I was reminded again today that I have not gotten the pictures of my apricot adventures posted yet. I apologize for being busy and having dead camera batteries. I know they are just double A's, but I have to make it to the store to get more. Someday...at least by Saturday, if not tomorrow.
We ended up drying I don't know how many pounds of apricots, giving me a couple of gallon bags full to put in the freezer for snacking. Yummy yum. It's kind of cool because we had two different varieties, one large and sweet, the other smaller and more tart. We also got another couple of bags from a friend for me to freeze in halves for baking later.
Tonight I went down to a nearby town whose fair is this weekend. It is not my town, but it is one of those great small town fairs and we have friends who are very very very involved. We always volunteer to help and this year I entered some strawberry jam and zucchini relish that I helped make, as well as some pears from our tree and my potted sweet potato. I will find out if anything won on Saturday and hopefully I can post pictures (taken by my camera with the new batteries that I will buy) of my entries and their (hopeful) ribbons. So, lets all cross our fingers and hope to see lots of lovely pictures Saturday or Sunday morning.
Also, nifty event coming up...I am hosting a canning party for a few of my friends. We will make jams and relish and may do some baking. I am so excited!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
So I have a facebook acount now...sigh. I was trying not to. Really hard. I really don't need one more site to keep track of and check obsessively. But then my brother and sister got facebook and closed their myspace accounts. Then my dad got facebook. So I have facebook. I am such a follower. :) It's not my fault though, I had to. Otherwise I would never get to see new pictures of my adorable niece. Whatever.
Anywho, now it is time to go and halve and pit the giant box of apricots that I was just given. I am going to dry all or most of them with my borrowed dryer (and see if I will need to buy my own dryer) and make apricot kuchen. I will post pictures tonight or in the morning. It is the tastiest thing ever. Ever.
Anywho, now it is time to go and halve and pit the giant box of apricots that I was just given. I am going to dry all or most of them with my borrowed dryer (and see if I will need to buy my own dryer) and make apricot kuchen. I will post pictures tonight or in the morning. It is the tastiest thing ever. Ever.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Cherries
I almost forgot to tell you about the cherry harvest.
We ended up pitting and freezing 10 1-gallon bags of cherries and sending about 45 pounds home with my father-in-law to make cherry wine from. YUM!!!
Also, we took a bunch to friends and work.
There were still some left on the tree, but they were getting bad, so we decided to let the birds finish them off. A bit messy, but we were very tired of cherries. I never got around to drying any, so I may try to defrost some of the ones in the freezer and dry those. We will see if that works.
I am going to get a bunch of apricots to dry as soon as they are ripe...mmmm.
We ended up pitting and freezing 10 1-gallon bags of cherries and sending about 45 pounds home with my father-in-law to make cherry wine from. YUM!!!
Also, we took a bunch to friends and work.
There were still some left on the tree, but they were getting bad, so we decided to let the birds finish them off. A bit messy, but we were very tired of cherries. I never got around to drying any, so I may try to defrost some of the ones in the freezer and dry those. We will see if that works.
I am going to get a bunch of apricots to dry as soon as they are ripe...mmmm.
Things that I am doing
instead of blogging for your enjoyment.
ATC's
Still doing ATC's, and still loving it. I am going to be doing several swaps this summer. Here are some of the cards that I have already done (and sent out).
ATC's
Still doing ATC's, and still loving it. I am going to be doing several swaps this summer. Here are some of the cards that I have already done (and sent out).
Letterboxing
I have also been doing some letterboxing, even if you cannot tell from these photos. Nikki and I dragged the guys along on a trip to Maryhill Museum and the Stonehenge memorial. The ostensible purpose of the trip was to locate some letterboxes, but we also saw the museum, had a yummy picnic, and generally had a really nice day. We did actually find a couple of boxes as we wandered. Yay!
