Tomatoes

I have so many things to post, I have pics from a year ago. I might still post them because one of these days I will make one of those cool books from my blog, and I don't want those memories completely lost.

Loved, Loved, loved Conference. I am so excited now for the conf issue to come out. I want to study it.

For now, I am going to post my Spaghetti sauce! I had all these tomatoes so I wanted to do something with them. So I drove myself crazy trying to decide if I wanted to just can tomatoes or make Spaghetti sauce. I use my canned tomatoes for Italian type stir fry, or Spaghetti sauce. So the sauce won. If I get more tomatoes, which I assume I will, I will can some Italian style tomatoes! Well, here are my jars! I put my labels on two different ways, I think I like the ones on the front of the jars better. What do you think?About a week and a half ago, I went to my greenhouse and hit pay dirt! There were lots more peppers in the bottom of the basket. I think next year I will plant more tomatoes. But we will see. One of my plants died early becuase of the way I pruned and staked them. I'm trying one more new method next year. If it doesn't work I am going to try the kind that hang from the ceiling.

Well there are lots more things I want to blog, but I think I will try to do a little every day.
love you all!!

Good tools

About 30 years ago give a year or two either way, Steve gave me some money for Mother's day. I decided to go buy kitchen stuff. I paid about 8 dollars or so for the above whisk. It has been faithful and wonderful tool all those years. It died 2 days ago. Over time I realized the importance of buying good tools if you want them to last. I decided it was worth it to save up or spend my whole gift money on good tools for the kitchen , garden, sewing or etc. If it wasn't important I would buy cheap things but if it was something I was going to use a lot or use for many years I would buy only the good quality. It has served me well.

Baby Scarlet!

I had the great privilege of helping Megan during the first week of little Scarlets life. She is so sweet, smiles all the time, and is very easy to comfort. I was there until she was 9 days old and I never heard her cry more than a few minutes. I hope she stays that way! Here she is a few hours old! With Auntie Amy, with GrandmaMore at the hospital Then as the week went on it was hard not to snap a few.Last day I was there, we took some pics in a dress. She wasn't too excited to be unwrapped. She is a typical baby, loves to be swaddled. Isn't Megan beautiful!!I had to have a pic with her, but she was done as you can see below!
What an incredible experience it is to be a mom! I am so grateful I have the health and the privilege to help my daughter and be with that little celestial being.
Love you all!

I can't believe it has been 1 and a half months!

That shows the state of my mind and life for the last few months! I have had lots to blog about, lets see... visits from my mom and dad-2 times, Danielle and her in-laws, Amy and Mike at least twice, Megan and Greg-twice, Jake and Lyndsey-once, and Rebecca and the girls. During some of these visits we were living in a house that is torn up, sheet rock dust up the wazoo, and men in my house before I was dressed some days. The outside air in our house and no way to change that. I lived in my bedroom with the door shut and the heater on when I could. It made me crazy. Then when it was time to paint all the places that now needed it, we were tired and wanting it done. But as the coast world is, no one wants to work, so we had to paint it ourselves. I did the upstairs kitchen and bath, Steve's office areas, the down stairs hallway,laundry area. Steve did some in the apartment. Then is was time to clean everything up. I finally hired someone to help me 2 days before Danielle and her in laws came. I feel like I have been running for several months and I am not done yet. Jake and Lyndsey went on a 10 year anniversary trip to Mexico. So we have Miles and Ruby for 10 days. Labor day weekend, Steve's sibs are coming, then Meg's baby is due. Our garage and shop still are a disaster. I want them done before the rain starts in October. I will have I think about 1 week in between all of that. Like Rebecca said I will probably crash and sleep for days after Ruby and Miles leave.

Now having said all that, I love my family and visits, it has just been hard because we were trying to do the remodel at the same time.

Tuna time has come again. I have a new Tuna hair style. I will post it tomorrow. It is very practical!

