Hooray for Tuesdays!

Tuesday is not a work day for me.  It is the day that most typifies the life I was hoping for in retirement!  Hubby and I start our Tuesday by going to the library.  Nothing screams old folks like going to the library the same day every week!  We come home and have a light lunch and then I go to my women's Bible study.  This truly is just a wonderful two or three hours.  Our little group has become very close and we pray for each other during the rest of the week, then we come together and visit and study and share our prayer requests and then we go back to our own homes, refreshed and strengthened.  I keep a prayer journal and it is amazing the wonderful and special answers to prayer.  If you have a thought that your prayers are not being answered I highly recommend a journal for them.  I was feeling just a little unheard a couple of years ago and was encouraged by an older saint to keep a journal of my prayers, what an eye opener!  Now I can look back through the journal and encourage myself when I feel a little down.  I see the things I was praying for a year or two ago and am so blessed to be able to put the answer in the journal as it occurs, of course some of the answers were not what I expected but they were answers!  Also having friends praying for you is such a comfort, I am sure that sometimes I can feel a warmth in the midst of a trial and know a friend is praying for me, sometimes a friend will call and ask if I or a family member are ok as she was moved to pray for me, and it will be the same time I was going through a trial.  We pray for our church, our country and our leaders - and the world needs more prayer! 

I look at the things that are going on in the world and am so saddened.  I have always followed politics - my Dad taught political science and government - and enjoyed the debate and the back and forth.  It really is no longer about politics, I almost can't watch the news.  There are so many examples recently of people who have no moral compass!  The three boys in Oklahoma who shot the Australian student because "they were bored" - my parents never let me be bored!   The two guys who beat the WWII vet to death because he "fought back against the attack and angered them"!   With all that is going on in the world today is Miley Cyrus really the top story?  Is no one paying attention?  Where are the adults, what are the parents doing out there?  Has anyone wondered what the world will look like in ten years when these uneducated, thrill seeking, youtube posting punks are old enough to vote? 

So on Tuesdays I go to my friends house, sit down with my spiritual sisters and pray for the world.  It helps me remember that I don't have to worry - God is in control, everything has a purpose, even if I don't understand it.  It reminds me that I need to do my part, to help and mentor, and work with young people who might not know that this behavior is wrong.  I have a responsibility to share my faith and live my faith. I remember to be thankful for the blessings that I have received and I am reminded again how fortunate I am - it isn't about money it is about joy! It reminds me that I have read the end of the book and God wins!

I feel better - I thought I'd share.

Playing Catch Up

Egad!  Somehow a whole week has gone by without a blog post - and I had been doing so well.  There really is no excuse - I have been busy and tired and I have 2 books to finish before Tuesday library day and ....did I really say no excuses?  I seem to have a ton of them! 

Here is how the week looked....

An old Hidden Valley cruet makes a lovely home for the 'sun' dried tomatoes and sprigs of fresh oregano and rosemary in olive oil.

Several more jars of zucchini jam (raspberry flavor this time) along with tomato sauce and pickles in the background.

Dehydrated herbs in pretty jars plus more tomatoes this time diced.

Since I couldn't grow my own dill this year, I had searched for it at the stores and kept 'just missing' it - finally stopped at the the Farmers Market in the next town over and found they have a contract for dill during canning season and it was beautiful and smelled wonderful.  I will make dill pickles until it starts looking limp and then I will dehydrate the 'leaves'.

 I now have 240 squares for the centers of my curtains in the kitchen. (decided on a rail fence pattern) I am going to go ahead and use regular batting as none of the double knit I have on hand is light enough in color to use.  I think the batting will still give it the ability to keep out the cold/heat that would normally come in through the windows and hopefully hang nicely as well.

I have read every Terry Brooks fantasy novel written and so was very excited to find the conclusion to the last trilogy at the library on the 'new book' cart.  When I looked for the second book in the series - I had already read the first - the library didn't have it, I had to put it on order, it finally came in but the last book has to go back on Tuesday, no renewal since it is a 'new book', so I must force myself to read rather than to do housework and stuff.  Yeah Hubby laughs when I say that sort of thing too!

Last but not least, since this will eventually ruin my eyesight, the monks cloth throw is getting its first flower (imagine a pink carnation with green leaves) I am thinking of ways to scan the pattern and blow it up for my bifocal requiring eyes!  :)  This project will become more fun as the weather cools off and I quit looking for ways to put the bulk of the material somewhere other than my lap or legs!


The youngest son and wife, and middle son  (single) are coming to visit in September so I am feeling a little pressure to finish a few niggling projects like the curtains, painting the 'privy pantry' and finishing the bathroom flooring.  They have not been up here yet so we will have fun whether I finish projects or not and they are not coming to inspect my painting skills.  I will still try to get it all done.

Resolving once again to do better and keep up.....!

Another Disillusion!

My hubby grows the tomatoes.  He has for years, even when we had a container garden, and he is expanding now to the raised bed.  He just does it better than me.  He started his tomato growing with the hot pepper growing and you guessed it he LOVES salsa.  I apparently have something known as a "girl" mouth and cannot take even a whiff of heat without complaining and my tongue will burn for hours after a trip to a Mexican food restaurant.  When the tomato harvest gets going he will make his salsa and then I get all the tomatoes that are leftover for eating, canning and cooking.  I have sauce to can on the stove currently and I have the dehydrator going with tomato wedges on it.  This last is the source of my latest disillusionment.

I thought to myself  "what other interesting thing can I do reasonably easily with tomatoes?"  Sun dried tomatoes popped into my head - I love these in a little olive oil on a flatbread with feta cheese, or on my fake pizzas with pesto sauce and -  well, you get the picture.  So I turned to my favorite cookbook - Google - looking for recipes for sun dried tomatoes and there it was.....The United States Department of Agriculture which is responsible for food safety and the nutritional labels and making sure that if it says sugar free it is sugar free, these same people do not require 'sun dried tomatoes' to be sun dried, they are dehydrated in huge plants!   I understand there are bugs and rain and such but really! They shouldn't be allowed to put pictures in my head of Italian hillsides and Mediterranean sunshine and rows of tomatoes slowly shriveling up while soaking up the....... it's just wrong somehow.  I should have known I suppose but I guess I thought that was why they were so expensive.  HA!  Now I feel even better about the little wedges in the dehydrator (just like the expensive store bought brand!)  slowly turning into 'sun dried' tomatoes - I did keep the dehydrator outside on the porch during the hottest part of the afternoon.  One more step in my ongoing war against processed foods!   Steps toward more honest eating!  (mildly dramatic yes?) I'm thinking I may just call them sun dried tomatoes so people won't be confused!  :) 
I will post pics when they are done as well - so far this is really easy, I left the skins on and cut into wedges, mostly romas but some of the slicers, squeezed out the extra juice - into the sauce pot - and put them on the trays about an inch or two apart.  This photo is at 7 hrs in.

My cousin sent me a photo of the weekend corn fest at my Aunts house, my Mom and Grandma went to help and between the weekend and yesterday they froze 201 quarts of sweet corn and gave away bags of ears to anyone who would take it!  They plant several rows of sweet corn since they have a large acreage that they have farmed for years - these days they rent out the arable land but still have a huge garden.  They really are very self sufficient with the deer and the turkeys on the place and several ponds they can fish from.

Lord willing Grandma will be 101 in September!

Cousin Kailey says even if you're 100 they still make you work here!

The camp stoves are set up for blanching and the boys just keep picking!

It looked and sounded like a good time was had by all and proved that anything goes quicker if you can laugh and visit!  I sure miss my Mom!