This is Nikki and myself feeling regal. :)
The peacocks at Maryhill (and there are tons of them) were hungry too. Noisy things. :)
Gardening
Gardening has sadly fallen down to number three on the list. We got some late season annuals into the boxes on the front porch, which I am really enjoying. Also, the Dahlias are starting to get pretty big. This shows the buds which opened a day ago, but I haven't gotten out to take a picture of. Working too much. I will try to get some tomorrow.
There really is a bud there...can you tell?
This is my porch...it needed the color.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Long time no see...
I know that I have not posted in a long time, but I have a good excuse. I have a new hobby...and a yard...and a garden...and a husband...and friends. :)
Let's start at the top. My new hobby is Artist Trading Cards, or ATC's. They are neat little portable art. The idea is to create a piece of art, in whatever media you like that will fit into 2.5 x 3.5 inches. The simplest way to start is to use a playing card for a template and decorate that, although it looks nicer if you use card stock as a base. I haven't bought any cardstock yet, so the playing cards will do for now. You then decorate it by drawing on it, creating a collage, embellishing a picture, or whatever you can think of. You then trade your creation. That's it. Simple and fun. A card can take as little as an hour or two to create. I am participating in a yahoo group for ATC's called ATC World. The people on ATC_World participate in swaps, which are organized trades in which you make 5 or 6 cards on a particular theme or method and then send them to a moderator. The moderator will the give each person in the swap a card from each of the other people. So, you send in 6 of your cards and get back a card from each of 5 or 6 other people. Nifty way to do it, and it saves a lot in postage. I have participated in one swap, which I mailed off this morning, with the theme of the Green Man. The cards were definately a freshman effort, but I really had fun doing it. I cannot wait to see what I get back from everyone else. I signed up for another swap that ends the 30th of this month, and made those cards up yesterday. I think there are also a couple of other that I will do that are due in the next few of months.
As for my other hobbies, I was trying to get some letterboxing in before my friend left for Mt. Rainier for the summer. She works up there developing curriculum and studying the volcano and loves every minute of it. The program also hosts an exchange with scientists in Japan, so she will spend next summer at Mt. Fuji. So so cool. The sad part is that now I will not see her for the next two months. Very Sad.
Shane and I have been squeezing gardening and yard work into what spare time we can scrape together. My yard is looking decent, but needs weeding. The bulb beds are all bloomed out and need to be weeded and have the leaves trimmed back. My veggies are being slow, so I may have to add some more tomato and pepper plants to augment what is looking to be a fairly small crop. I envy Bethany her lovely plants. Hopefully it will all come out right in the end. At least my potatoes, onions, and rhubarb are doing really well. Also, the cherry tree is getting very close to being ready to start picking. This is going to be a big job this year and I will pay in cherries if anyone wants to help. :)
Other than that, I have been super busy at work for the last few weeks, so my weeknights are spent winding down. Over the weekend, Shane and I went to dinner with my boss to visit and hang out. Shane and my boss really get along well and they love to talk about lab stuff.We went to a really good Mexican restaurant in town. Yummy. We spent Saturday clearing out the garage, using a chemical cleaner on the floor, and sealing all the cracks. Whoever built this house did a crappy job on the concrete work. Tonight Shane will be spraying a sealant over the whole floor and when that dries we get to start in on the modular shelving system that he is building along one whole wall for storage. Yay! I am so excited to have real storage.
So, in the near future I have cherry picking, card making, shelf building, visiting with my family and Shane's and above all relaxing in the sunshine whenever possible. Oh yeah, and Ren Faire is the end of the month...if I can squeeze it in :) For now I am off to eat the yummy stew I put in the crock pot this morning. See ya.
