Finally

I can finally post about some gardening. This has been an odd year. We were drowning in school in the beginning of the year and never got any seeds started. Tim isn't happy because we won't have oodles of amazing tomatoes again this year. I kind of decided that I wasn't going to garden this year and that I was just going to buy a LOT of stuff at our farmer's market.

We had crazy weather this spring. We had a couple of nice weeks and we though Spring had sprung but then we had a couple of weeks of below freezing temps in the evenings. If we had put anything out, it most likely would died. A couple of weeks ago I began to regret not starting anything in the garden and decided to go out and try and get some things.

Two weeks ago, I went over to our local dairy to see if they had any heirloom tomatoes growing. They had Rutgers there, but were gone by the time I got there. I walked through their amazing greenhouses and met this lady Anne. We got to talking and I learned so much from her. I came home and my head was swimming with knowledge and I kind of felt like I was drowning. I did come home with one Legend tomato plant. Anne gave me the ever so generous price of one dollar because she was having a hard time keeping up with them and she didn't want it to die. She also gave me some seed for Abernaki corn, some barley and some oats. She also recommended a seed company if I was looking for organic and heirloom seeds.

I came home and tried to tell Tim all I had learned but couldn't remember it all. I then did some research on the things I came home with. The corn, for instance, is not a sweet corn. It's a corn used to grind into flour. That will be fun. The barley I learned will make for a good cover crop in the fall to feed our garden beds.

The next day, it was cool and windy out and we were getting ready for some big storms and Nancy suggested that we all get out there before the rain hit and get the four beds cleared out. They were in dire need of attention. Tim, Nancy, Ethan and I worked furiously to get the beds done. We got three of them done and then it started pouring. In the torrential downpour we mixed in manure into one of the beds and planted the corn. Then we ran inside. Then I ordered some seeds from Fedco. I ordered some Kentucky Wonder pole beans, some New England Pie pumpkins, some Table Queen acorn squash and some Blackstrap sorghum seeds.

We wanted to try the Native American "three sisters" way of growing. The corn came up last week so I planted the Kentucky wonders around each of the corn sprouts that came up. They will grow up the corn stalks. At least that is what they are supposed to do. I think the beans add nutrients to the soil that corn needs too. It's all an experiment now. The third sister is squash. The Native Americans used to plant them around the corn/bean patch. The prickly nature of squash plants kept the corn and beans safe from animals. We don't have enough room in the bed to put the squash, so I'm going to plant the squash in the bed behind the corn.

Last weekend I went back to the farm to see if I could get another couple of tomato plants and see if I could chat with Anne some more. Score on both. I came home with two more Legend tomato plants and one Razzleberry tomato plant. I learned the difference between hybrid, open pollinated and heirloom varieties. I also came home with some sorghum plants. I told Anne that I got some Blackstrap seeds and she said that those wouldn't make syrup (which I why I wanted it) and then she handed me a tray of 18 plants. She said she was going to end up composting them because she didn't have the room to plant them so I gladly accepted them. I just finished planting them and I look forward to seeing them get tall and hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to make syrup.

Hmmm, what else? I did start a salsa mix of hot peppers for Tim and he transplanted them into four containers. I am looking up how to build a cold frame so that in the fall I can grow some lettuce and chard. I'll also be able to start them early in the spring too. I have decided that I'm going to take gardening seriously next year again. I'm going to order my seeds in January/February and then start the seeds March/April. We are striving to eat as locally as possible and there is nothing more local than our back yard. I can't wait until next week because Farmer's market opens up again and I'm going to stock up things to preserve.

In other news, I took the boys strawberry picking last week. The weather was gorgeous. I knew storms would be rolling in the next day so we loaded up and drove through some beautiful countryside and picked 11 pounds of strawberries. I haven't had fresh picked strawberries since I was a child. My mom would load my brother and I up and drive to Plant City, FL to spend the day picking berries. I remember coming home with sunburns and belly aches from eating the berries as we picked them. The boys and I had a lot of fun picking. I think made 23 half pint jars of strawberry jam, some of which were strawberry lemon marmalade. I wish I had made more of that because it tasted way better than I thought it would. I'll see if there are any fresh berries at the market next week. If so, then I'll make some more of the marmalade. I know that I want to make peach jam this year too.

I think that should bring everything up to date around here. We have finally started gardening, albeit not as much as last year, but it's something. Next year I will be more organized. In fact, I should go order some beet seeds to plant in the fall. I'll share some pictures of the garden. It doesn't look like much now. I'll have to wait and see if they work out or not.


Three Legend tomato plants. In the background are some onions that were left in the ground from last year and Tim's containers of hot peppers. I need to stake the tomatoes still.


1 Razzleberry Tomato plant. The tomatoes are supposed to be a hot pink color. I can't wait to see them.


Four rows of Abernaki corn and in the background one bed that still needs to be cleared out. That is where the acorn squash are going to go.


My bee balm plants (two of them) have finally exploded with these gorgeous red flowers.


Connor and Aidan picking lots and lots of berries.


Eleven pounds of fresh picked strawberries


The first of three batches of Strawberry jam.

