Canning Frenzy

ATTENTION: This is a disclaimer. You may find what you are about to read, incredibly boring. You may wish to read the title and happily skip this post. I treat this blog mostly as a journal, so anything I want to take note of, I post. And because something may be of particular importance to me, there's a good chance it isn't to you. If you do wish to read on, please do so at your own discretion. Also, consider this a warning for all posts to follow.


We are fortunate to live next door to Miss C. and Mr. J. who are canning machines. They can everything from pears to plum sauce. I have been jealous of their canning collection and therefore begged them for some tips. Not only did I get tips, but I got personal assistance! Because of their inspiration, I began my career of canning. Okay, maybe it won't be a career or even repeated at all. It all depends on how longs it lasts, how good it tastes and if I have the same motivation next year. I guess having no job for the first time in 10 or so years has led me to participate in more domestic activities. I'm even considering doing Cameron's laundry on a regular basis. Whoa....one thing at a time now.


So I thought I'd post pictures of my first canning accomplishments. (I did can some peaches a few years ago, but ruined them all by storing them in a room that got too warm. This kept me from ever wanting to try it again, or so I thought). I (or I should say "we" - thanks C and J!) did peaches, pears and salsa.


Peaches and Pears. I haven't tried them yet, but they look tasty.

Salsa time...

This picture is not staged at all. I was having a grand time pouring in the corn.



Mmmmm. Doesn't it look pretty?

The finished product.

Zucchini Wars

Mostly I just thought this was funny and since I tend to think in blog-o-terms lately, I actually thought to snap some pictures.


It' s of Colby and Kara taking bites out of a huge zucchini. Normally I like zucchini but this particular one wasn't tasty at all. I don't see how it possibly could have tasted good to them, but anything that the other one wants suddenly become the most appealing thing they've ever seen. You parents out there with more than one child have seen this phenomenon again and again. There was a lot of screaming involved and Kara ended up in tears. I like to use this type of thing to my advantage. Sometimes I'll go as far as saying, "C'mon kids, we have to share the treat. And Colby did you clean your room? Only boys who clean their rooms get to eat zucchini." I also did this with cleaning up the puppy's poop. Colby saw dad cleaning up the poop by sticking his hand in a plastic bag and picking it up. Colby thought this was cool and wanted to try it. I told him that if he was a really good boy, than he could clean up the poop. Seriously, it worked. Not only did I have a better behaved 3-year-old, but I had a 3-year-old that cleaned up poop. Some may consider this evil. I'm gonna go with genius. Anyways, here are the pics.

Good Times at the Fair

Saturday we hit the 2007 Utah State Fair which has become an annual event for us the past 3 or 4 years now. Cameron and I find we feel quite comfortable and right at home with the fair crowd so we were excited to embrace our people once again.

Lately, Kara is totally nuts about animals. She constantly carries some sort of stuffed animal throughout most of her day and is completely giddy when she spots one on TV or outside. She shows her excitement by first clapping her hands and then pointing and grunting with glee. So I was excited for her to get to see all the animals up close at the fair. She loved getting as close as possible by pressing her nose up against the fence/cage and sticking her fingers through the holes. This was dangerous when observing the bunnies, but she escaped any finger nibbling this time.

This year we went with Cameron's dad Alvin, Cameron's sister Amy and her little boy Wesley. The fair is totally Cameron's dad's domain so he made sure we had a great time by buying us tons of fair food like fresh lemonade, gigantic corn dogs, icecream, etc, etc. I had the best Philly Cheesteak Sandwich with fresh grilled mushrooms. Mmmmmm, I want another one.

Good times for all at the Fair.

My Summer Fling

I have had a lot of fun this summer planting and harvesting a vegetable garden. Thanks to my dad, the gardening expert, I actually grew some things I was able to eat. This is surprising since I can't keep a flower alive in my yard for more than 2 days.

I love variety so I planted a ton of things... peas, corn, green beans, green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets, carrots, cantaloupe, onions, pumpkin, squash, spinach and basil. Anyone who has seen my garden knows that it is nowhere big enough for everything I just listed which is why a good share of it didn't make it, but lucky for me, a lot pulled through. Here are a couple of pics to prove I can keep something alive.

