It sure makes a summer less stressful when you're not trying to move to another country.
We've finally been able to spend some time at home this last month.
My blackberries were successful! I was able to freeze a few bags of them and still have a bowl out to munch on during the day. I got together with a friend and "helped" (if stirring is helpful) her can blackberry jam. Yum!!
My blueberries were even more successful! I have more bags of those in the freezer. Unfortunately we went on our vacation when they were still coming in so I missed out on some. But I had a friend stop by to pick what was still ripening to take home with her.
Zanna wanted tomatoes and so we planted 6 plants out by the berries. Overall it's been producing like crazy! I've never had so many tomatoes. Still, quite a few have to be thrown away as they are either worm infested or rotten. I spray them to keep them from being totally eaten by bugs so I guess it could be worse. One plant I thought for sure wasn't going to make it but it seems to still be hanging in there and trying. One other plant just up and died. So who knows? I sure don't know what the heck I'm doing. But we've had lots of fresh pico and I've frozen some pasta sauce, tomato/basil soup, and I'm currently roasting tomatoes for a roasted tomato sauce.
When I'm not outside in the blazing heat trying to keep up with the weeds, I can also be found watching this:
For any homeschoolers out there, you might recognize Andrew Pudewa form the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I've been watching the Teaching Writing with Structure and Style dvd's and doing the practicum in preparation for teaching at co-op in the fall. I'm helping to organize this new co-op for the local homeschool area and we are trying to get it up and running!
I'm also quite often in my kitchen which thankfully I usually enjoy. With Will home, it's a constant stream of meals and cleaning up. I double recipes but even then it doesn't last long. I'm not complaining, it's just an adjustment and I seem to frequent the grocery store a little more than usual. Thank goodness we finally got that Aldi!
Speaking of food, I'm fixin' to write a post about food. Southern food, Texas food, BBQ, etc. It's a whole new world of culinary delight and heart attacks waiting to happen. I have so much to learn. I love it.
In other news, I finally got a real, honest to goodness credit card. It's got a $500 limit and everything. I'm a big girl now!! Wayne is still dealing with his training wheels credit card. We got the Credit Karma app and it's pretty fun to compare credit scores and who's winning. Not really. It's stupid.
Summer is winding down and on one hand I'm sad and on the other hand I'm ready to get back to it - schedules, routines, etc. I'm preparing for my last year of homeschool with Zanna and it's very bittersweet. I'm trying to being very intentional with what I'm picking for our curriculum and course of studies this year. I'll be sure to do a back to homeschool post (I think I missed it last year with the craziness of moving) and share what we'll be doing. After last summer's insanity, I finally feel back to being excited again about setting up our school room and rearranging the bookshelves and dreaming about all the stuff we'll learn together this year. I can't wait!