Crazy weather

Here it is the 10th of May. I'm sitting at my desk looking out the window to a beautiful sunny day. It's breezy and cold. I have the heat on again. A couple of weekends ago, we had to break down and put the air conditioner on as it hit the 90's here and the humidity was making my ever so stick straight hair start to curl. We closed up the house and put set the thermostat to 75. Last weekend, we had to put the heat back on as it got to 60 degrees in our house. We've had overnight lows between 29 and 33. This is May people. I should be out gardening. I should be getting beds ready for plants to be planted. I'm hoping that this cool weather is on it's way out and that maybe next weekend we can get some work done in the gardens. I have pepper seedlings that are ready to be put out and Aidan's watermelon seedlings are taking over my kitchen table.




The weather doesn't seem to be bothering our honey bees. All of our flowers that are brave enough to stand up to the cooler weather are literally buzzing with activity. I was taking a picture of one of my clematis vines and the roar of their little wings was nice to hear. I'm happy that it appears our bees are back.

Not much else is going on. My baby turned 10. He's learning to ride a bike. He's not enjoying that. We are trying to finish up school so that we can get out and enjoy some fresh air. I'm hoping the weather will cooperate with us and be warm by the time we are done. I've been doing a lot of reading about eating seasonally and locally. I've been blogging on my Real Food blog and trying not to make it too boring. I've also been trying to survive what is either a cold or some nasty allergies. I can't tell the difference, but I'll be happy when it's done with.

Well, until we get into serious gardening , that is all I have for you now. I hope everyone is well and warm.

Gardening soon?

Here we are rolling close to the month of May and I have done nothing gardening wise. Maybe my laziness is being directed by mother nature. I just checked my blog from last year and saw that I put plants down into the ground on April 26th. Fast forward 327 days and we are due to have temps down to 30 tonight. I'm glad I've been lazy this year and not put anything out yet, it would all be dead.

We have had some crazy weather this spring. One week it's in the 80's and sunny and kind of too hot for spring. The next week it's grey, windy and cold. It didn't even get above 50 yesterday. We've had below freezing temps for a couple of nights. Heck, today while I was taking Connor to his PSSA tests, we saw snow flakes. So maybe I'm not being lazy. Maybe I am one with the earth and know that it's too soon. Yeah, that's what I'm sticking to.

I did work in one of the beds last Friday. It was actually a nice day and spent most of the day outdoors working in the garden and cutting grass. I bought some bee balm plants and some dahlias (which thankfully I didn't plant in the ground yet so I could bring them in) and I got a bunch of herbs planted.

One of my dahlias that are being transported indoors at night.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about gardening this year. The plots that we've been using over behind Nancy's other house don't look like they are going to work this year. The house next door is now a huge apartment building for the college kids. Their parking lot is in the back yard. Basically if one drunken student falls out of his/her car, they will land in a garden plot. Add to that some pretty gross neighbor who live behind that house now who have taken to throwing their bag fulls of garbage over the fence onto the gardens. Nice classy neighborhood we are living in these days. I have been kind of hinting to Nancy that I want to build a couple of raised beds in our back yard, but she doesn't seem too keen on the idea. It looks like I'll be working some container gardens this year and hitting the farmer's market with a vengeance.

I've been happy with our living conditions for a couple of years but now I'm starting to really want to get out of the city and have a little land to garden and have some chickens. The only reason we haven't left here yet is because we LOVE our immediate neighbors. They are the best. I realized though that we will all still be friends, we just won't live next door to them anymore. Last Friday night we drove out to the country to pick up our 50 lbs of grass fed beef and all four of us said how nice it would be to live out there. It was so quiet and it smelled clean. Of course, that would mean a 30 minute commute for Tim every day and he's not too keen on that. Our lease is up in September and hopefully by then we'll have something figured out.

So, what else has been going on? We've been keeping busy, that's for sure. It seems like every weekend we have something going on. We go out of town one weekend, then have events planned all the following weekend, then we go out of town again. It's been fun though. We spent Saturday at the local dairy farm volunteering and then Sunday we took the kids to a minnow trapping and stream exploration class. I think we'll be looking into getting fishing licenses soon. Both boys were ready to get in the water and start trapping fish while we were there.

Connor holding a monster sized tadpoles caught in a local stream.

Aidan checking out one of the minnow traps.

School is finally winding down. It's been a long year and we are all ready for the summer off. Connor has just finished the last of his PSSA testing so those are done too. We're not really sure what the summer holds for us yet, but I do know sleeping in a couple of days will be on the list of things to do. Actually I think the boys will be spending a couple of weeks at a summer camp at the local farm. It's Monday through Friday 9 to 4 and they will learn about living on a farm, taking care of animals, working in gardens, etc. I think they will both take part in the peace camp this year too. We don't really have any vacations planned yet. I guess we are just waiting to see what comes up.

Well, that is all I have for now. I have to go print out a science test for Aidan and try to keep the boys quiet while Tim tries to write code. Not an easy task.

Spring has Sprung!

The crocus are in full bloom reaching up towards the sun.

A bee rests his pollen covered body for a moment.

Another bee dives in to gather some of the yellow pollen dust.

Hi there Mr. Bee. I know you are as happy to see the sun and flowers as I am.

A boy tests his brother's water gun out to see if it's ready for action. It is.

Priorities.

What is it about this time of year that I start to ponder things that I want to do? I chalk it up to Spring Fever. We are still in full swing of home schooling. We have our struggles. We are a bit behind schedule right now (as we seem to be every year at this time). I sit here looking at the kids' schedulers and figure out how to catch up with classes. At the same time I long to do the things I want to do too.

