Category Archives: Uncategorized

My niece and her boyfriend, who bought their first house this August at the ripe ages of 23, want to begin hosting Thanksgiving. Because she’s currently taking full-time classes while also teaching full-time, she wants to wait until next year, meaning this will be our last year of hosting Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to giveContinue reading “Passing the turkey leg…”

This upcoming weekend will be the last big push for the garden. Over the past two days, we harvested about 60 pounds of sweet potatoes and I made hot pepper jelly from the over-abundance of peppers in our garden. Now, we have the remainder of the beets to get canned into Harvard beets and someContinue reading “The garden’s end…”

Not something that always goes together, but today my mind is on the rising sun and the advent of pepper jelly into my canning arsenal. Both meet at the place where my soul gets happy. First, the sun. Around these parts, it’s mid-fall and in mid-fall, one cannot rule out the chance of snow. Once,Continue reading “Rising suns and pepper jelly”

On Sunday, we went for a “fancy walk.” I call it a fancy walk when we actually leave home to take a long walk. Mostly, we usually just head out our front door and can take a leisurely three-mile walk right around the neighborhood. There’s very little traffic, we pass only two houses and it’sContinue reading “Filling up my senses”

Each year, we take stock of our garden, how well it produced, what it would take to increase our yields, what produce we need to cut from the seed purchase list and what additional investments we need to make. Take, for example, this year’s garden. There were some critical insights gained. First, we can acknowledgeContinue reading “Garden investments = garden yield”

When the storms runs out of rain It’s been a tough few years on a lot of fronts. Don’t get me wrong – we are incredibly blessed and should really have little to complain about. Our families’ illnesses turned out just fine to date. So, while stressful at the time, things are now pretty good.Continue reading “When the storm runs out of rain…”

It’s been a gorgeous few days but the rain moved in today. After nearly a week of low humidity, blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70s, today is rainy with a high in the upper 60s. Not bad, but not fantastic either. Still, for two people who spent the last two days doing yardwork andContinue reading “The things I do for love…”

Who hasn’t experienced it? Your fridge is crammed with food but as you systematically look for something you want to eat you discard options because you know the food is either past its prime or outright spoiled. You pry open the freezer drawer or door to look for something to defrost for dinner and itContinue reading “The Great American Cleanout”

Last Saturday night was our chance to watch the Perseids meteor shower. At peak, it was too cloudy and hazy to see much. But on Saturday, the first night past peak, was perfect. We went out to dinner, then had a little campfire in the back yard. When it got dark, I had made upContinue reading “Wishing upon a falling star…”

It was a gradual change that my life went through when I decided to declutter, routinize and generally calm things down. It was not just one thing that brought my life back into order but a series of things. Darryl’s accident, losing my mom, my sister’s illness, renovations, and even having pets for the firstContinue reading “Of simplicity and things…”