Thoughtful Kids

Sigh.
After all that cleaning, my kitchen is a mess again.
But not to worry!
My children, who love me dearly and are are always willing to go 'above and beyond', allow most of our dishes to live in moldy splendor in their bedrooms, thereby ensuring that there are never enough dishes upstairs to make more than a small mess in the kitchen.
Aren't they thoughtful. . . .???

Laying Around

Friday found me frantically cleaning the house in between bus runs as I just hate it when Saturday rolls around and I spend the day working my butt off while everyone else just hangs out. Just so I would have absolutely no reason to go out on Saturday I decided to do a big grocery shop after dinner on Friday night.
Superstore had pumpkins on for $2.47 so I picked up five for our annual pumpkin carving night. Four of them went under the cart to leave room for the food. One of those pumpkins was quite obviously horrified rather than honored that he was about to be cut up and displayed on my front step and kept making a break for it. It got rather embarrassing when  he rolled right up to the same store clerk three times in a row!
The free item with $250 worth of groceries ( I nearly bought enough stuff to get me 2 free items!) was a mini DVD player. As ours has been broken for some time I was quite excited about this. Morgan (my tekkie geek) just shook his head and said " It's just going to be a piece of junk! I keep telling you you need to buy an xbox 3! You can store pictures, play music. . ."
After I brought the groceries home and the boys unloaded and put them away, Morgan set up my new DVD player.
It wouldn't open! Unless you banged on it. . .
For crying out loud!
I had to pick Holly up from work so I left a little early and exchanged it for a new one.
Man was Saturday ever going to be lovely. A nice long lazy day.
I woke up Saturday seized with the desire to put my applesauce away and bring my computer room (Actually everything but computering goes on in this room these days!) back into order. Over the summer it has served as a holding place for canning equipment,  a place to dry herbs or sew small projects and what have you.
Putting the applesauce away required a total clean out and reorganization. At this point Jesse got involved as I complained that to store my extra empty jars I first had to clean out under the deck. A scary, (mice) very large job in a very tight space. I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get under there.
Jesse said he would get the jars under there and I started working on the cold room.
I wiped down the 68 jars of applesauce and trucked them downstairs.
After going going to the grocery store, (I had forgotten something!!) I dropped Holly off at work, made a quick stop at the butcher and went home for a late lunch.
Jesse spent four or five hours slithering around under the deck sweeping, vacuuming, sorting and organizing until the space under my deck was beautiful to behold!
I figured I might as well tackle the computer room.
At 3 o'clock Sunday morning I finally went to bed after ironing and hanging all four curtains.
Henry just kept shaking his head and saying "I thought you were going to take it easy today. . ."
Sometimes my husband is very baffled by me. . .
So. am. I.
This is what I saw when I looked out the window this morning. . .

I've spent the day just lying around. (After a morning bus run and a quick walk for Jada of course!)
It's still snowing.
To my sister Tamara ,who after a long, unexpected business trip to Hong Kong is most likely wishing it was her who was lying around all day. . .
I'm praying you get a nice lazy day soon!
Actually I hope we all get a nice lazy day when we really need one. . .

Grown Up

This was Jesse's contribution to grocery night.

And I worried about the fact that my baby is now old enough to vote!

It looks like he'll be my baby for a few more years. . .

Okay, okay, he might also have unloaded most of the groceries and put a good number of them away,

but still!!!



Morgan

Morgan went to a work function last night where they had a girl how did caricatures
This is what she came up with. . .

Isn't he cute?!!

I'll Be Outside All Week

At least I hope so!
It's cooler today and the rest of the week is likely to be cooler as well.
Still a few degrees above seasonal but. . .
It can't last forever!
I'm hoping to spend this week tidying up the garden, emptying the water barrels, cleaning out the greenhouse and then, as a reward, decorating my outside front entry for fall.  This is what I did in 2008. That was lots of fun!
I do like to do a little something for Halloween as well, as the kids who go to the school across the street enjoy it.
Nothing gory of course but I was just bouncing around the web and came across this at Naps On The Porch.
Wouldn't that huge web and spider look awesome on my gazebo?!
I'm going to see if I can figure out how to make it because I think the kids would love it! (Okay, so would I!)
Once the kids have done their annual pumpkin carving , I'll have four jack o'lanterns to add to the decor.
But now I have to get off the computer and out into the garden or all this fun will never happen!
Happy October 18th!