Tim and I have already started to map out our year and trips that we want to take. We have a growing list of weekend trips we want to take the boys on. We want to take them up to Syracuse to the zoo. We haven't been there since Connor was a baby (he'll be 10 in two months), we want to go down to Philadelphia and take the boys through some historical sites. We want to venture over to Portland, OR and see if that is someplace we will want to live in the future. We want to go to Baltimore and take the boys to see the National aquarium. There will be trips to NY to visit grandparents. There will be trips to GA for more grandparents. We have to get this stuff on the calendar or we will end up doing none of it. That is what happened last year. We had all kinds of trips that we wanted to take but never did. Mind you, we still went away a lot (more than Tim would like) but we never seemed to get anything done that we wanted to. Our family trips have to be scheduled out so that they will happen.

Photography. Oh, how I long to get out there with my camera and go take pictures. There is a problem with that though. I am bored with my lenses. I want a couple of new lenses. Why, oh why do they have to be so bloody expensive? Also, I'm kind of tired of taking pictures of our dingy little city. That ties in with taking new trips. I suppose my thirst for better pictures will be quenched with some planned trips. I just need to figure out how to afford a couple of new gadgets for my camera.

Exercise. This is one thing that I think I might be getting a handle on. I don't want to say I've got it figure out because I know once I do, I'll falter and quit. We spent some of our tax refund on a new treadmill. I love it. It's so nice and easy to use. It lets me plug my iPod into it and blast whatever music I want. We've had it for two weeks now and I think I've walked on it almost every day. I ramped up from 20 minute walks to over an hour now. I struggle with the time it takes because I know there are piles of laundry that need to get done. I know that there is a good chance that there are dishes that need to be stacked. I am trying to look at my hour of walking as "me time". It's my one hour to go downstairs, get away from the kids, get away from the everyday crap that needs to be done and I can blast my music and slowly (much too slowly for my liking) get in shape.

Our home. There are a lot of projects in the house that I would like to get done. When? Who knows? Which one do we start on? Again, who knows? I suppose this should get penciled onto our calendar as well. We need to pick one thing and do it well and finish it. I know I would like to get our basement cleaned out. We started cleaning it out a month ago when we had a potential move pending. I don't want to move crap that we don't have to move. Tim and I spent a day down there going through bins. Needless to say, the basement is now a bigger mess than it started out as. We have a giant pile of garbage that needs to out. So, yes, I think the basement will be the first thing we should tackle. Then we can move on to other projects in the house.

Gardening. This is a gardening blog, no? It used to be. I started it two years ago when I tried my hand at gardening. I can now say "been there, done that". I haven't even started seeds this year. Why? I don't know. I guess part of it is because I can't think about planting a garden when we get 15 inches of snow. I'm sitting here at the desk watching the snow melt and seeing the birds flit all over the place. Spring will be here soon. I just won't have my seedlings ready. I think I've kind of decided just to hit one of the many local nurseries and buy my veggie plants. I'm also really wanted to plant more flower gardens this year. I would like to figure out how to get a nice flower garden in the back yard. Maybe back by the rhododendron.

Well, Connor's 15 minute break from Social Studies has turned into a 30 minute break as I try to get this mish mash out of my head. He's not complaining. It's just going to push back our day a bit.

Priorities. I need to figure them out.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Ain't that the truth?! You've missed me, right? It has been a long time since I've been here little blog. For that I do apologize. I have a laundry list of excuses that I may or may not hit you with. I have not decided. I'll see where my late night tapping of fingers on the keyboard takes me.

Why do I blog tonight? Why now instead of say, five months ago when I stopped. Short answer, I can' sleep. You see, my dear sweet hubby is out of town on a business trip. Man, that makes us sound so grown up now. He's in Atlanta meeting up with his new team. He flew out Sunday and will be home on Friday. We've been married 11 years in August and I think we've only been apart for three times. It sucks. I miss him. The boys and I are fine. We are doing our daily routine of school, reading, playing, etc. It's just different when Tim isn't around.

I told the boys we would have a sleep over tonight. They have been dying to sleep in the "big bed" with me while daddy is gone. I've been able to hold them off for two nights because I had some back issues but relented today and told them tonight was the night. I was in there sleeping with them but was awoken because both of them are snoring. Not cute little boy snores, but head cold snores. Maybe they are trying to make up for daddy not being here. Were they missing his snores? Who knows? I am now wondering if I'm going to get any sleep tonight at all.

So, what's new, you might ask? Where do I even begin? Does anyone really care? Huh...I just paused because I'm not even really sure. I guess nothing major is new. We are still living in the same home that we have lived in for three years. I think that is the longest we have stayed in one place in our marriage. That being said, we are itching to move. We are trying to figure out where to move on to. We came very close to picking up everything and heading to the opposite side of the states. Tim had a very good job offer in Oregon and we were soooo close to taking it but fear set in. Now, Tim's team is wanting us to relocate to Atlanta. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I did my time in the south. I'm in no real hurry to end up back down there again. The only plus to it would be that we would be 2 hours from my family.

School is still going well. We have our days when we just don't feel like doing much. On the other hand, we have days that the boys impress the hell out of me. We are sailing through our second semester now and we have our eye on the end of May, first of June to be done with another year.