The bad thing about Tuna right now is that I can't do it during the day when the kids are here, it is too dangerous, so that means nights in the garage till 1:30am or tonight's will be around 3:00am. Oh well. We are grateful for the Tuna. I just wish Steve would go and get some Salmon. He gets so obsessed with the fact that he can get as many Tuna as he wants and only 2 Salmon a trip if he is lucky, that the Tuna win out. I personally would like some salmon. He has only caught one this year and I have already frozen about 100 bags of Tuna, and as of tonight will have canned about 230 half pint jars of Tuna.

I am getting groggy, what a shock! I forgot to get my camera before I came down to the garage, so the pics will have to come later. Well, hope all of you are doing well! love you all!

Random Things

When Steve and I went to New York a few years back, we went on a walking tasting history tour of Greenwich Village. It was pouring down rain but fun and tasty. One of my favorite places was a little Olive oil store named O&CO. They had delicious bread and different kinds of olive oil to dip it in. I thought they were to die for, even just the regular olive oil. Steve thought it was in my head. They told us because we went on the tour we got a discount on the oil and they would ship it for free whether we bought the oil that day or after we got home. It was spendy so I had to think about it. Towards the end of our trip I just couldn't stand it. I went back on the subway all by myself and bought some and they shipped it to our home. I bought the lemon and the basil. I fell in love with the lemon, and when it ran out I didn't know what I was going to do. About that time Lizzie was going to New York with Shad, so she went and bought some and they gave her the discount. About a month ago I ran out of what Lizzie had bought me. I found the card for the store and the number called it and the number had been discontinued. I was a very sad girl. I went on line to the main company's website and found out that they had a few stores in the US, but the closest one to me is Seattle. So I ordered it online with no discount of course. :-( Well, you know what happens next, I start getting ads from the online store. And then a big sale ad comes across my email. I wasn't going to look at it and then couldn't resit. I bought some small cans that still were way to expensive, but I thought what the hay, life is too short not to have some fun. Here are my fun new oils. I haven't tasted them yet, but I want to experiment with using them not only with bread but my fish , salad and who knows what else. I am excited.

Oatmeal

I love my oatmeal, just have to say it! It is so good for me and tastes so good. I use Old Fashioned Oats now and they are sooooo tasty. I use soy milk instead of water, add flax seed oil, flax seed ground, wheat germ, and lots of berries. MMMMmmmmmm!I can't remember if I blogged about this before, but if I did, it deserves two blogs! I bought this at Fred Meyer on a whim. When we moved from Idaho Street to here, there was a rust spot on our light blue carpet in the master bedroom. It was from things spilling under the love seat. So I went to Freddies and found the above. I thought the worst it could do was not much. It worked and didn't change the color of the carpet or do any damage to it! I was amazed. I took it back home with me and tried it on my porcelain cups that had rust from canning lids in my dishwasher. Voila! It worked. I love this stuff, a great addition to any home!!!!

We have a painter in our house today!!!! I have never been so happy to have a worker in our home. For the last 2 and half months we have had noise, dust, dirt, men going in and out from 8:00am -sometimes 5:30pm. Chaos has reigned. I have mopped my floor once since we have moved in, there was just no point. Then when the construction had stopped and the elevator was in (which is awesome by the way) all that was left was the painting. We tried and tried to find someone and gave up. We started to paint (I should say "I" started to paint) and someone finally called back! Wahooooo! When the paint is done we can as Steve put it, "finally move in." We are moved in obviously, but knowing we were going to put in an elevator caused us to not bring certain things in because we would just have to take them out again. I almost have my sewing room back. It became a storage room for some of the things that were in the way. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel!!!

The elevator. When Steve puts the flooring down in it I will take a pic of it. We put the elevator in because Steve was having problems with his knees, and if we ever sell this home the people that buy it will be our age or older, so it will be a huge selling point. Our main living area is upstairs, so going up and down the stairs is an ongoing thing all day. The first time we went in it together we just giggled all the way up and down. For me personally I go up and down the stairs still, BUT when I go to the store especially Costco/TJ's trips in the valley it is awesome!! One Sunday when I had scary heels on, down the elevator I went! When we have to vacuum downstairs you guessed it we put it in the elevator instead of dragging it down the stairs. I love it!

