~Cherry Peds~

Today I finished a pair of socks! All I had to do was kitchener one toe closed. That's it! I already had all the other ends woven in, and the other sock was finished.

 

I love how closely the stripes match up!

When I got the yarn at Hobby Lobby, I wanted a simple footy, so I wouldn't have a ton of knitting to do, but also because I don't like long cuffs on my socks, even in the winter. So I searched and searched and ended up using a pattern I had favorited on Ravelry a long time ago. Doesn't that figure!

The second sock had a very tiny amount of brown striping on the toe. That bothered me a lot because the other toe did not have that striping. But when I finally got them off the needles and on my feet, I realized something: I can't see that color variation when they are on!

So--another pair of socks to tuck into my drawer and wait for cooler weather (though we've had plenty of cool weather this summer!).

Yarn: Cherry Sours by Paton Stretch Sock
Pattern: Pom Pom Peds by The Purl Bee
Needles: US 2

More project details here (Ravelry link).

~Garden Update~

The last two years, we had a spot at a community garden. When they raised their prices, we started looking for a different community garden. But the others were just too far away. So then we discussed our yard. While it isn't "perfect" it has been a great option for us. Our back yard is too shaded, so the only option was our side yard.

This picture was taken about a month or so ago, but it gives a good idea of what our garden is doing:

 

Unfortunately, the soil at the very back was not very supportive for the crops we had, so our yield for that area was not that great. The zucchini and corn have been taken out. The green beans had a slow start but are now producing well. We have three varieties of tomatoes which are all doing well, plus a cherry tomato. I've been canning and putting up tomatoes like crazy. The peppers went bonkers, as have the tomatillos. We tried a new variety of bean this year, a golden bean, and they have produced well also. Our cucumbers didn't do very well, in fact I ended up buying a peck of cucumbers so I could get the pickles I wanted.

 

The radishes, carrots, green onions, and sugar peas all did well this spring. We talked about planting more for reaping in the fall, but we didn't do that this year. Maybe next!

 

All in all, it has been a good first year of gardening from our yard! Next year, we hope to build raised beds and bring in some good soil, enhancing it with compost from our compost bin.

 

Our weather this summer has been very cool, so some plants have been quite slow to produce. But that's ok - if the tomatoes were coming on any faster I would go crazy. ;-)

~Spiral Binding~

It's the little things in life that make me happy. Case in point:

Spiral binding!!!!!!!!!

I had the brilliant idea to get my canning book spiral bound. I use this book often throughout the canning season, and it is always a fight to get the book to stay open. A quick call to the copy shop and voila! No more holding the book open with other objects!

It even flips nicely, so I can use up less counter space with my recipe book:

This is the next book to get the beauty treatment:

It cost right around $5 to get it done. I definitely feel like it is worth it for a well-used book. I also think book publishers should take user-friendliness into account. But, when they don't, this is a good option!

(Affiliate link in post)

~Classical Conversations~

Last night, I was at a planning meeting, which involved this book:

Eeps!

We are going to be involved in Classical Conversations this year, and not only will my daughter be enrolled as a student, but I will be tutoring. It is exciting. And a little nerve-wracking (the tutoring aspect)! My husband and I really feel God is leading us down this path though, so I am trusting in Him that He will help me through! :)

It's a little difficult to explain in a few sentences, but Classical Conversations is a homeschool curriculum/group/method that endeavors to teach students classically. I'm still learning a lot about what makes the difference between a classical education vs. the typical education model in most schools. I really like what I see and I feel like it is a good match for our family.

We will be meeting with our group once a week, broken down into age groups, and each class will have 2 1/2 hours in which new material is presented for the week, a science experiment is performed, and fine arts is studied. The motto for Classical Conversations is, "To know God and Make Him Known." I love that.

Many years prior to our daughter's birth, Kevin and I had discussed our desire to homeschool. But when our daughter was just a baby, we discussed in earnest the whys and hows of homeschooling. We knew that since most likely our daughter would be an "only" that we needed to have some sort of way to be out of the house on a regular basis. Yes, we were choosing homeschooling but we felt it was also important to not to become hermits either! And so, this last winter I started looking into what exactly we were going to be doing, and I kept coming back around to Classical Conversations. One thing led to another and here we are - ready to start in a few short weeks!

I'm excited to see what God has in store for us!