It seems like I have worn myself out with this little post. Maybe I can go back and snuggle between my boys and try to get some sleep now. We have errands to run tomorrow and I'm hoping we can get them done. Aidan ran a fever all day. It broke around dinner time but it appears it is back now. If he's still running it tomorrow, the errands will have to get pushed back another day.

I'll try to get back into the groove of blogging again. I'll post some pictures soon. All of my pictures are on Flickr now and I feel like it's redundant to post them everywhere. I can sneak one in here and there though.

Night all.

Week (end) recap.

I could not have asked for a more perfect week last week. Both boys blew me away with their getting right back into the school routine. They were both so grown up about everything, from earlier bedtimes to going back to classes. I keep kind of pinching myself because it was perfect. It led up to a fabulous weekend.

Saturday ran smoothly. The plan right now is to have Saturday be our cleaning/laundry/errand day. That way we can save Sundays for a nice big breakfast and then football. I would say by 12:30 on Saturday we had the house cleaned. Tim did all of the floors and I did everything else (four loads of laundry included). Then I worked on menus and shopping list for next week. Then we took our weekly trip out to the dairy to get our milk and farm fresh eggs. The kids look forward to that trip because they get ice cream cones. Saturday night the boys got a surprise too. I had a party to go to so Tim surprised them with Pizza Hut. Now, we don't normally do chain pizza places because we have a really good pizza place down the street from us, but they saw a commercial for this pizza that the crust is wrapped in cheese and they've been longing for it since they saw it. They haven't had "real" pizza for a couple of months now since we've gone gluten free. Tim ordered the pizza without their knowledge and then piled them in the car without them knowing what was going on. They were extremely happy to find out they were having pizza for dinner. I had a great night with all of my friends from the Obama campaign. We had lots of margarita's and some amazing food. I didn't get home until 11 and I was tired.

Sunday I was up early with the boys and let Tim sleep in, although I could have used the sleep. It was a nice cool morning and I was missing cinnamon rolls so I looked up online to see if I could find a gluten free recipe. I did, and they were easy to make and the dough was so unbelievably easy to work with. The other GF doughs I've made have been crazy sticky and hard to work with, not these. They whipped up really fast and baked up nicely. It was so nice to smell cinnamon and coffee through the house. Like a Sunday morning should be. We then lazed around a bit and then took the kids to the park. The park was nice except for the inordinate amount of little bugs that kept flying into my eyes. The kids were annoyed with them after a while and they were ready to come home when we did.

Our day started with GF Cinnamon buns. Oh so tasty.

Partly cloudy skies, but on the cooler side.

Connor balancing his way across. He used to hate these things.

Aidan doing what he does best, climbing.

Patchy watching them to make sure they were safe.

A couple of races up the giant berm.

And a couple of chases down. Although the boys loved rolling down the hill the first time.

Today was another lazy day. Aidan and I did our shopping since we didn't do that on Saturday. Tim burned another pot of rice making the whole house get smokey and it still stinks in here. It's making my throat hurt. I say again, because this is like the third time he's done this. He's not allowed to make rice anymore. Thankfully, we were able to get out of the house for a couple of hours because we took the kids to see G-Force. I had hoped we could wait and see this once it was on DVD, but they were begging to see it. They loved it...me, not so much. They were happy though and that is all that matters.

Now we are two hours away from bed time. I've got our lesson plans all ready for tomorrow and we are good to go for another fantastic week. I'm tired tonight and plan on going to bed probably when the kids do because the alarm will be going off at 6:30 for Patchy's walk and then our week is rolling again.

Vindicated.

I am smiling from ear to ear today. I can't wipe the grin off of my face. I am so very happy. I am so proud of Connor. Why? Well, let me explain.

Connor's teacher called today to introduce herself and set up a day for her check in calls. She then asked if I wanted to hear the results to Connor's PSSA results from last years testing. I paused for a minute and said yes. We've been waiting to hear the results. A lot is riding on these results. There was a lot of drama last year concerning my ability to teach. So, when Miss Wagner told me the results I almost burst into tears. I did cry when I called Tim and told him. He scored "off the charts", he scored "advanced in both Reading and Math". Not too shabby for a third grader taking a big state test for the first time. I remember he was done two hours early on one of the days of his test. So, not only did he fly through the test, he ACED it. I could not be prouder of anyone right now. I'm so proud of Connor and I'm proud of myself. Never again will I doubt my ability. We have a good thing going and now there is no need to make any changes. He is taking two gifted classes (Reading and Science), he's taking the Junior Great books class, which reads above level stories and then they pick the stories apart. After they pick the stories apart on their live lessons, they have to do a project to go along with the story. I never felt he was behind...lazy sometimes, but never behind. So, today is a happy day.

I am also very happy to report that we have had a perfect week so far. Everything has stayed on schedule. Everyone is having fun and liking school so far. Yesterday was a really long day. I think I'm going to leave the schedule the same though. Monday and Tuesday are easy days and today was a good day. We were done with school by 2:30. Friday looks like it's going to be a longer day but I think it will work out. The easy beginning of the week helps us ease back into school, Wednesday is long, but it's half way through the week and Friday may be a longer day, but it's Friday. A weekend of fun will follow. I might have to tweak the schedule around the kid's live lessons a little bit but I'm happy with how everything is working so far. Live lessons are like conference calls. I suppose I should explain how exactly we do school.