Let's start at the top. My new hobby is Artist Trading Cards, or ATC's. They are neat little portable art. The idea is to create a piece of art, in whatever media you like that will fit into 2.5 x 3.5 inches. The simplest way to start is to use a playing card for a template and decorate that, although it looks nicer if you use card stock as a base. I haven't bought any cardstock yet, so the playing cards will do for now. You then decorate it by drawing on it, creating a collage, embellishing a picture, or whatever you can think of. You then trade your creation. That's it. Simple and fun. A card can take as little as an hour or two to create. I am participating in a yahoo group for ATC's called ATC World. The people on ATC_World participate in swaps, which are organized trades in which you make 5 or 6 cards on a particular theme or method and then send them to a moderator. The moderator will the give each person in the swap a card from each of the other people. So, you send in 6 of your cards and get back a card from each of 5 or 6 other people. Nifty way to do it, and it saves a lot in postage. I have participated in one swap, which I mailed off this morning, with the theme of the Green Man. The cards were definately a freshman effort, but I really had fun doing it. I cannot wait to see what I get back from everyone else. I signed up for another swap that ends the 30th of this month, and made those cards up yesterday. I think there are also a couple of other that I will do that are due in the next few of months.
As for my other hobbies, I was trying to get some letterboxing in before my friend left for Mt. Rainier for the summer. She works up there developing curriculum and studying the volcano and loves every minute of it. The program also hosts an exchange with scientists in Japan, so she will spend next summer at Mt. Fuji. So so cool. The sad part is that now I will not see her for the next two months. Very Sad.
Shane and I have been squeezing gardening and yard work into what spare time we can scrape together. My yard is looking decent, but needs weeding. The bulb beds are all bloomed out and need to be weeded and have the leaves trimmed back. My veggies are being slow, so I may have to add some more tomato and pepper plants to augment what is looking to be a fairly small crop. I envy Bethany her lovely plants. Hopefully it will all come out right in the end. At least my potatoes, onions, and rhubarb are doing really well. Also, the cherry tree is getting very close to being ready to start picking. This is going to be a big job this year and I will pay in cherries if anyone wants to help. :)
Other than that, I have been super busy at work for the last few weeks, so my weeknights are spent winding down. Over the weekend, Shane and I went to dinner with my boss to visit and hang out. Shane and my boss really get along well and they love to talk about lab stuff.We went to a really good Mexican restaurant in town. Yummy. We spent Saturday clearing out the garage, using a chemical cleaner on the floor, and sealing all the cracks. Whoever built this house did a crappy job on the concrete work. Tonight Shane will be spraying a sealant over the whole floor and when that dries we get to start in on the modular shelving system that he is building along one whole wall for storage. Yay! I am so excited to have real storage.
So, in the near future I have cherry picking, card making, shelf building, visiting with my family and Shane's and above all relaxing in the sunshine whenever possible. Oh yeah, and Ren Faire is the end of the month...if I can squeeze it in :) For now I am off to eat the yummy stew I put in the crock pot this morning. See ya.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Lately
I have been very lazy lately. I seem to have done no blogging, little housework and lots of lying around watching TV, which is a feat since I do not have TV (hooray for Hulu). Shane is out of town this week at a training seminar and I have made all sorts of promises to myself about the things I am going to accomplish before he gets home.
So far, so mediocre. I worked on my embroidery last night, which I am woefully behind on, which was good, but then I got tired of that and watched hulu and played solitaire for way too long and then couldn't get to sleep early as I wanted to, so I am super tired today. Poor Chantel had to deal with a lot today. On top of being tired, my allergies have conspired to make me lose my voice, so she had to do pretty much all of the phone work in the office. Poor Chantel.
I had planned to get up and clean the kitchen this morning, but that did not happen, since I forgot to set my alarm early and was too tired to wake up on my own. So, I say to myself, I will do it tonight. Ha ha ha. I am so tired right now that I will have accomplished a lot if I manage to make it home without falling asleep on the freeway. I just want to make dinner and climb in the recliner with hulu and my book. I am also thinking about running by Dairy Queen for a Blizzard on the way home. That would be naughty, but it sounds good. I might not though, since I have brownie fixings at home. Brownies require mixing and baking and cutting, so much effort. Sigh.