Steve was watching the BYU channel the other day and came across this great talk about being perfect, everyone should read it I cried and was greatly moved by it. Read it!!!! http://ce.byu.edu/cw/womensconference/archive/2002/ss_reynolds.htm

Well, the day is marching on, love you all!!!

Experiment

About a month ago I got an email that said Microwave ovens were evil showed an experiment with water boiled on the stove, and water boiled in the microwave used to water plants. The one watered with the microwave water started to die within 5 days by nine days was dead. The other one with water boiled on the stove thrived. I decided to see for myself if this was true. I got 4 plants to make sure that one wasn't sick and therefore died.

When my granddaughters came they were pretty excited about it. Aliese asked me to post them. Well, they all did wonderfully, they all flowered after 2 weeks or more. I didn't take a pic, but put them out in the harsh coastal air. I went out today to take a pic of them. Remember they have been outside on there sides for a week. But it proves once and for all at least with water, that there was no difference in the way it affected plants. I'm sorry I didn't do a before pic, but you have to trust me.

Road Trip!

Well, I am so far behind, that I will have to catch up a little at a time. I am going to go backwards-the most recent!

I didn't know what to get my mom for Mother's Day and her b-day and mom had mentioned she wanted to go on a trip with me to Carin's (my cousin). I thought great present! I called mom and said do you want to go on a Road Trip for mother's day and your birthday, my treat? She didn't hesitate.

So on June 16, I got up at 6:00am, exercised, showered, got dressed, grabbed my shake and was out the door at 8:15am. Drove to Creswell and picked up my mom. Then off down the freeway we went. It was great! We did what we wanted when we wanted, we didn't hurry at all. We drove first to Megan's. We had lunch then got dressed to go to the temple.There is nothing quite like being in the temple with family, especially your mom and a daughter. It was great! Then when we got home Meg wanted some pregnant pics. Although, I thought the temple ones showed her tummy the best!
After dinner, we went to Megan's salon which was very cute. It was old fashioned and hip at the same time. Then Megan did my hair! Yeah for me!! After that we went home and went to bed-ahhhhh.

Next morning I took a 5 mile walk in Megs neighborhood. It is so nice, it's a great place to live. I figured out a loop that is one mile exactly without going out of her neighborhood or going on a main street.

After I got back they got up and we had a very leisurely morning, it felt so good. We talked laughed, ate and just enjoyed each other. Then we went to Jacksonville. It was sooooo cute and fun. It's an old cowboy type town. We ate gelato, shopped and then went out to dinner. We found this divine place to eat. We got there plenty early and it was a good thing, because it took almost 2 and a half hours!!!! But the food was to die for, so we didn't complain. Then for the first time we booked it, not time for leisure, to Ashland to the Shakespeare Festival. We went to Pride and Prejudice. It was so much fun and very funny. The mother and Mr. Collins were the best! Then home again, home again, jiggety jig. Thank goodness Megan lives a half hour from Ashland, as we had had a big day and were ready for bed.

Up the next day, Megan had to go to work, we went on our way to Carin's. She lives in Eureka, CA. Eureka is on the ocean, so it felt like I was going home. We went through part of the redwoods. We ate at a bagel shop for lunch, I had an organic salad, and mom had a yummy looking bagel san. We split a very good scone. Carin has 8 kids, one is on a mission. To blow your mind even more, 7 of them are BOYS! I can't even begin to imagine that. They were so cute and sweet and spiritual and fun. Mom and I had a great time. We stayed way later than we planned. Drove to the motel and crashed. The next morning we met Carin at a restaurant for breakfast, just us girls. It was delicious and great to be with Carin and kind of catch up. Carin is like Lynette Lewis for those of you who know her. She's here for her kids, she's next to perfect.

After that we drove to Eugene, went to Costco, Trader Joes and then said our good byes. It was a great, fun and relaxing trip. It was good to visit and just be together. I loved every minute of it!!!