A Warm Fall

Jesse's opinion on the long spell of unseasonably warm fall weather:
"It stinks!"
"It just doesn't feel right!"
"It should just get cold and snow already!!"
??!!!
Can this be MY son???

Granville Island

After Tam and I finished our delicious lunch on Friday we headed over to Granville Island in Vancouver.

It was under a bridge and what could be better than a bridge support covered in vines when you're a gardener? This is certainly not something we see in Edmonton!

There were so many things to see and do.
What should we do first?

Of course we started with plants and flowers. . .

And then went on to more flowers. . .

We made a quick stop in the Emily Carr Art Institute and checked out some of the art on the walls. It was too deep for us,(They were literally scribbles) so we moved on to the indoor Farmer's Market.



Tam and I both drooled over the handmade pastas and fresh boccincini so we picked up butternut squash ravioli with roasted red pepper pesto , linguine with basil pesto and two boccincini to have for dinner one night.

(Which by the way, was fabulous! Especially since we also added some spicy chorizo from the sausage stall.)

We spent some time checking out the various kinds of freshly made sausages. I was intrigued by some of the more interesting types such as the one that had apricots in it. (It was quite nice. You definitely tasted  the sweet apricots.) As I hope to try sausage making when/if  Henry brings home a deer this fall, I took lots of notes!

Thursdays  there is also an outdoor Farmers Market and we headed over to see what was being offered. One stand was selling organic vegetables which Tamara found rather lacking. Although I only grow organically and so have a higher tolerance for blemishes, I must admit that those veggies were rather sad looking. While perusing the stands we were serenaded by a man playing the steel guitar. I  picked up a CD  to both enjoy his music at home and have a reminder of a lovely day. (It's playing as I write this.) The best stall came last, as we stopped at Masion Cote (http://www.maisoncote.com/) where the fragrance of fresh herbs wafted to our noses. I hit the jackpot there, as the lovely owner was a passionate foodie and gave me great ideas for my deer sausage endeavour. I did not leave that stall empty handed!

One last stop at a little shop on our way back to the truck scored us both beautiful cashmere scarves for only $15!



Another exciting adventure came to a close.

But not to worry, there were more adventures on the way. . .

Coming Home

Well, I'm home again.

The blogging weekend is over.

My reporting on it however, is not.

Which means this is going to be a blogging week! (There may be a small interruption as mom and I can apple pie filling on Wednesday. Because, as you know, I don't have enough apple products preserved!)

Before I left today, the three of us met at a restaurant for breakfast. Lisa ordered organic Earl Grey tea.

It seems Tamara finds the scent of bergamont irresistible!

Oh Tam. . .

Lisa and I had taken our cameras along hoping to get a picture of the three of us.

Mine didn't have a timer, so Tam set Lisa's on the back of the seat, rushed over to the bench and the three of us smushed together, big smiles on our faces which faltered when nothing happened.

Tam jumped up to try it again, bumping her head against the blinds in the window as she attempted to peer into the viewfinder to see if we would all be in the shot.

As it looked good, she set it again, ran back to the bench where more smushing and smiling ensued.

Nothing happened.

"Where's the light? Did anyone see the red light?"

More head bumping, peering, smushing and smiling.

Still, nothing. . .

"Seriously, did anyone see a red light? There's supposed to be a red light!"

A very lovely man from another both came over smiling and asked if we would like him to take our picture.

"Yes Please!!"

He took the camera, stood back and pressed the button. . .

"The red light! The red light is blinking!"

He smiled again and said "That's alright, I'll just stand here and hold the camera until it goes off."

He was even gracious enough to take one with my camera as well.

All good things come to an end though and it was time to wing my way home.