~Today Looks Promising~

What day isn't good when it's started with a puff pancake? Doubled, of course, so I had something to eat for breakfast as well.

I forgot to put the blueberries on top while it was baking, so we served them on the side. Doubling the recipe made for just a bit more than my daughter and I could eat for breakfast. Having leftovers is better than me prowling about after breakfast looking for something to eat since my daughter ate up everything . ;-)

~A week of Mondays~

Do you know the tale of the man who wished for every day to be Sunday, and he was granted his wish? His wife wasn't happy with him because she had to fix a big roast dinner every day. Eventually he got his wish changed around and learned to be happy with each day as it came.

Mondays are pretty choppy around here. Sundays do take some "recuperating" as it were, for the whole family, but they are hardest on our daughter. We have a 35 min. ride each way, which means over 2 hours in the car each Sunday; the expectation to sit still and behave through Sunday school, junior church, and evening service; and meal times all changed up. If I were four years old I'd have trouble on Mondays too!

But this week it seems as if we're getting a week of Mondays. What is up with that? Last night there was an unusual amount of drinking-pottying-sing me a songing-bed bouncing-even more drinking-in-and-outing than normal. That led to a child who went to sleep past 10 pm in spite of my best efforts to get her in bed on time. She seemingly has not gotten my sleeping genes and to prove it, she bounced out of her room before eight this morning! So yeah, this day has seemed like a Monday. As did yesterday, and of course Monday was Monday!

Here's hoping tomorrow is a Thursday-that-feels-like-Thursday!

What's the hardest day around your house?

~Cherries!~

On the Fourth of July, we went cherry picking. Underneath the blue, blue skies, with such lovely warm weather, we picked and picked and picked. We just couldn't seem to stop. In the end, we had 34 pounds of cherries.

In case you wondered what 34 pounds of cherries looks like, here you go:

 

If you want to know what your arm will feel like after pitting 30 or so pounds of cherries, well, I'll leave that up to you to see if you want that experience. :-)

What did I do with all those cherries? Well, we ate a lot! In fact, I washed a large container in water with a bit of vinegar, and they lasted a long time in our refrigerator! I gave some to a friend as a "thank you" for letting me use her food dehydrator. And then I spend an inordinate amount of time at the kitchen sink, pitting them! In the end, I had a sore shoulder and plenty of cherry goodness in the freezer and in jars!

I put this info on my 2013 page (see tabs above), but here's what I did:
Frozen - 4 quarts
Frozen in simple syrup - 4 pint jars
Honey Cherry Jam - 9 8-oz. jars
Black Forest Preserves - 6 8-oz. jars, 1 12-oz. jar
Dried - 14 oz.

I've yet to try the cherries which were frozen in simple syrup, but I'm looking forward to testing them out! Also, my husband is anxious to eat the dried cherries but so far they're under lock and key. ;-) Do you do that? I put so much work into everything I want to look at it for quite a long while before it is consumed. LOL Also, a note on the Black Forest preserves: chocolate in cherry jam? Oh my! It is amazing!

~Finally (!!!) Finished~

This spring I came up with the idea to refinish our sad looking park bench which we have on our front porch.

The finish was peeling off the wood, and the metal was rusted. After a search online for the best way to paint the bench, I was off to Home Depot.

And...two months later (!) this is the finished product:

Oh my goodness! I don't even want to go in to all the details, but let's just say that since this was my first spray paint/refinish project that there were a lot of things learned along the way! And now that it's done, I can sigh a big sigh of relief!

~Clothespin Dolls~

About two years ago, I pulled down a clothespin bag that was hanging in the basement, and discovered a bag full of antique clothespins. I listed them on my Etsy shop and made quite a bit of money off something that I had just discovered in my home (too bad there isn't anything else hanging about my attic or basement!).

I saved some of the clothespins, thinking they would make a fun craft sometime.

Yesterday I pulled them out and we got some paint at Hobby Lobby so we could paint them. My daughter actually did most of the painting, though I did help her with some of the painting and I was standing right over her to help direct the paintbrush. And of course, I drew the faces on.

I'm thinking these would be fun in her church bag though she couldn't "talk" for them so I don't know if that would work or not!

I have about 10 more pegs and I'm itching to do a few myself. But then, there would be the question of what to do with them afterwards. I'm not a great fan of tshotshkes so they would probably just end up as toys too!

