Sunflowers Are A Sign

The garden is entering it's glory. I'll have enough tomatoes by this weekend to start canning them. I'm pretty simple - stewed tomatoes are simple and easy and QUICK. I use pint jars so if someone needs two cups of tomatoes for a recipe, we're good.

I tried really hard with the garden this year. A big plus is that my family crisis's got moved to the back burner. The forced overtime at work is still difficult, so free time is at a premium. 

I decided to try not blogging to free up some time. Well that was a fail. Pretty soon the photos pile up and I start hiding from dealing with them. Then my iphone told me I'd reached a cloud limit. Well, actually, it sounded like apple was threatening me. Solution was to deal with photos.

By blogging a little bit instead of a lot.

I don't keep most of these photos. I do have files set up on my desktop for Flowers, Family and what I've made. This makes it easier to transfer to the external hard drive. Still hiding, but a little more organized. The rest of the photos are deleted.

Wendy's Wish Salvia

The grapes are turning colors

I have this week off work. I'm trying a liver cleanse (2 -3 weeks) in an effort to get some relief from the SIBO bloating and inflammation. I was ready for some quiet to concentrate on this particular diet. I'm only on day five, so it's too soon to have an idea if it's helpful.

I already eat a very restrictive diet because of the Leaky Gut/auto-immune responses. This time, I am giving up chocolate (and sugar)for three weeks  and meat for the next five days. Vegetarian is not something I've tried as I'm allergic to some veggies and getting enough protein to get through the long work day is difficult.

But I don't have to work so I timed this part to coincide with days off.
I use chocolate for stress and for extra calories to get through my work days. I had wanted to try something like this for a while but... yeah.

In sewing news, I made another pair of work shorts. My red ribbon (fair!) blue shorts from last year are getting a tad faded and worn. All that blue thread on blue fabric makes my eyes twitch with all the top-stitching involved.

I will say, this new pair probably won't win a ribbon for even top-stitching. And I mixed up my pockets (six!). I put the side pocket on the back side. NO worries - not ripping that off - because the pocket flap on the side seam pocket mostly fit.

 After sewing miles of topstitching, I was ready for some fun sewing. These are my favorite M&M's, Peanut Butter. But have you tried the new coffee flavored ones? A customer brought in some he found at Walgreen's and they were pretty tasty. I had just started this diet so I ate two and passed the packet off to my co-worker with strict instructions not to show them to me.

Anyway - you just cut apart the bag and sew it  back together with some lining fabric and a zipper. Cute little pouches already destined to two nephews and one lucky friend.

 I pondered for a while on how much to charge for these in my etsy store but I'm not sure I would ever sell one. I sell my other zippy's for $18 - 22 dollars. Would you pay $20 for this small snack-size pouch? It will hold coins, other small stuff, two regular small packets of m&m's.

When I don't think I can get enough for my time or trouble, I gift my makes. Crazy attitude.

But do you know how long it took me to get to charging $18? Here in Canby, I'd be lucky to sell a small zippy bag for two bucks.

 I used the backs too with their UPC codes.

Inside is the bottom of the bag stitched on as a 'label'.

Sunflowers just mean summer is coming to a close and autumn beginning. You can already see the leaves turning.
It's hot here this week but the nights cool down fast - another sign.

I've got a long list of things to do this week, but I'm concentrating on sewing in the morning and listing on etsy in the hotter afternoons.
I still need to finish digging my potatoes and another basil snip and dry.
I am also trying to re-organize my stuff. Mostly with the thought of not looking at it where it got laid down with good intentions.

For this liver cleanse, I am also concentrating on eating more to keep certain cravings at bay. I've had many conversations with my docs about eating more to actually lose weight. I am relying entirely too much on chocolate so I am hopeful I can get that energy craving to a back burner. I don't eat sugar as a rule except in chocolate.

Happy End of Summer thoughts to you.

September is GONE!

September sure zipped on by.
Thanks to the Rural Mail Carrier Mail Count, begging people to mail stuff to me, I received two packages as well as several letters.
I received other packages but they were the boring vitamins & fabric purchases that I made.
These were from friends.

The first one, I did not expect at all. All I did was comment how lovely the table topper turned out and the following week, it was in my hands!
My Japanese/Oregon friend, Crafty Tokyo Mama, loves to sew too and is constantly making the most amazing creations. I love the blues in this. She was fiddling around with matching fabric on the center motif as she could only make it whole by sewing the half motifs together. Her seams are perfect and one would never know about the seam if she hadn't of said something.

My before photo was boring cream - lamp and knitted doily.
One rarely sees a knitted doily but the sister of a neighbor makes them.
It can find another home because I am loving the blue fabrics that Crafty Tokyo Mama chose.

My second package arrived from a finnish friend when I confessed to withdrawal symptoms of Salmiakki. Salmiakki is a particular finnish taste for salted licorice. The Fazer Salmiakki bar is salted licorice encased in chocolate. Rather addicting. And if you can't read finnish then there are probably no calories or anything that I am terribly allergic to. lol.

I did not buy enough to bring home while traveling there this summer. Most of my haul went to neighbors who watched the dog, the kids, and other deserving people.
The Fazerina bar is truffle filled chocolate. The geisha bar which contains hazelnuts also contains wheat.

I have a stash to keep me happy for a few months.