Both boys are enrolled in Connections Academy. It's a "virtual" school. It's still considered part of the public school system, hence the need to take the PSSA tests. Instead of going to school, we do it at home. They supply all of the books. They supply the "learning coach" (me) materials. If needed, they supply the computers. Each child has a teacher that checks on them every two weeks. They have assignments that they have to submit to them and they get graded on. Like I said, the live lessons are like little conference calls for the kids. The teacher will have a virtual room that all of the classmates meet in and the teacher talks with them and they can chat amongst themselves. It's really cute to see them at the computer with their little headsets on chatting with their friends. We can make our own schedules up and take days off as needed. The kids love it. I love it.

Ok, enough about school. It's funny because for the longest time this little blog sat around getting dusty and now that school has started back up and we have a set routine, I have more time than I thought I would. I also have a theory about why I am feeling better and more in control of things. I am wondering if it's because I've taken the gluten out of my diet. I don't have the terrible mood swings anymore. I have my energy back. Heck, I've been able to get out of bed every day this week at 6:30 and taken Patchy out for a 30 minute walk. I've even been waking up before 6:30. I had thought that I would be exhausted and needing to be in bed by 8. I actually tried to get to bed early the other night and I was awake until 1. Long story short. I feel great and in control. That is a nice feeling after not having a handle on things for a while.

Speaking of morning walks, here are a couple of pictures from this mornings stroll. A nice foggy start to the day. It's been starting to feel like fall around here and I'm loving it.

Kind of creepy looking, but oh so awesome to be in.

Dew on the grass around 10 am.

The kids get a fifteen minute break between each hour class. They like to spend that 15 minutes running around outside. I noticed the dew yesterday and it was there again today. I thought it looked so pretty.

Well, Tim will be home from work soon. Then it will be dinner, Chicken Taco Chili tonight and then Tim is heading out to his Aikido class. I'm not sure what I'm going to do tonight. Probably curl up with a book or work on next weeks menus.

I hope everyone is having a great week too!! If not, tomorrow is Friday and then it's a three day weekend!

A good day.

No, let me change that...a GREAT day. I am writing about this so when (and I know we will) we have a bad day, I can remember that today ran perfectly.

I was actually able to drag my butt out of bed at 6:25 and was walking Patchy at 6:30. It wasn't easy. I had a crappy night of sleep, the second one in a row and it was cold out this morning. I had to dig out a sweatshirt before I head out the door. I had prepped the coffee last night so I flipped the switch as we were walking out and I had a nice big pot of coffee waiting for me when I got home. By 8:30 I had dinner in the crockpot, everyone had been fed and the kitchen was clean. I had 30 minutes before school and I was at a loss at what to do. I didn't really plan on having free time.

9 o'clock rolled around and I sat both boys down in the classroom. First thing we did was discuss the code of conduct for the classroom. Then we discussed our fun fact for today. I also told them how the schedule was going to work. One hour of lessons, 15 minutes break, one hour of lessons, 15 min break, etc... Then we jumped into the books. Aidan and I worked on one computer (Aidan had headphones to listen to his course online) and Connor was on the other computer. The lessons taught them their concepts and then each of them hit the books. They both loved their little dividers on the desk. The two of them worked side by side and if they needed help with something, they would let me know they needed help. The rest of the day ran along so smoothly. I was able to work with both of them (which I was not able to do last year very well). There was no arguing. There was no whining about having to write or do work. Connor even admitted that his hand didn't hurt with all the writing this year.

Who are these two boys and what have they done with the snarly ones?

Now, I know not to think that this whole year is going to run as smoothly. I do know that I am going to make a concerted effort to ease up on them. I do know that we will not end up in yelling matches over assignments. I do know that we are going to have more fun this year. I think they are up for it. I do know that I am loving being able to see my boys grow and get more mature every year. I love to see them love learning again. Last year, not so much. This year, they both seem ready to take it on. Here's to a seriously kick butt year. I feel like it's going to be great!

Aidan working on his handwriting pre test that we drop boxed to his teacher.

Connor working on his Skills for Success (PSSA prep class). He was taking his reading beginning of the year benchmark test. He scored 100 percent (advanced). I'm not surprised.

I hope everyone else is having a great day and week!

We are ready for lift off.

Today was our final day before school officially starts tomorrow. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day either. Dare I say there was a chill in the air today. We finally turned off the air conditioner and I opened all the windows up. I dried three loads of laundry on the line and I worked on this weeks lesson plans and schedules while the kids played.

Nothing but blue skies and cool breezes today. My clematis has climbed all the way up the side of the garage and I'm training it on a string across the patio to our carport.

Aidan's racetrack he drew on Nancy's driveway. It has crocodile pits that you have to take a ramp over, and walls that you have to jump over, and walls with rocket launchers on them that you have to punch down...or you can take the short cut on the right side and miss all the fun stuff.

Connor and Aidan trying out the race track.

Patchy keeping an eye on everyone...and happy to do so.

My favorite little piggies enjoying the cool grass.