~Random Thoughts~

:::Yesterday and today have been rainy days. We're hoping for nice weather on the 4th, as we have a family outing planned. I guess we can always improvise but when you have plans you want to execute them!

:::Yesterday I got the chance to meet up with a long-time blogging friend. We talked for about an hour. Wow! What fun. :) (She no longer blogs, otherwise I'd point you toward her blog.)

:::More sour cherries! I got 8.5 pounds and it took me 1.5 hours to pit them. Yield: two more pies-to-be-made and 3 jars of jam. Yum!

:::And more pickled asparagus! I bought more asparagus, and then I opened a jar of my pickled asparagus to see how I liked it. Oh my! So, so good! I love it! I sprung for the 24-oz. jars this time around. They really are so much more efficient for canning asparagus! Much more of the stalk fits into the jar! I got 3 24-oz. jars. Yum.

:::As soon as the weather clears we want to go sweet cherry picking. Can't wait for that. And oddly, blueberry season is starting early this year (this week!), so there are blueberries to consider. Blueberries are an absolute must for me so I'll definitely fit them in.

~Fruit~

Yesterday was a very "fruitful" day! First, my daughter and I went strawberry picking, which yielded 8 pounds of strawberries for us. We went strawberry picking about a week and a half ago, and I froze them plain, as well as 4 pints in simple syrup. We were going through them pretty fast (for smoothies), so I thought we should take advantage of them before the end of strawberry season.

Then in the afternoon a friend put out the word that her cherry tree had a broken branch, did anyone want to come pick sour cherries? So we headed out to pick cherries! We got almost 5 pounds, and this is the result:

Well, at least the crack in the board is in focus (!).
It's a stormy afternoon, hard for taking pictures!

It took a lot of work to pit all those cherries (even with a pitter), but the jam is so amazingly good! I'm thinking about going back early next week as I was invited to, and getting enough for another pie and a few more jars of jam.

I still have strawberries in my fridge to put up. I'm just going to freeze them, so that isn't too much work! I just need to do it!

~Flowers~

I snapped a few pictures of my flowers in the front beds. The Asiatic lilies are in bloom!


View from my porch.

 

 

I really enjoy having mostly perennials in the front flower bed. It looks a lot different from when we first moved in (eight years this July!).



~Canning Notes: Pickled Asparagus~

Last year while I was looking for recipes for pickles, it came to me that "pickles" does not universally mean pickled cucumbers. One can pickle most anything one desires, including pig's feet (though I certainly do not desire to pickle pig's feet! and I actually did not come across such a recipe).

Last week I purchased asparagus from a local farm and set about pickling it, using Marissa's recipe found here (I left out the cayenne).

I really wish I had 24-oz. jars, but I didn't want to run to the store and purchase jars for something I don't know if I'll want to make again. So this year I made do, and if it turns out that we love pickled asparagus, I might buy some jars so that I can get longer pickled asparagus.

The season's next locally-offered produce will be cherries! I'm looking forward to putting up some cherry preserves.

~Swagbucks~

So, I looked, and the last time I officially plugged my Swagbucks referral link was December, 2011. So I don't feel bad doing a little plug for my referral link. ;-)

First of all, I have to say, I love Swagbucks. If I didn't get any referral links, I would still love it! A free way to earn a bit of extra money? Sign me up! (Oh wait, I already did sign up...I crack me up sometimes. LOL)

I have always used the Swagbucks I earn to buy $5 Amazon gift cards. Total earned to date? $485. Nearly $500 that I have had to spend as I want! That's a lot of extra money, if you ask me! I saved up my gift cards for about a year and purchased a KitchenAid mixer. Late last spring, I bought a sand and water table for my daughter, so she'd have something to play with in the back yard. I had been saving for an iPod Touch, but I ended up using them that way and I'm glad I did. She had a lot of fun playing with the table, and has continued to play with it this summer, so it was a good buy, even if it delayed my iPod Touch purchase! (Oh, the sacrifices parents make... ;-) )

Now I'm saving up for either an iPod Touch or a Kindle Fire HD. I'm kind of waffling back and forth on which I want! (Any input?) I am pretty close to my goal!

If you don't have a Swagbucks account, why not give it a try? I betcha you'll get hooked just like me! For the first 1,000 Swagbucks you earn, I will earn 1,000 as well. And you can get people to sign up under you immediately, so you can start earning through referral links right away also.

