The Abundance of Summer

I decided to change up my blog - it's been awhile, and I was thinking something super ocean/summery, so there you go.

It's been an amazingly busy season in terms of the abundance of my garden. Not to mention my busy life of work, derby, and trying to maintain some sort of social life + housekeeping.

Yeah, housekeeping... I'm trying to catch up on that...

Today I woke up at 6 and, with a list of activities ready to go from the night before, I set about putting up all sorts of foods in the kitchen. Really, I was just picking up where I left off last night, when I picked all the peas in my garden, shucked them all and, tasting one from each pod, sorted them into one jar's worth of sugary peas and one jar's worth of starchy peas. These were, naturally, pressure canned and stowed away for a rainy day. Anyway, back to this morning: I managed to crank out two half-pints of blackberry jam (blackberries from my Community Supported Agriculture weekly box), one pint of pickled beets (beets from my CSA box), two quarter-pints of pickled ginger, and four half-pints of secret sauce (the main ingredient from my CSA box). And all this by 10 o'clock.

Ta-dah!

I went to my Monday knitting group and finished the second sleeve of my wedding cardigan - just the edging to go! - then came home and...

... wasted the rest of the afternoon on the computer.

Ok, and did a TON of dishes - because I also made my own cream corn from scratch (super easy and DELICIOUS!) last week, along with my latest divergence from the classic "clove cookies" recipe, and a chocolate zucchini cake-turned-mini-muffins (these were for a going-away party/potluck for one of our derby girls who is moving to Portland).

Delicious cream corn - corn courtesy of my CSA box.

Clove cookies! These were sweetened only with honey... maybe a little too much honey.

I also managed to get the laundry done today (and put away the clean laundry that I'd neglected in the dryer for the last couple weeks... oops...). And now it's 6 o'clock again. I told myself no Netflix until after 9pm today, so there's still a chance I may get some more things done. Like picking dandelions.

Seriously. That's on my list. I want to make dandelion wine and I picked half an oat container full of the flowers last weekend (and froze them), but I need to fill the container, and I'll be mowing the lawn this weekend, so I'd better get it done today or tomorrow.

Other things on the agenda for this weekend?

- weeding my flower garden (I seemed to have forgotten about it, but suddenly there's weeds growing there when it hasn't really been bothered all summer)

- mowing the lawn

- watering my veggie garden, weeding another section of it, and planting bok choy and green onions (my beets are starting to come up!!)

- an outdoor derby practice (the county fair is going on this week, so we're not using the fairgrounds facility until it's over)

- using my new vacuum cleaner for the first time, even though I've had it for a week or two now...

- getting totally on top of housecleaning so that I can start hosting couchsurfers again!!

Ok, that sounds like a pretty tall order, and I think I've psyched myself up to start getting busy again. So here I go!

Until next time!

Finished Pads!

So I finished sewing all my pads - 12 in total, including the one I made the other day.

 Here they are pre-sewing. I cut out basic two-layer ones for light days and two-layer plus two-layer liner ones for heavier days.

And here's the finished products! (Yes, there's only 11 there, number 12 was on last week's blog). I'm so excited to break them in down the road! Mostly, I love my cute fabrics - my favorite is the constellations one.

I had a great weekend - made awesome by how many times Jack was able to call me on the sat phone. :) I definitely got my fix, and I was craving it this weekend, so it truly was a blessing. Besides that, I was able to get some important weeding-around-plants done, as well as harvesting the seeds from the arugula plants (and pulling up the plants afterward). Hopefully they're viable as I intend to plant them later in the week. I was going to do some weeding this morning, but instead worked on baking bread and did some oh-so-juicy yoga. It felt great! I'm gonna check my rising loaves in a moment and see if they're not ready to start baking. They'll have to be, since I've got to be out of the house in an hour for work.

Still waking up at 5:30 this week. I'm actually starting to wake up before my alarm already! If I could just get myself to fall asleep sooner things might balance out.

Derby was great last night. Tonight we're having an outdoor practice - one of the girls said I could borrow her extra outdoor wheels. It's one of our recruitment ideas - be more visible, get people interested... I'm anxious to see how this is gonna go...