It's now just after 8:30 pm and both boys are tucked in and headed to dreamland. They have actually been really good about adjusting back into a nighttime routine. The rule is lights off at 8:30. Well we were letting them brush teeth and all that jazz at 8:25 and then they went to bed. Connor has decided that he likes to read for a half hour before he sleeps. We have readjusted and now they start their bedtime routine at 7:45 with their butts in bed at 8 pm. Connor reads and Aidan either flips through a book or plays on his nintendo. He was just playing Big Brain Academy. I guess he's prepping for school tomorrow. I can hear them in there chatting to themselves right now but I suspect they will both be sleeping in about 5 minutes.

I am feeling pretty good about school this year. We are going to try to get some pretty strict routines down that will hopefully make it easier on everyone. One thing is that I'm not going to even think about laundry until Saturdays. That will be official laundry day. Another thing we are trying is Crockpot dinners. We've done it two days in a row now and it is working great. I get up and throw everything in the pot and then I don't have to do anything until I dish it out at dinner. It really helped today because while Tim took Connor to his karate class tonight I did another huge batch of tomatoes. I'm also happy because the first two weeks of school are four day weeks and I think that will help ease us ease back into hitting the books.

The rules are up...let's see if they follow them.

The apples are hanging. Sept is the month Johnny Appleseed was born. There will be a lot of apple activities.

The kid's workspace is ready to go. Oh, how I hope it always looks this picked up.

The dividers are mostly done. I had this idea for splitting up the big desk so that Connor and Aidan can focus on their own work. Connor's has his monthly schedule and a fun facts calendar and a list of the classroom rules. I would like to put more in there, but I don't want it to be distracting. Aidan's I'm going to have him write his "words he knows" as he learns them. He decorated his a little bit with some glitter.

And last, but not least, my new best friend. I had to go out and get a bigger crockpot. I had a 3.5 qt one and it always boiled over so now I have a 6 qt one and it works beautifully. I am so happy/excited that I found another blogger who blogged for a whole year with her crockpot. The best part?! Well, two best parts...One...all of her recipes are gluten free! and Two: she has a book coming out in October. I already have one pre-ordered. Check her out if you want. I've made two of her recipes so far and they have been really good.

Tomatoes. Ugh. I don't care to see another tomato for a while. Unfortunately there are bunch more out there on the plants. I don't think we are going to plant as many plants next year. Although they are really good. We picked a whole bunch of them on Saturday along with a lot of peppers and a couple of cucumbers. I'm not sure what I'm doing with the peppers yet and I'm scared for when Tim's haberneros are all ripe. I counted about 20 of them on one bush and he has four bushes out there. Yikes.

Saturday's harvest. Not too shabby!

Well, the clock just chimed 9. As I guessed, both kids are sleeping and I'm about to curl up with my new Country Living magazine. I have to get up early tomorrow to walk Patchy before the kiddies get up and then we start our first day. I'm pretty optimistic about how it will go. I hope I'm not singing another tune tomorrow night.

Agenda

What I did today was not on my agenda. I was trying to lay low and relax and prepare for starting school next week. Wrong. When I was out with Patchy I was looking at one of the tomato patches and realized that I need to pick them NOW.

So pick them I did. Sadly, I lost 8 of them to the compost bin. We left them on the vine too long. I posed them for a lovely picture:

A huge haul of orange tomatoes.

Here's when the funny thing happened. I had a total brain fart. I got them inside and knew that I needed to deal with them ASAP. They were really ripe. I ran for a couple of my books. Do I can them whole? Do I make sauce? Do I attempt to use my pressure canner? Ack. What to do, what to do. After a few minutes I calmed down and decided to blanch them, peel them, run them through the mill and then Tim could make sauce when he got home from work.

I set up a nice little line in the kitchen. First I boiled them one or two at a time. Some of these tomatoes were bigger than my hand. I dropped them in then water for a minute until the skin started to crack:

Boiling for a minute.

I then fished them out of the hot water and plunged them into ice cold water. The skins for the most part just slid right off.

You can see the skins pulling away from the tomatoes.

The skins went to compost as did the cores. The tomatoes were so large that I had to cut them in quarters before I could run them through the mill.

Waiting to be quartered.

A very large pile of scraps to go out to compost.

Now the tomatoes are ready to be squished. I am pretty sure this is what a mill is, if not, I apologize. It's like a big mortar and pestle in that you squish the tomatoes and it separates the juice from the seeds.

A very large pile of peeled and quartered tomatoes.

The mill...I think. =)

I ended up with a very large pot of tomato juice. I called Tim at work and told him he was making sauce when he got home. He ran by the Farmer's Market and picked up some onions and garlic.

Big pot of juice waiting to be spiced up and cooked down.

So, Tim is home. He chopped up a bunch of garlic and onions and sauteed it in olive oil. He then dumped it all in with some oregano and it's currently reducing as I type. In the end, Tim is going to add some Parmesan cheese. We are going to fill up freezer bags and freeze the sauce. There was a lot of confusion (on my part) about if the orange tomatoes would have enough acid in them to use a water bath canner or if I had to use the much feared pressure canner. We are taking the easy way out (this time) and just freezing it.

We still have one more very large patch of tomatoes that need to be picked ASAP. I'm hoping that I can hold off until Saturday, but then again, I don't want to lose a bunch to compost. Tomorrow might be a repeat of today.

Well, I'm going to go enjoy some gluten free peanut butter brownies and finish my Dead Until Dark. Connor finished his first 39 Clues book last night and is bugging me to go get him the second book. It is gearing up to be a busy weekend. Have a great night everybody.