Ok, enough whining. I will drive everyone off and have no followers. ;) So, the plans for the week are still cleaning and working on my embroidery and cross-stitch. I also would like to get the garage emptied out and clear the laundry closet. I want to clear out the closet, because one of the girls at work is giving me a washer and dryer! Yay! I know it sounds nuts not to have one, but it was a money thing, as in, they are expensive and the laundromat is cheap. But for me, convenience counts. So, since these are free, Shane can't complain. The garage needs to be cleaned out because when Shane gets home we are going to clean, patch, and seal the garage floor and the driveway. Whoever patched it last did a crappy job. Crappy. Once the floor is done, we are going to be building in shelving and storage cabinets along one whole wall of the garage. Shane is planning storage for canned goods, my crafts (although I am still arguing for the spare bedroom closet to be craft land), Christmas stuff, a bunch of books we don't have room to shelve, and all the other assorted crap we own. I am excited to be getting everything organized, but I never look forward to the work it takes to get there. Oh well. It will be nice when it is done and I don't have to shift through stacks of boxes or dig around in a dark closet for the fabric I need or the suitcase I am looking for.
Other than cleaning and clearing, I hope to get out and find a letterbox or two this week with Nikki. It has been a couple of weeks since we have gone. I also need to get a journal to set up for my letterboxing notebook and finish all the notes that go with the boxes we have already found. I would like to make the journal kind of like a scrapbook, with notes and pictures of the boxes and the fun we have hiking or driving to them.
I also need to get the lawn mowed and some weeding done in the veggies and bulb beds. I have no idea if I will manage all or any of this this week, but I can dream. Cross your fingers for me and I will come back in a few days and let you know how it went.
So far, so mediocre. I worked on my embroidery last night, which I am woefully behind on, which was good, but then I got tired of that and watched hulu and played solitaire for way too long and then couldn't get to sleep early as I wanted to, so I am super tired today. Poor Chantel had to deal with a lot today. On top of being tired, my allergies have conspired to make me lose my voice, so she had to do pretty much all of the phone work in the office. Poor Chantel.
I had planned to get up and clean the kitchen this morning, but that did not happen, since I forgot to set my alarm early and was too tired to wake up on my own. So, I say to myself, I will do it tonight. Ha ha ha. I am so tired right now that I will have accomplished a lot if I manage to make it home without falling asleep on the freeway. I just want to make dinner and climb in the recliner with hulu and my book. I am also thinking about running by Dairy Queen for a Blizzard on the way home. That would be naughty, but it sounds good. I might not though, since I have brownie fixings at home. Brownies require mixing and baking and cutting, so much effort. Sigh.
Ok, enough whining. I will drive everyone off and have no followers. ;) So, the plans for the week are still cleaning and working on my embroidery and cross-stitch. I also would like to get the garage emptied out and clear the laundry closet. I want to clear out the closet, because one of the girls at work is giving me a washer and dryer! Yay! I know it sounds nuts not to have one, but it was a money thing, as in, they are expensive and the laundromat is cheap. But for me, convenience counts. So, since these are free, Shane can't complain. The garage needs to be cleaned out because when Shane gets home we are going to clean, patch, and seal the garage floor and the driveway. Whoever patched it last did a crappy job. Crappy. Once the floor is done, we are going to be building in shelving and storage cabinets along one whole wall of the garage. Shane is planning storage for canned goods, my crafts (although I am still arguing for the spare bedroom closet to be craft land), Christmas stuff, a bunch of books we don't have room to shelve, and all the other assorted crap we own. I am excited to be getting everything organized, but I never look forward to the work it takes to get there. Oh well. It will be nice when it is done and I don't have to shift through stacks of boxes or dig around in a dark closet for the fabric I need or the suitcase I am looking for.
Other than cleaning and clearing, I hope to get out and find a letterbox or two this week with Nikki. It has been a couple of weeks since we have gone. I also need to get a journal to set up for my letterboxing notebook and finish all the notes that go with the boxes we have already found. I would like to make the journal kind of like a scrapbook, with notes and pictures of the boxes and the fun we have hiking or driving to them.