Until next time!

Wild & Crazy

On Monday morning I drove to Portland and spent the afternoon and evening hanging out with my friend Holly (who was there from Alaska for a teaching conference).

It was a brief, but fun, trip. We spent an hour or so walking around along the river, then went to Powell's Books (the infamous and illustrious used & new bookstore that takes up a whole city block), got pizza, then went to the Salt and Straw for ice cream. We ordered a flight of olive oil, roasted strawberry & white chocolate, sea salt caramel, and woodblock chocolate ice creams. I actually wasn't all that impressed - it was definitely popular, but the ice cream wasn't that great. We couldn't figure out what the taste difference was, but I think it's more ice and less cream, or something like that. But still - where else can you order a "flight" of ice creams? They definitely are globbing onto the popularity of microbreweries with that move. Although, I don't think anybody else was ordering flights while we were there.

I spent the night in Portland, then got up at 5am to hit the road and made it home by quarter to 11 - one hour before I had to be at hq to catch a ride to some training that I'd agreed to do on my day off in exchange for several hours of comp time. It was a good training, but when I got home I decided that my busy weekend meant that I needed to take a night off from derby and mow my lawn and try to tidy up my house a bit instead.

Yesterday, I randomly decided that I needed to start getting up earlier and having more productive mornings. So I woke up at 5:30 and started off my day with a reading from my new devotional book (Jesus Calling - it was on sale at Powell's and Holly recommended it), followed by the usual workday prep, and because I didn't want to seem too settled I made a feminine pad from the fabric I'd purchased (on my way to Portland the day before - I washed it that morning and dried it before I got around to the making part). The simple pattern involves sewing both parts together, cutting a slit in each to flip them right-side-out, and then iron and sew them together. Super easy. I whipped it up real quick - just in time to wear it to work.

I think it turned out pretty well. Definitely comfy - and nicer than either of my last ones (the super thick ones that Tiffany had made me or the super small ones that didn't stay put that I had made last winter). Although I think when I make the next ones I'd like to modify the pattern to make the wings narrower. Also, I think I will try to make some thinner ones that don't have the separate middle section for ultra-lite days. We'll see.

Back at home today (I'm working the evening shift) I'm still trying to get into the groove of my earlier wake-up time. I got up at 5:30 and started off with a devotional reading again, then baked another chocolate buttermilk coconut pound cake - for the craft bazaar and baked goods sale at the Methodist Church today. I'll be heading over there this morning (after a brief trip to the water department to apologize for turning in my water bill a couple days late on account of all my travels). I spent some time in the garden this morning, watering my thirsty plants (I'm glad they haven't given up on me yet) and decided that it was time to do something about my ever-expanding tomato vines. Certainly it does me no good to have them spilling over onto my precious little carrot sprouts. I got out the trimmer and started lopping off any section that didn't have tomatoes growing on it already and was overly out of place. I did this with the roma, then went down to the cherry and discovered my first three ripe tomatoes!!! I ate one of them instantly - it split when I picked it, so it was definitely peak. But I managed to think a moment to take a picture before eating the other two:

These promptly popped into my mouth as soon as I was done taking the photo. :) My garden definitely has suffered from my busyness of late. My new goal this week is to get back into the earlier (although short-lived) habit of weeding a little bit every morning. I can barely differentiate my green bean plants from the dock weeds growing up around them. It's definitely time to harvest the seeds from the arugula and cilantro (and possibly the parsley) and cut any possible losses and just dig up those plants.

Anyway - it's time to get going - lots to take care of this morning! I was initially planning on staying for the luncheon at church, but I'm thinking now that I will just go and drop things off, then come back to the house and work on tidying up more. There are dishes to put away, counters to wipe down, a kitchen floor in desperate need of a good sweeping. Not to mention that I have to get ready for work, and possibly throw in stuff for derby, too, so that I can pop in and skate the 100 laps on my "lunch" break this evening.

This coming weekend, my plan is to stay home and get the house and garden under control, to relax, to treat myself a little bit, and to make sure I really do have all my ducks in a row before the next week begins. Hopefully this last weekend was my last bit of craziness for the rest of the summer.

Until next time!