Direction.

Sorry faithful readers for my lack of posting. There really is no excuse except for laziness. I'm trying to figure out the direction I want this little blog to go. I originally set it up to keep track of my garden experiments and keep family members in the loop with the craziness we call life. I'm not sure if I should limit it to just gardening. Or include everything else. Maybe I'll make a daily schedule like Monday will be news about kids, Tuesday will be gardening news, etc. Of course that means that I will have to do something daily and I'm not sure if I can commit to that right now.

I think for this post I will break it up into topics.

Homeschooling:

Where did this summer go? It boggles my mind that next week we start school again. I am going to do another year of homeschooling with Connections Academy. I like the ability to work at our own pace and the curriculum provided. I like that each of the kids has their own teacher that I can touch base with if I need help. I like spending time with my kids because I know soon enough they will be out on their own and I like being able to mold them into decent human beings while I have the chance. I also like that I get to see them progress through the years. If they were in public school I don't think it would be as noticeable. Their teachers would change from year to year and the new teacher would not know what giant steps the kids make each year. I get to see them mature and learn every year. I learn too, which isn't a bad thing. So, school is back on as of next Tuesday. I have the classroom 95 percent ready to go. The kids have all of their books and I have the first week of lesson plans already organized and ready. Tim has to make sure their computer is up to date with all of the software they need. I am also going to try and make something to put on their desk to separate their work areas so there will (hopefully) be no fighting/arguing. I am hoping this year will be better than last. There were a lot of things going on and I wasn't as focused as I should have been. There were also some serious extended family issues that we had to deal with but all seems to be calm for now. I did learn that I am not going to give my power over to anyone to adjust how I feel or make me feel like I'm not doing what I think is best for my family.

Garden:

This is a gardening blog, is it not? I like to call my garden the half-assed garden this year. We planted our things into the ground and have occasionally weeded and that is about it. I'm not too proud about it and I am already starting to plan out next year. We had a rough start to the season with an inordinate amount of rain. I thought that perhaps we had turned into Seattle. The high amount of rain had it's ups and downs. We didn't really have to water anything this year...but I think our tomatoes suffered early on because of the amount of water. We have had a couple of large harvests so far and I think we will probably pick most of our tomatoes this weekend and then make them into sauce and can. I will say that the tomatoes that we have picked already have been so amazingly tasty. They are insane too. They are big and meaty. When you cut into them there is very little seed goop. It's all meat. We have also been very successful with peppers this year. I'm going to do some reading about pickling some peppers later today. The cucumbers have been so-so. For the amount of cucumber plants that got planted I haven't really seen a lot coming off the vine. I was hoping to make some pickles, but no such luck (yet).

An assortment of peppers picked before vacation.

Tower of tomatoes picked before vacation.

Tomato picked yesterday.

Tim's haberneros are starting to turn orange. His four plants are covered with peppers.

Food:

Yes, this is now a big topic in our house. I've been gluten free for a month now. At first I didn't see any real big changes in how I felt. I do think that I am starting to feel better and I know that I have more energy. Tim says he can see a big difference in how I act so that is something. It's been a huge adjustment though. I love to bake. I mean I reallllllly love to bake. It's not so easy do to when you have to do it gluten free. Instead of using all purpose flour, you have to use a mix of other (expensive) flours. I have been successful in making cakes and bread and I even tackled a pretty good pizza crust. It's harder though. The pizza crust for instance is a pain in the arse to get rolled out into the pan. I also miss kneading. I used to take pleasure in kneading dough for ten minutes. I could feel the elasticity of it and I could feel it getting warm in my hands. I miss kneading. I have also decided that I'm going to have to break down and buy a KitchenAid stand mixer. I only have a handheld mixer and it barely cuts it for the mixing. I haven't gotten one yet because I haven't decided if I'm going to just abandon my love of baking. I'm sure around the holidays I will change my mind because the kids and I really do enjoy the tradition of cookie weekends.

The other problem that I've run into is gluten hiding in things that I don't expect. I've always been a pretty good label reader. You have to be when you are vegan (as we were for a year), but gluten takes on so many names that it's confusing. I find myself cheating and just buying things specifically labeled gluten free. That is all well and good until you travel. Let's just say we had a very packed cooler of things safe to eat. So, we are still trying to adjust to the new GF lifestyle. I find that I'm not as interested in food as much, which is probably a good thing. I'm just replacing it with liqueur. Just kidding (I think).

Vacation:

Ah, vacation. The one time a year that I look forward to and dread all at the same time. Don't get me wrong. I love to travel down to Florida and spend time with my family. That is not the part I dread. It's the drive. 18 hours. Long hours. This is the first year that we took it easy on ourselves and didn't drive all the way through. We splurged and got a hotel for the trip down and the trip back. Not an easy task when traveling with a dog either.

We left on a Friday afternoon and drove 12 hours and ended up in South Carolina the first night. We rolled into the parking lot at almost midnight and before we got out of the car we were approached by a woman and her two children begging for money. Tim talked to her because I was trying to get the kids to pack up all of their electronic equipment into their backpack to take inside. The woman told Tim some story about how they were staying in a nearby hotel and that they needed (she sized him up to see how much she could get away with asking for) 22 dollars. Huh? You are going to approach a very tired family at midnight in a dark parking lot with your kids and ask for money?! I think not. Tim said he got a weird vibe and was pretty sure it was a scam so we didn't give her anything. It was weird. I didn't sleep all that well that night because of that and because it takes me a while to unwind from driving 12 hours to actually go to sleep. Everyone else passed right out.

