I really am alive!

I'm still here!  I have been crazy busy the past couple of weeks.  I apologize for not keeping up on my commenting on all your blogs, I've been reading them whenever I can, but lately it's been on my phone, and trying to comment on that thing is an exercise in futility.  The kids have been really busy with school  and other activities lately, and hubby has been working very long days and enduring all sorts of drama at the squadron courtesy of some ill behaved junior personnel there, which has been making him very tired in the evenings so I haven't had much in the way of "adult conversation" lately.  So what's a girl to do?  

KNIT!

Isn't this yarn fun?  Looks like I will be doing washcloths this year as gifts, lots of washcloths, LOL...waaaaaay behind schedule for knitting gifts this year, as in just started last night, yikes!  

Other events going on:

Loch made the Honor Roll, big deal for him since this is the first grade they offer that in here.  We are very proud of him of course, but I'm really just excited to get one of those annoying bumper stickers out of the deal.

Baking, lots and lots of baking, for school parties, church functions, and also a girl has to reach a certain level of chocolate in the bloodstream to stay up for that late-night knitting :)  

If you are anything like my husband, you will love this one...

Even though I can now be considered a "scrapbooker", even I can find the humor in this one, because it really is true, like hubby says "do you really need all this crap?"  LOL you'd think they'd replace that bulb a.s.a.p.!

Is anyone else out there finding themselves really not in the holiday mood this year?  Maybe it's because we aren't going home this year, maybe it's the tight finances, or maybe let's just talk about the fact that it was 78º here yesterday... YUCK!!!!  I'm hoping things change soon, my "busyness" of late should relax a bit next week, so I'm hoping that my mood improves along with getting some much needed time back. I feel like I have reverse S.A.D. due to the warm unseasonable temps, this girl likes it cold in the wintertime!

Now we have to leave the house again so the agent can show it (to yet another person who can't get approved for a mortgage)... what a great usage of time it is to drive aimlessly around with the kids and dogs in the car, good times. This time we may go to the park and I can sit in the car and catch up on everyone's posts!

Leaving you with this redneck gem:

'Tis the season!

Catch Up

My parents are on their way back to Minnesota today, and I'm back!  We had a good visit, but it rained EVERY DAY!  We are on our 6th or 7th day straight of rain, heat and humidity and I am so ready for fall.  I still have not planted the fall garden and the lawn is about 8 inches high, soggy, mushrooms sprouting all over, yuck!  During a few hour break in the rain mom helped me bring peppers in, I thought the end must be near, but I still have a lot out there ripening.  We did bring in quite a bunch the other day that needed to be frozen and/or canned.  All of the bell peppers were frozen, the Anchos hung to dry, and the jalapenos were canned.

I was lazy and raw packed them into rings instead of scorching and peeling since there were so many.  I got 7 pints of jalapenos to add to the rest of the stash in the pantry.  The verdict this year is that 3 plants is just not quite enough, so I'll plant 4 from now on.  If you remember, 9 plants was way too many, I was harvesting about 100 a week, 6 plants was still a bit of an overload last year so I dropped it to 3.  Yes, we eat a LOT of jalapenos, probably 2 pints a month LOL.  3 years later, I think I have it dialed in finally.  

We pulled the plants, so this brings the total of jalapenos for 2011 to 10 lbs, I think 15 would be about perfect, and of that I squirreled away 11 pints and 4 half-pint jars for the year.

Of course, we had to use up some of the bell peppers fresh! 

everyone knows of my favorite dish for the garden, stir fry

Mom also has finally decided I'm worthy of some family photos!  Really nice ones that I had never seen before, like this gem:

Isn't that cool?  That's dad on the right.  I also had him list a string of cars he owned starting with his first one, and wow - that's a fun list!  Needless to say, I have some good material to get me started on my next project - wait for it - 

- I have decided to (gasp) start scrapbooking, you know, in all my spare time :)  Yet another hobby I used to laugh at and say I would never do...what's happening to me?!  I also got filled in on a lot of family history I didn't know about, and random fun facts about the family and my parents specifically.  Of course it would be great if mom would pen a history for me but I'll settle for dumping boxes of "stuff" on my desk to sort through myself LOL :)  Hopefully one day I'll have some nice things put together for our family and my brothers' families to share, with actual captions so we know what the heck we're looking at.

Honest, someday soon I really will be planting my fall garden, but it has to stop raining first!  Next up I'll post about our annual air show fun, not interesting to everyone I realize, but it's our livelihood LOL...

I have gotten back into knitting the past week and have sorted through my seeds for fall, so I'm slowly making the change to the new season....