Oh where has the time gotten? Canning, vacation, back to school preparations, birthday parties, boy has it been a crazy few weeks, or month actually!
Let's start with Canning. The garden project went over really well this year. I LOVE it. I love taking care of it, I loved planting it, I really really love that I am GROWING things and harvesting my own crops! It's quite an accomplishment for me. My little old garden has given us some goodies, but without the help of some friends and neighbors I would not have had much at all to can. I have been lucky enough that there are generous people out there whom, when they have gotten all they wanted from their gardens, they have turned the produce over to me. I feel so lucky to have gotten what we have got and am blessed beyond explanation that they've allowed me to come and pick and can up their produce.
I have canned to date Beets= 18 pts and 11 qt and 2 1/2 pts. Green Beans= 21 qts. Bread and butter pickles 34 quart 8 pts. Dill pickles 10 pts and 21 qt. and now we are doing tomatoes. So far we've canned 52 quart and 12 pts and we plan on doing more on Sunday. I canned up 14 quarts of mild salsa and 12 quarts of spicy salsa. Yesterday we canned up 28 quarts of spaghetti sauce and we have pears to do next. We've already canned up 8 quarts of pears and 4 pints, but have a LOT more to can just waiting on them to ripen up.
I have also put up some butternut squash in the freezer and frozen some green beans too. I also did up some freezer pickles to try. Not to mention that I have put up sweet corn in the freezer also.
I have had strep throat the last few days. Been sicker than a dog. I have laid around here and just felt rotten. I am seeing and picking at all these things wrong with my house. It's not clean enough for me. It really needs a deep cleaning. What the heck am I doing letting my house get so freaking nasty. I could almost cry. It is just bugging me. I took a few days to recoup and then I've been busting butt around here. I got all my laundry caught up and today I finally broke down and deep cleaned my bathroom, which needed it BAD. I need to pay more attention to the rest of this place but it will just take time.
I took the morning the other day and mowed the yard while Brody was in school. I can do a much better job when he isn't sitting on my lap the whole time.
Yep, I said Brody is in school. Wednesday I put my baby on the school bus. It was so hard to do. He was so tiny walking up those huge steps. It almost broke my heart. He has done so well. The biggest adjustment for him is going to bed at night and getting a schedule down. He doesn't like to sleep till the sun goes down. So he won't cash out till after 8:30. Ugh. He is napping later and it's messing things up. I plan on keeping him on the early to rise schedule over the weekend. This way he will still be on track come Monday morning.
Vacation was AMAZING. It was 7 days of pure amazement. It was the MOST BEAUTIFUL things I have ever seen. It was breathtaking. I have never seen mountains or glaciers, and the wild life was spectacular. We saw killer whales in the ocean, seals, otter, and dolphins. It was just so neat. Every day was something new and adventurous. I have a ton of photos and plan on putting together a photo book to share. It was a trip of a lifetime for sure. The only thing was leaving Brody behind. It was hard for 7 whole days. Canada was our last stop. We all hated it. Nothing wrong with Canada, but we were just so homesick and ready to get on the plane for home. We were never so happy to pull in our driveway and see Mom's smiling face. It was too long away from Brody.
Cole had so much fun on the ship playing in Club HAL with all his friends he made. They had daily activities planned and every day they would bring an itinerary for Cole to pick what he wanted to go and do for the day. He usually rushed us through breakfast so he could get up there and play! Bill and I took a lot of time walking the deck every day on the ship. Watching the wildlife and seeing the mountains. It was spectacular views every single second. We spent a lot of time outside enjoying the cool 60's and 70's degree weather.
The ports were so neat to stop at. There was a lot of shopping and different foods to try. We did a LOT of walking and taking it all in. We took a trip through a National Park, and hiked the trails. We found a grocery store and smuggled PEPSI onto the ship! We had gotten sick of COKE products after 5 days!
We ate FRESH fish and chips from a neat little shack on the pier and made friends with a little birdie who liked our french fries! We tried to soak up the culture, talk to the locals and just really enjoy our down time. Bill did a lot of napping, Cole did a lot of swimming and I did a lot of sunning myself and reading while he swam. We each did the things we loved and wanted to do. We had a ball together. It was really nice just spending some alone time with Cole. He gets shoved to the side so much because Brody is so needy and so demanding and it was really good for him to spend some time with just Mom and Dad. He will NEVER EVER forget this trip. I am so happy we were able to bring him along.
The boys had their party at the swimming pool this year. They had a ball. Brody jumped off the diving board. What a shocker! It was nuts. He did it over and over and over again. He's such a dare devil. Cole had a lot of his school friends and baseball buddies show up. He was so happy to see them all and play with them. It was a nice final hoorah before school started.
I just feel like I don't have a minute to think most days. Then I got to the point when I realized that we hadn't gotten our tax return back yet and this got the ball rolling on a crazy train... I called our accountant and she informed me that they were notified I needed to call the IRS. I guess that they got the notice clear back on April 16th and NEVER called me. Ugh. So I called the IRS and was informed by the nice lady on the phone that my identity had been stolen and that someone had filed taxes under my name and ss#. This set the ball in motion for a zillion things I had to do. Go file a police report, contact the federal trades commission, get my credit reports and study them making sure that there were no false charges on my records, call the Attorney Generals office, call the national hotline for Identity theft and also call the social security office. What a mess. All this paperwork, all this crap to do, and then having to paper file our taxes this year and I have to send in all this documentation that I am who I am and all these police reports and crap. It's been quite the darned headache. I am going to go nuts if this doesn't get straightened out soon. Hopefully I've done everything correctly and we get it under control soon. I needed all this crap like I needed a hole in my head!
Tomorrow is Face Fest at the Wood and I am going to watch my brother play. It could be the last time we see him in a long time. The band has no bass player and it's harder and harder for them to make gigs and get together so I think they are calling it quits for awhile. I can't wait to see him play one more time!
I have had the air conditioning off this week and I have been tempted to turn it back on, but our $315 light bill last month kinda has me conserving. That was just crazy. And to think we were on vacation for a week and our thermostat was set on 85 all week long. I couldn't believe it. It's been so hot during the days, but the nights are so lovely. It cools off nicely. The fans positioned in the windows brings in such a lovely breeze and it's so cool and crisp all night long. Then I keep the house all dark and shut up all day hoping to keep in the cool. I have fans running and it feels good, but it's still hot. I may cave in if this hot snap doesn't end soon. I hate this sweating doing nothing!
Well, I am going to go for now, hopefully it won't be so long before I update again. It might settle down some day around here?!?!