My work situation grew another mile in the good & bad categories. I am now in charge of my office which, unfortunately,  curtails my other life. Big grumble there. However, it will be good for me as I will be learning lots of new government rules to confound you with. The other flip side is that 60 man-hours per week is being pushed onto me at 45 hours per week. The pressure of being hung out to dry is pretty fun too.

I do have a much better boss now. She's going into Portland on a detail assignment that is perfect for her but that leaves me with no help.

This is my Saturday haul from the garden. All of my potatoes are now dug and more tomatoes picked. Hubby is going to try making V-8 juice.

I can't eat Tomatoes (nightshade veggie), although I can usually tolerate the occasional one. I suspect it is because my garden tomatoes are not genetically altered. In any case, we still have stewed tomatoes from last year and because of my new-found workload, I had decided to let the tomatoes go.

But "Waste not, Want not" hubby decided to make the V-8 juice.
Tomatoes were picked over a week ago.

Which sat there.

Probably moldering - hence the newly picked tomatoes which were next to the potatoes.

This project is threatening to suck me in big time but I am holding firm.
Hubby has watched me can but never participated. He is already knee-deep into his amazing whining act of, "I need help." (double whine).

Part of my marriage behavior is to help my husband but he returns the favor rarely and seems not to value my help enough to respect my available time. To keep me sane while I am trying to learn new jobs at the paying job and retain some time for me, I need to get better at saying, "NO".


I have a work sewing friend who is also trying to understand the mid-life depression her hubby has sunk under so I made a card for her this morning.
Basically it was a red fabric heart sewn  onto my stationary with a note written, "Sewing is necessary to keep the insanity at bay. Knitting & Crochet count."

I mailed it today as a little pick me up note while she is going through a rough patch. She's working 12 hr. days whilst hubby is unemployed. Working long hours leaves practically no time for her creativity to help keep her on an even keel.

Sewing certainly keeps me sane.




*** As far as the Rural Mail Carrier Mail count goes, it ended today. Results should be in next week. My carrier, who is a total jewel, did great with only his letter count decreased. Everything else is up.

Enough Tomatoes to Can

My first batch (Wednesday). By next week, I'll be swimming in tomatoes.

 For more info. on canning, go here.

Canby Tomatoes

I have the first ripe tomatoes - nanny nanny boo boo

 

 

These are either Early Girl or Oregon Spring

These are my Romas - for stewed tomatoes

We mainly eat these fresh and the rest are canned as stewed tomatoes. I actually cannot eat these in quantity because of my nightshade food sensitivities. But my husband loves them AND  he cooks with them. Stewing them is easy - about the easiest canning you will ever do besides making jam.

You plop them in boiling water for 10 -29 seconds to remove the skin, chop them in quarters, pack tight into a pint-size canning jar, add 1 Tbsp Lemon juice (guarantees your acidity - Ball Blue Book), add a little liquid-if necessary, screw the lids on and process in the boiling water bath canner. That's it. You get a lot of bang for your buck by canning them too. No chemical sprays, no under-ripe fruit (although you don't want to use over-ripe fruit as that messes with your food safety acidity) and no strange chemical preservatives. Seven jars per load and a couple of hours later you will have enough for two people for the next year.

I use pint-size jars as this yields 2 cups and most recipes use two-cup increments for adding tomatoes of any kind. You can get real fancy and spend days concocting some special tomato salsa - but at my house, this super easy way means I can still enjoy the summer.

***nanny nanny boo boo is a particular english technical term

derived from my favorite sewing blog. 

Gardens in Oregon

I didn't pick these.

My husband did.
He's totally into fresh tomatoes from the garden.

Not the planting. Not the weeding, not so much the canning, but the freshness.

These will go in the vegetable drawer in the fridge for freshness through the month of November.

picked Saturday, October 24th, 2009.

Tomatoes Before The Frost

It's beginning.
We just had a couple of nights where it dipped below 40'.
I made my husband happy by canning the last tomatoes.

Over the years, in my indescribably busy life, I have figured out how to can and not go crazy.
First of all, canning your own food can quickly become expensive. The jar lids are 2 or 3 bucks/dozen, then the electricity cost. Finally - what's your time worth?
My tricks are to grow the right product, know what you like and make it simple & quick.
These are just stewed tomatoes - same as the ones in a can (sans chemicals).
I can in pints - 2 cups is a nice recipe measurement.

First?-- get everything ready: Water in the canner simmering, jars sterilized in dishwasher then waiting in hot water on back of stove with lids, pan for boiling water bath - the bath helps slip those pesky skins off nice & easy.

Drop tomatoes into bath for 30 -45 seconds. Use paring knife to either take top core out or slice off top (romas), usually the skin slips right off here, but the knife is helpful for the stubborn ones.
I slice them into big chunks.

Into each jar; one Tablespoon of lemon juice to help the acidity level and then I carefully cram tomatoes into the jar. I wipe off the top of the jar, place a lid on, then the Screw top and place it in canner to stay hot until the canner is full.

The jars gently boil in my water canner for the specified Ball Blue Book time and voila, canned tomatoes to add to soup, lasagna, or marinara sauce.

Roma tomatoes remain my favorite because they speed up the prep time amazingly. Next fave is Early Girl, a nice meaty medium size tomato with a few seeds.

The point of this? People get way too finicky and fanatical about their canning - to the point - it's too much work to can every year.
My system means I have enough canned tomatoes for two years (hint!) and it's fast. Not to mention healthier.

Not to mention that smug feeling of satisfaction when I open the cupboard doors and see the array of food put away for a rainy day.