I also need to get the lawn mowed and some weeding done in the veggies and bulb beds. I have no idea if I will manage all or any of this this week, but I can dream. Cross your fingers for me and I will come back in a few days and let you know how it went.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Letterboxing
Two weeks ago I went letterboxing for the first time and had a blast. My friend Nikki went with me and we wandered around in the rain and managed to find three letterboxes.
For those of you who have never heard of letterboxing, it is a nifty hobby. The basic idea is to walk or drive or hike to a place, following a set of clues laid out by the hider of the box, puzzle out where it is (which can be simple or difficult), and then exchange stamps. Your gear includes a book or journal of some sort and a personal rubber stamp. These can be bought or hand-carved. I only have a purchased one for now, but hopefully I will manage to carve something that is not hideous before too long. The letterbox will also contain a stamp and a book. You stamp your stamp in their book and their stamp in your book and voila, you just letterboxed.
A lot of people I tell about letterboxing are not interested and think that it sounds boring or crazy or pointless. I don't think they are correct, but it's very individual. I love to go on walks or drives anyway, so the letterbox is almost a bonus for me. I think I am a little nuts, but I am okay with that and definitely not alone. There are tons of people interested in letterboxing around the country and the world. The last complaint, about it being pointless, is again, sort of subjective. I think it's neat to collect stamps and hunt for them. It is kinda like a treasure hunt to me. One of the stamps we found shows a hand-carved wild stallion from the Horse Heaven Hills and it is amazing! The person who made that stamp was an artist. The stamps collected are art and it is fun to have my own personal art collecting in a little book or box. Also, it is neat to look at the log book in the box. Everyone who has found that box signs the book with their stamp and info. They are dated and often have information on where the person is from and what the day was like. I find that fascinating. Some of the people who found the boxes we hunted that day were from the other side of the country.
I have great plans for letterboxing. Nikki and I will hopefully go out as often as possible and find all of the boxes in this area. Also, whenever Shane and I travel, I will try to find a box or two as a kind of souvenir. I am already looking for clues to boxes at the ports we will stop at on our Alaska cruise. My co-worker Chantel just shakes her head and laughs at me when I get going on all of this, but I love it.
For those of you who have never heard of letterboxing, it is a nifty hobby. The basic idea is to walk or drive or hike to a place, following a set of clues laid out by the hider of the box, puzzle out where it is (which can be simple or difficult), and then exchange stamps. Your gear includes a book or journal of some sort and a personal rubber stamp. These can be bought or hand-carved. I only have a purchased one for now, but hopefully I will manage to carve something that is not hideous before too long. The letterbox will also contain a stamp and a book. You stamp your stamp in their book and their stamp in your book and voila, you just letterboxed.
A lot of people I tell about letterboxing are not interested and think that it sounds boring or crazy or pointless. I don't think they are correct, but it's very individual. I love to go on walks or drives anyway, so the letterbox is almost a bonus for me. I think I am a little nuts, but I am okay with that and definitely not alone. There are tons of people interested in letterboxing around the country and the world. The last complaint, about it being pointless, is again, sort of subjective. I think it's neat to collect stamps and hunt for them. It is kinda like a treasure hunt to me. One of the stamps we found shows a hand-carved wild stallion from the Horse Heaven Hills and it is amazing! The person who made that stamp was an artist. The stamps collected are art and it is fun to have my own personal art collecting in a little book or box. Also, it is neat to look at the log book in the box. Everyone who has found that box signs the book with their stamp and info. They are dated and often have information on where the person is from and what the day was like. I find that fascinating. Some of the people who found the boxes we hunted that day were from the other side of the country.
I have great plans for letterboxing. Nikki and I will hopefully go out as often as possible and find all of the boxes in this area. Also, whenever Shane and I travel, I will try to find a box or two as a kind of souvenir. I am already looking for clues to boxes at the ports we will stop at on our Alaska cruise. My co-worker Chantel just shakes her head and laughs at me when I get going on all of this, but I love it.
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