Ahhhh. . .

A beautiful prairie quilt, lying under a blue prairie sky.

It's good to be home.

We Interrupt This Blogging Weekend. . .

As many of you know, I have two sisters.

One who blogs. . . http://thegreenhousediaries.blogspot.com/

And one who doesn't.

Many of you may also know that I am not photogenic.

My non blogging sister Lisa has been behind the camera for the last few days and this was the best she could come up with. . .

Ah, Lisa????

The next time Aunty Nancy pesters you to start blogging. . .

Please don't.

I don't think my self esteem could take having these kinds of pictures plastered across the web by two sisters!!!

A Blogging Holiday

Tam and I decided that this week should be a blogging holiday.

As you can see so far I've kept up my end of the deal. . .

We'll see how I do for the rest of my holiday. . .

I'm With Tamara Of Course!

Yes indeed people, I have winged my way to the very sunny (cough, cough) B.C. coast for some much needed sister time.

Since Lisa and Rick are still off lolling around on a fabulous cruise ship, Tam and I have to fend for ourselves for a few days.

We've started off our little adventure with a delectable lunch on the balcony of the Seasons restaurant in Queen Elizabeth park in Vancouver.

Luckily for Tamra and I who get cold in a heat wave, (unless I'm having a hot flash. . .) we sat in front of a fire and were also blessed with heat radiating from a heater up above us. ( And on the off chance that some one might still be cold, the waitresses came around with blankets for any on who needed it!)

We dined on an exquisite chopp salad made up of tender greens, gold beets, hard boiled eggs, garbanzo beans and olives. (which I know sounds strange and maybe even a little weird, but trust me, it was amazing!)

Tam thoroughly enjoyed the carpaccio but I found it too strong for my liking.

We yakked and laughed while gazing out over the rail at this beautiful view. . .

And because it wouldn't be a real adventure without dessert we settled in with a cup of tea by the fire. . .

And this gorgeous french lemon tart.

Sigh. . .

Life is good!

More Clues. . .

Well. . . .

Where In The World Is Rosa???

Anyone? Anyone at all????
Except for Ev. She already knows and that would be cheating.

Stay Tuned. . .

A Few Jars Of Applesauce

Mom and I worked on apple sauce for two days straight.

We got a few jars. . .

Mom can not resist giving Jada food!

Applesauce in my newly painted kitchen.

It was a good year for apples. . .

On Staying Up Late. . .

I'm not sure what's been happening in the last few months when it comes to my bedtime.
Although I am by nature a night owl, getting up at 5:30 in the morning for the last 17 years has meant that I've learned to be sensible and I always aim to be in bed by 10.
Even during the summer when I could go to bed and sleep in late I'm usually up by 6 and still in bed by 11
This summer was different. I stayed up late. And when I say late I'm talking 1:30 -2:00 in the morning.
Much of my preserving seemed to happen in the wee hours of the morning.
Now this wouldn't be so bad if I had gotten back to my sensible, responsible sleep schedule once school started again.
But so far not so good. . .
I've been staying up late night after night which in turn leads to other nights that find me sleeping in my chair during the 6 o'clock news!
Friday night I knew I had to chop up the ten pounds of green tomatoes and four pounds of onions so they would sit over night and be ready to be turned into green pickled tomatoes the next day.
I finished them at 2:30 in the morning. . .
Saturday evening found me tiding up after an afternoon of baking in preparation for finally getting to those tomatoes.
I took the last jar (# 15) out of the canner at 10 that night. Not too bad you would think.. . .
Unfortunately Morgan, Sarah and Jesse were stuck out on a lonely highway hours from home with a flat tire and I just couldn't bring myself to go to bed until they were home safe and sound.
Which happened at 12:45am!
And now here it is 11:15 and I'm still up.
Any body out there have any good ideas on how I might get back to a sensible, responsible bedtime???
No?
Me neither.
Sigh.
Well I had better go to sleep right now because mom's going to be over after my morning run and we are going to be making a canning a lot of apple sauce. . .
During the day!!!