Here are the two halves of the garden before anything was harvested

And here's a little bit of the produce we get to enjoy

If you look closely at the photo above, you'll see some dead corn in the back. Unfortunately I let my entire corn crop (the whole 2 dozen ears) grow too long until it was inedible. I was so sad but I guess that's what gardening is all about. Trial and error. It'll make for some cool Halloween decorations, right?

Night of the Living Dead

Is that post title dramatic enough? I hope so cause this is some big time drama...

I am proud to say that I have survived (assuming I will only become less symptomatic as time goes on) the worst stomach flu in all my 29 years. I presented with flu symptoms Thursday which increased so severely by Saturday night that I felt they warranted a visit to the ER. No joking. There were times as I was trying to fall asleep, which was nearly impossible because of plaguing aches, fever chills and non-stop trips to the bathroom (sorry for that one), that I honestly wondered if I would wake up. I did make a trip to the ER where I was given the best IV liquids my body has ever received. I don't know how much that little trip will cost us, but it was worth every penny. And yes, it was just the stomach flu (of course there's that little tiny part of you that hopes it's something more severe so that you don't seem like such a baby).

I'm not yet recovered and probably have a few days to go but last night's misery makes tonight's symptoms feel like Disneyland.

Heaven help you if you get this bug.

Colby's First Day of School

Yesterday was Colby's first day at the Little Brick Preschool. He was so excited to go, especially because his cousins Mia and Katie are in his class. His preschool is in the basement of Miss Heather's house which is darling. She too, is darling with the kids. I couldn't help but stay a little while and try to observe, incognito, just to see how Colby did. I wondered if he'd be shy or if he'd feel comfortable right way. I wasn't very good at staying invisible evidenced by Colby's cousin yelling during circle time, "Hey, look! That's Kara!" But from what I saw and heard, Colby seemed confident and excited to participate.

Sending my first to preshool definitely made me feel a little older, especially when I was signing up to do classroom parties. I can't believe I'm going to start making treats for my little boy to share with his classmates on his birthday! I guess that means he really is growing up and now he's going to start learning from people other than me.

I know sending kids to school for the first time is often hard for parents. I hope I'm not a heartless mom because I didn't feel sad- I just felt excited for Colby and excited to get to spend a little more one-on-one time with Kara. Maybe the tears will come when I send him to Kindergarten.

Talk show in dutch

Check out this video clip, it's pretty darn funny.

Does Blogging Impede Socialization?

I've had this thought lately about the blogosphere and am wondering if anyone else feels the same way. As I have consistently been blogging for the last few months, I also seem to get more addicted to reading other's blogs. I love that I get to feel updated on the few of my friends and family who also participate in this electronic communication. Which brings me to my current thought. Since I've been regularly checking blogs, I have made less of an effort to appropriately socialize or "check in" with those friends and family whether it be a phone call or in person when possible. I've never been very good at keeping in touch in the first place, but since blogging, I have been worse. I also have never been a huge fan of the phone since I don't think before I speak very well. Thus the beauty of the internet- email and blogging. I get to check my writing (though I continue to leave typos) and delete the dumb things I say that, on the phone or in person, I end up saying and wish I could take back. And for my friends and family that don't blog, I'm always trying to convice them to start. Is this so that I get to stop calling them, thus furthering my social awkwardness? I've often thought how text messaging is revolutionizing the dating world for teenagers, but in a negative way. Shy girls become forward when it's just texting. Shy girls should just remain shy girls in my opinion. I've had several young women say, " I love texting because I get to say things to boys that I'd never say in person." Is that a good thing? I don't think so. Teens already have plenty of means of getting in trouble without the use of a piece of technology that can temporarily alter their personality. Anyways, does anybody else think this mode of communication may be potentially harmful to our socialization? Will our kids become accustomed to communicating electronically and lack the proper social communication when it becomes necessary? Will society eventually become a bunch of socially awkward people when placed face-to-face? Or is it okay that we may portray someone who is a little or a lot different than we may be in person? Is it okay if electronic socialization is our primary means of connecting with other people? Is anyone else less likely to keep in touch by phone or in person since you've begun blogging? Just curious.

P.S. Seriously, I know there aren't a whole lot of people who read my blog, but if you do and you haven't voted about cutting Colby's curls, please do. I really need to know if my son emits a feminine quality about himself by sporting some curls around his ears. I can take the truth if the truth is the truth.