This & That

This & That

Been a busy couple of days for me.  DH and I spent Friday in the mountains. It was an overcast day, but the drive was gorgeous as the leaves are turning.  The aspen were all yellow and it was just what fall ought to be.  I have enjoyed this change of seasons so much.  The relief from the heat is wonderful and I'm loving the colors, the smells....next thing on the agenda is the return to cooking soup.  I'm hoping for a long, cool fall before the really cold weather sets in.
This is my baby brother.  I'm the eldest of four....I have two younger sisters and then this guy.  It was his 40th birthday this week and we all got together yesterday in the state where he lives to give him a hard time about it.  He took it pretty well, which I think was pretty "AD-mirable" of him, considering that the Grim Reaper brought in his cake.  I'm thinking that he doesn't have to worry about age too much, since the sisters are all older than he is.

Opposites Attract

Just a little glimpse of how different my DH and I are.  As you may or may not remember, we were high school sweethearts.  Utah farm boy meets and courts California city girl who then has to get used to the whole dead animals thing.  Six kids later, this November we will have been married28 years.   We agree on the big things....how to raise the kids, money management,  religion,  politics, but there are very big personality differences that tend to drive both of us a little nuts.
For example, he's a stacker, I'm a tosser and it's a problem for both of us.  In that bottom picture, there is another sink....sort of buried under the papers and magazines.   In the early days, I'd just start pulling from the bottom of the pile and chuck stuff.  But then he'd come back and say, "Where's that piece of paper I need that was in this stack?"   I have bought a filing cabinet and set up a system for him, "in" and "out" type boxes with labels....nothing works.  And then I came to realize that he considers this his method of organization.  Riiiiiiiiight.
On the flip side, I have a "thing" about dirty dishes.  Can't stand to have them sitting around.  They have to be in the dishwasher or done and drying.  I have been known to put a clean cup in the dishwasher as the person who got it out is rummaging in the fridge for the milk.  Then I get the eyeroll.  And I defensively say, "It beats the alternative."  And in my mind it does....it's better than having the sink buried in dirty dishes.  I'm not sure what DH's rationale is for the stacks.  I personally would love to have a totally clear bathroom sink or dresser or den desk, but you have to pick your battles.  That much I have learned in 28 years.

Winding Down

We are in the last two weeks of the volleyball season for DD. It has been a very interesting experience for a family that has never dealt with school sports before and despite the fact that she's on the second string, she says she's had a really good time and would like to do it again.  Her team has only lost one game all season.  The last away game is this afternoon and the end of the season tournament is the end of next week.  I haven't learned to time my photos quite right yet.  I usually end up getting the shot either just before or just after she hits the ball.  These pictures were taken at this past Monday's game...the only one they lost.  Ironically, the B team plays the first game and they won it.  It was the big guns on the A team that struggled and lost the last two games in the series.

The Birthday Debacle

There's an interesting phenomenon that takes place after your kids start reaching the age of about 20.  Not only do your own birthdays start making you uncomfortable as your own age escalates, but you start getting vague feelings of dread whenever your children's birthdays start rolling around.  This is my eldest.....Edward's daddy.  He's a bright boy, attending graduate school at a large university.  The thing is that yesterday he turned 26.  Holy COW!!!  How did I get to be the mother of a 26 year old!  Intellectually, I understand that there's nothing I can do about my age or his, but for brief periods of time, there's this startling realization that 26 is a goodly number of years.  26.  wow....

Flat Rate

Today I have a special guest with me.   Her name is Flat M.  She came across the country to me from  my friend JulieP's daughter.  This morning she accompanied me around my town to see the sights. I am the first stop on her school-year-long trip and I'll be sending her to Colorado on Monday.  We stopped at the visitor's center to pick up a post card to send to the classroom back home, then we got a picture of the Perrine Bridge and Shoshone Falls, which is not running at full capacity, but is pretty nonetheless. 

Where I've Been, aka Heirloom Sauce at Critical Mass

It's been a little longer between posts than usual.  Sorry.  But I do have a good excuse.  It wasn't exactly how I planned to spend my time this week.  DH came home early from a hunting jaunt and when he's underfoot like that, he tends to come up with lists of stuff "we" need to do.  Wednesday morning he decided "we" needed to pick some tomatoes from the garden.  I've been out of bottled tomato juice for a while but it's an involved, messy project which I refuse to do alone while he plays in the mountains.  So we start picking and notice that there are really bunches of tomatoes that are ripe.  He slyly says that he will juice the whole two bushels without a complaint.  I know there's a catch in there somewhere, because he HATES to juice tomatoes.  When he was a kid, his family made him juice 6-8 bushels at a time because they bottled their own ketchup.  He says he'll do it on one condition....that I try the famous heirloom ketchup recipe again.  And here's the story.
As I said, his family bottled their own when he was growing up.  He absolutely loves the taste of this stuff and would put it on almost everything edible.  After we were married, I made a few attempts at it, but I always ended up scorching it at the end by simmering it too long....I kept trying to make it thicker and as a result, would ruin the flavor.  I last attempted it in 1997 and vowed that as long as Winco  would sell Hunt's or Del  Monte for eighty cents a bottle, I was DONE with the whole process. 
Which brings us back to this week.  So for two days, I've had what started out as 35 quarts of tomato juice bubbling on the back burners of the stove, simmering away.  I faithfully stirred and adjusted temperatures downward so the liquid was barely moving.   I stayed in the kitchen bottling regular tomato juice and chili sauce, never straying very far from those cauldrons....stirring, ever stirring.   DH was home today and has tasted and tested countless times until he finally pronounced that it had reached critical mass and was ready to bottle.  Looks like we'll get somewhere around 30 pints of the stuff...and it's not even scorched.  Of course, I've probably approached this all wrong.  I should have turned up the heat and overcooked the darn stuff, because sure as I have a successful batch...I'm going to have to do it again when we use it all up.

And Because I Need a Tween Vent...

Totally unsolicited first-day-of-school face....which fits so well with her snarky personality these days.  It gets better, right?  I mean, all I have to go by is the boys and it got better with them.  Just give me some hope, will ya?  Scrap Addict kit and Becky Fleck sketch.

Is This Not The Cutest Baby Ever?

DS#1 and DIL sent me this photo this morning.  DS says he gets this reaction every day when he comes home from school.  (You'll notice the grandbaby is lying on top of DS's homework....).  Totally miss this kid and can hardly wait for Thanksgiving.

More Crop Goodness....

Well, the cyber crop is over and while I wasn't able to do as much as I would have wanted, I was able to get a few more layouts done for the sketch challenge. All were done with Scrap Addict kits and sketches.  

I Miss My Drivers!

I have spent more time in the car these past two weeks than I have in the month before.  You get used to certain things and you take them for granted. Then they disappear and you really, really miss them...on multiple levels.  I miss my grandbaby, and his parents, and the back-east couple, and I really miss my drivers!  Little did I know when they headed off to college what a change was in store for me.  There is no one but me to do the voice lesson run, the piano lesson shuttle, the pick up from high school thing and the volleyball practice/lesson deal.  It was so nice to have the bigger boys to rely on in a pinch.  Sigh.  Really miss them.
On a different note, there is a week-long cyber-crop at Scrap Addict .  There's lots of fun going on.  Sharing a couple of layouts I've managed to get done  for the sketch challenges....in between driving the kids.  :)  All are done with  Scrap Addict kits.