Then comes Saturday. We were all up and showered and on the road by 8 am. Yay us! I stopped at a Dunkin Donuts to get Tim and I a coffee and get the kids each one donut. This is where our day turned sour. I don't know if it was something in the coffee, or if it was the fact that I touched the donuts as I handed them to the children (and then proceeded to eat my watermelon) but an hour later I knew I was in trouble. I was driving along the highway at about 75 mph and I got sick. I had a sudden stabbing pain in my gut and then I felt like I was going to get sick and pass out. I was attempting to find a rest area to pull into but I knew I was a minute from passing out. I very quickly pulled off the highway (scaring Tim) and got out of the car....got sick and then passed out. We were on the side of the road for about 2o minutes. It was terrible. I am so thankful that I knew that I was going to pass out though. My ears kind of went dull and I had the cold sweats. It's happened before. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if I had passed out while I was driving. Probably wouldn't be sitting here typing about it now. I am also thankful that when I pulled over it was really cloudy and windy but not yet raining. The breeze helped me slowly come back. Tim took over driving for a while and sure enough five minutes back into the drive it started to rain really hard. Good timing, eh? Well, that little incident kind of wore me out for the rest of the day. Tim drove for a couple of hours until I felt better and then I took back the driving duties until we got to my parent's house. I was beat and not very sociable when we got there but was much better by Sunday. Like I said, I'm not sure what set my episode off. I still am a tiny bit skeptical if I am in fact celiac or at least intolerant to gluten. I don't know if the fact that I handed a donut to each child and then ate my watermelon did it or if it was just something in the coffee. I may never know what happened...but it seems to have convinced Tim that I cannot eat or be around gluten.

The rest of the vacation was nice. We had an amazing day at the beach. I mean AMAZING! We got there early before it was filled with people. It wasn't too hot. The tide was on the way out and the kids had a blast in the water. We saw a lot of small white fish with each wave that came in and receded. We also saw a lot of little live conch shells. The kids were fascinated with them. I was also amazed at how much Connor has grown up. In the past, he has been terrified of the beach. The waves were always too loud and too rough for him. This trip he strapped on a boogey board and hit the waves with Tim. Aidan, as usual, showed no fear of the water at all. He went right in, got knocked over, got back up and did it all over again. I kept freaking out because there had been rip tide warnings because two separate tropical storms were off the coast, but everyone survived. I also scored one of my classic beach sunburns which I enjoy. I know, it's crazy, but I can be bright red one day and the next day it's nice and brown. It was awesome.

We could not have asked for a nicer beach day. It was perfect!

Aidan showing his no fear. This was like two minutes after arriving to the beach. Everyone else was laying out blankets, putting on sunscreen, etc and Aidan was running towards the water by himself.

The only other major thing we did was take the kids out to Downtown Disney. Aidan got jipped out of a trip to the Lego store last year so we had to do it this year. He was beside himself with excitement. He looked at everything. He spent a lot of time on the wall where you can pick out certain pieces. He spent time playing on the table where they had legos out to play with. He scored a bunch of stuff. It was a great trip. We then ate at the T-Rex Cafe. If you've ever been to the Rainforest Cafe, it's the same thing instead of having Rainforest scenes and animals it was all prehistoric scenes and dinosaurs. It was really good. The chef came out and talked to me about the whole gluten thing and helped me pick out what I could eat and was a great help. The food was tasty and the meteor shower stopped the kids in their tracks. We shot a video of Aidan with a spoon halfway to his mouth and him just staring at everything happening during the meteor shower. Highly recommended if you happen to see one.

The rest of the vacation was just spent hanging out with family and spending a lot of time in my parent's pool. The visit was somewhat bittersweet though because I think my parents and my brother and his family are going to be moving out of Florida within the following year. I basically grew up in Florida and I have a lot of memories there. It will be sad to not go down there and see things and spend time in the pool anymore. Of course, I guess there is nothing saying that we can't go down and get a hotel and do stuff...it was just nice to not have to worry about the expense of that.

Aidan an d Connor hamming it up in the pool.

Oh well, we are home now and Tim is getting back into the work routine and I'm getting back into my routine and trying to plan for the school routine for next week. We are glad to be home all safe and sound. Tim has 8 days of vacation left that he needs to use before the end of the year and we are trying to decide what to do. Neither one of us really want to go anywhere. There are a couple of things I would like to do before the end of the year and maybe he can take a day here and there to do that. I know that I want to go to Knoebel's again in the fall when it's cooled off. I want to go to the county fair next month and the Sheep and Wool festival in NY is quickly approaching. Beyond that, he will probably just take a day here and there and do nothing.

Misc:

Well, I don't really have all that much more to write about right now. I have a kitchen sink full of dishes waiting to be tended to and some folded laundry that needs to be put away. I think I will spend the rest of my afternoon trying to finish my book as I know reading books for pleasure will be a luxury once school starts. I will probably try to do a summer wrap up in the next week or so.

I hope everyone else is doing well and enjoying the winding down of summer. Personally, I'm ready for fall and all that it entails.