the canner only holds 7 quart jars. Soooo, it's going to be a long process. But at least 6 are done. here's hoping I don't give anyone botulism!
This ended up being fairly inexpensive to do. All I had was the cost of the new lids and the canner, which will pay for itself by then end of the summer! I had all the quart jars already and of course, all the beans. So now, we wait and see what happens:) It's strawberries next week and we are planning on doing peaches again in August. Yeah, can't wait.
Look!!! The beans are growing! I'm hoping i didn't put too many in there and that they are too close together. If they all have blossoms and produce beans, I should be able to can a lot of them for the year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The radishes are behind the beans. Can't wait until they are large enough to eat. Right now, they're not so big.
The tomatoes I planted are still struggling. They are only about a 1/2 inch out of the ground. A friend of mine grows lots of tomato plants in many varieties and gave us a few plants. So we should have some to put in salsa and spaghetti sauce. I'm letting the ones I started go, and see how they do. Same thing happened with the Green peppers. I had to get some bigger plants at the nursery so we would have some peppers by the end of the summer.
Here are the squash and zucchini. I had to start all over with most of them. Only 2 survived the frosty days. O well. Looks like I should have plenty to put in the freezer. Friends of ours were getting rid of their chest freezer and wanted to know if we wanted it. Heck yeah!! So now we have somewhere to put all of this great food.
10 cubic yards of mulch came today. So that means I could finish the flower beds in the front of the house. This is part of one side, I'm hoping the Hosta's in front won't get eaten by the deer. Our neighbors aren't having any luck with theirs. The shorter flowers are Begonia's. They've done really well since we put them in the ground and I'm hoping they bloom all summer. 
The other side of the sidewalk. This side has Impatiens and Begonia's and some other cool looking perennials. I have no idea what their names are, there are 2 kinds, and they looked cool, liked the shade, and wouldn't take over, so I got them.
Don't know if you can see the Bleeding heart bushes, but they have improved. Hopefully next year they will grow some more branches and be much fuller. They look kinda sad right now.
This poor guy was on the sidewalk while I was walking the dog. He's still alive, I don't know for how much longer. I think his wing is busted and he can't fly. So I picked him up and he rode all the way home on my finger. Then I put him on a flower, I hope the cat doesn't think he's fun to play with.
You know when you are laying in bed at night and things keep rolling through your head?! I can't seem to get it to STOP!!! What the heck? For at least the last week I have been up until crazy hours in the morning cause my brain won't SHUT OFF!!!! And I can't find the switch. Some things that keep going through my head are things that I said, oh 10 years ago. Uh, yeah, done and over and I'm sure everyone has forgotten about it but ME!! I've been thinking about stuff that I have said to people at church, wondering if they think I'm crazy, or better yet, know I'm crazy. Sometimes I think about stuff that happened in 6th grade, or 10th grade, or, or, or , you get the picture. Then I start thinking about the things I have to do the next day. Although I can usually quiet those things by writing them down, which is why I have a notebook beside my bed. Eventually I get so tired that I fall asleep in the middle of a thought, luckily. But this is killing me. I had a friend tell me today that I looked tired. Uh, yeah, cause I can't seem to GO TO SLEEP!!! And then the dog wakes me up at 6 to go to the bathroom and then the cat wakes me up at 7 cause he wants in the house. I'm ready to shoot both the animals, just cause they won't let me sleep. I guess one thing is good, I go to bed early because it is taking me forever to get to sleep and Sean isn't waking me up when he gets home. Although there have been nights when I have been up to greet him, at midnight. oh, this has got to stop. Yes, you can all laugh at me, cause I am laughing at myself. Maybe that's the craziness setting in from lack of sleep. oy. Any suggestions as to the location of the shut off valve? and I really hate chamomile tea, so don't even go there:)
To any that might be interested in my agony of training for the triathlon that is coming up at the end of August, I did another blog, here's the sitehttp://twolf-training4triathlon.blogspot.com/ . Any tips from running biking or swimming people would be appreciated:) I need all the help I can get!
'Tis the season to be makin' baby blankets. Seems like I am always making lots of them at one time!! My friends never seem to have babies one at a time, it's like a group project. If one is pregnant, at least 4 others will be as well. I just wish I could join them. But we won't be going there right now. So, I have 5 friends in my ward that are pregnant, 3 of which are due before the 1st of August. Uh, yeah, luckily I got 2 of those blankets done today. This doesn't include the 2 in other states that will be having babies and I have to mail their blankets. Yes, if you are keeping count that would be a total of 7!!!! Anyway, the yellow one is for a girl, the green for a boy, both have a fuzzy fleece side as well as a silky side. I have a red one for a boy and a torquise one for a girl that I have to finish. They're really pretty simple, they just take a while because the fabric likes to slide EVERYWHERE!! O well, I think I might be busy this week:)