~"Cream of" Soups~

For quite some time now I've not purchased "cream of" soups, because some of the ingredients are ones I prefer not to use in my kitchen. I've tried several recipes for cream of mushroom soup made from scratch, but those fell lacking. So I just stopped making recipes - some of my favorite recipes - that had "cream of" soups in them.

Then last Easter, I was looking in the soup aisle for an alternative, so I could make my grandma's potato dish for our dinner. I came across a box of soup made by Pacific Organic. I bought it and...it fit the bill!

So now that I have a "cream of" soup that I'm happy using, some of my favorite recipes have made their way into my menu rotation again! That makes me happy, and Kevin too - because most of the recipes I hadn't been making were actually favorites of his.

I found this soup at my local Meijer, though I suppose it would be easier to find at a health food store. It never occurred to me to look at my health food store to see what options I might have. But I don't make it to my health food store very often, so I'm glad that Meijer is carrying these soups now!

Simple ingredient list I don't feel bad cooking with!

~(Finally) Finished Sleeping Monkeys~

I finished my Sleeping Monkeys (Ravelry link) a few weeks ago, and then they sat in my knitting bag. I was glad to get them finished but since it hasn't been cold I haven't really needed wool socks. But goodness! I should at least photograph them!

I loved knitting these. The yarn was nice to work with and the pattern with the eliminated purling worked up so quickly.

It's nice to have a new pair of socks to look forward to wearing this fall!

~Something to Think About~

Someone shared the following with me, and it has been incredibly helpful to me:

I do the things I do, and
I feel the things I feel, because
I think the things I think.

To change the way you feel, start with your thoughts. Stop yourself in your tracks when thinking wrong thoughts (of bitterness, anger, whatever your wrong thoughts might be). Confess them to the Lord.

Changing your thoughts will change your actions.

In time, changing your thoughts, along with changing your actions, will change your feelings. It won't be instantaneous, but in time, your feelings will come along!

When I am having trouble with my feelings, I try to remember this and go back to what I am thinking about. Then I can change my thoughts, which changes my actions, which eventually changes my feelings.

~Make Your Own Taco Seasoning~

Several years ago, I looked online and found a recipe for taco seasoning. I just wrote it down on a scrap of paper, so I'm not sure what site I got the recipe from.

Taco Seasoning
1 T. chili powder
2 t. onion powder
1 t. cumin
1 t. paprika
1 t. oregano
1 t. sugar
1/2 t. salt

For one pound of meat, combine these seasonings. Cook your ground beef, drain the fat, and then add the seasonings, cooking a little longer to fully season the beef. You may need to add a little water.

If you want to have this as a staple in your cabinet, rather than mixing every time, you'll want to make a bigger batch. For mine, I am using a half-pint jar. When I mixed it up this time, I didn't have the onion powder so I still need to add that. So this size container is just a little too small for this mix:

6 T. chili powder
4 T. onion powder
2 T. cumin
2 T. paprika
2 T. oregano
2 T. sugar
1 T. salt

Mix thoroughly. Use 3 T. per pound of meat, or whenever a recipe calls for one taco seasoning packet.

~Oatmeal for...lunch~

I belong to a buying club, which is very handy for getting a good price on whole foods. My last order, though, I made a mistake. It was late (I had gotten out of bed to get my order emailed by the deadline), and I grabbed an order number, an item description, and a price, all from three different items. You have to be really talented to make that kind of mistake! ;-) Instead of getting 25 pounds of regular rolled oats, I got 25 pounds of quick oats. What to do with so many oats? I rarely buy quick oats, so I was a little flummoxed by having so many at hand!

Thankfully I found some friends who desired quick oats, and I was only left with about 9 pounds. Much better! I can do this. ;-) I mixed up a quadruple batch of chocolate oatmeal to have on hand for my daughter, and I've used it several times for baking.

And I've had it twice for lunch. Hey, it works in a pinch! And I do have a lot of oatmeal on hand! :-)

~Finished Doll Afghan~

On Saturday I finished my daughter's doll afghan:

I had just enough yarn to make it a decent size. The last row of purple got cut short, can you see where I switched over to pink?

With her doll...why are dolls always unclothed?

I pulled up my doll afghan from the basement. I think I was about five when someone in my church made this for me. Maybe my mom would remember who gave it to me. I don't remember the lady's name, but it was a well-loved doll afghan!

And the doll blanket that my great-grandma made for me: