There have been a few amusing events that I wanted to share.

 

Weight Watcher story 1:

Right before school started the Ok to Bring Kids meeting was full with kids who had been in camps and classes all summer that we hadn't seen in a while. One is a cutey about Carls age who likes to participate in the discussion during the meeting. During the meeting he once again raises his hand when a question is thrown out. Our dear leader calls on him and he states, "My mom eats pie sometimes." No cheating with this kid around...

 

Weight Watchers story 2:

There are a few of us that are really getting close to goal - so close that we are digging into the prebaby clothes that we can fit into. We also discovered that many of the pants that we have worked so hard to fit into are really out of style and make us look like moms.

 

Husband Tale:

We have differing tastes in music. I like a very wide variety including country. My husband was a metal head who is very slowly expanding his tastes (we do have symphony tickets now!) Anyway, he recently said he is ordering the Cars soundtrack CD. I asked if it was for Carl - he got a guilty look on his face and said it was for the family. I then pointed out the number of county performers, he had no response. Wow -  things have changed!

 

Life keeps on going here. I got to see Carl and the other kids marching and singing "We are Marching in the Light of God." It was SOOOO cute. I didn't have a good weigh-in on Monday - up 1.6 lbs, so now I have 2 lbs to go.

 

 

Tomatoes continue to ripen - I am making sauce and oven drying tomatoes. I found some recipes for tomato jelly, I will give these a try.

 

 I went out to our local wine country earlier this week to pick up our wine club wines. We recently joined the White Rose Winery's wine club. It is a nice excuse to drive out to Yamhill County. A friend came with Carl and me. We stopped first at Red Ridge Farms (one of the few nurseries I really enjoy) and then we went on to the winery. White Rose is a wonderful winery. The view is amazing from the front porch. The tasting room looks more like American Northwest - beautiful woods and under eaves. Many of the wineries model their tasting rooms after southern Europe - don't get me wrong, I love that style too, but it is really nice to see a winery that has the look of the area it is from.

 

We tasted their wines and they were wonderful too. They have recently added a line of logoed merchandise - I bought Rich a hat.

 

 

Red Ridge Farms, besides having a great selection of herbs and other plants, makes my favorite olive oil. They also have some teas - I don't know if they are new, but the are tasty. I bought some grapefruit mint and ginger mint.

 

 

Carl is doing very well in preschool. He is going to preschool at "MeeMee's Church." The church my grandmother attended before she died and the church I attended in the teens. He loves the song "We are Marching in the Light of God." They sing this song and march out to recess. How cute! He is learning to write letters and can spell his name - he isn't a baby anymore... sniff. The teachers commented on his skill at soccer and his writing, and said that he really don't have an interest in art. Well that hasn't changed.

 

Today will be spent "making wandry," processing tomatoes and picking blackberries.

"Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here."
- Thich Nhat Hanh 

Our tomatoes are FINALLY ripening. Yes we have LOTS of tomatoes now. I am going to start making tomato sauce today - I am sure I have enough Romas to do so.

 

The second day of preschool went well. I went grocery shopping during class, shopping was so easy it felt weird.

 

Here is a funny tale of grocery shopping:

Read the product description.

 

The author has a blog too:

 

 

I am being told that "I want to go to the park" over and over.

 

I am going to the park

 

bye

 

PS - while shopping at Powells (a really amazing bookstore) I found a great story about shopping:

Just Shopping With Mom by Mercer Mayer

http://www.littlecritter.com/ 

The first day of preschool had me pretty sad - I was really blue for the rest of the day. I was sad because my baby isn't a baby anymore. I was sad (as I sometimes get) because there were some tiny babies with their mom's at the preschool (mine would be two months now). I was sad because I missed my grandma - she would have been so happy that my son is going to preschool at her church. I was also sad as I found out an acquaintance in Colorado died - I knew his wife a bit and had met him a few times. He died way too young - 50, and left a little boy not much older than Carl. Rich came home and I did a bit better. Today I am much better.

 

I have had some interesting inquiries pop up in my stats. Sorry the person looking that I haven't got the Grandma's plum compote recipe yet - I promise I will type it in next time at mom's. I hope the scotch-a-roo searcher could read the card. If not, let me know. And for the last Habaneros Jelly inquiry, I will type that in at the end of this entry.

 

I did get a hit from someone looking for passport application tales. So I will tell the story. It was time to renew both passports for the adults in the family. I am going to refer to husband as an adult - though it is in age not always in action (if you need an example look at my story of my picnic basket being smashed at the jazz concert). With a potential business trip for husband coming up, we decided to rush our passports. We also decided to apply for a passport for our son - who took the world's cutest passport picture.  We didn't rush his passport, since we weren't planning on taking his with us this time. The rush fee was worth it for speed - our passports (which we applied for at a later date than sons) arrived very quickly.

 

Our son's took a bit longer and more time in applying. Both of us had go in to an office to apply. We had to pay a handling fee to this office for taking care of the passport. It took over an hour. Then we waited. It seemed longer since I wrote down the wrong application date on the calendar. The passport arrived about the time they said it would, though I did call (because I thought it was late, but I discovered later it really wasn't). I was pleasently surprised that I was waited on fairly quickly when I called and the people at the passport office were very friendly and helpful - the media makes it sound like this office is so buried that nothing gets done. Don't get me wrong - it did take a long time to get son's passport, but not longer than what they said it would.

 

Funny note on husband's passport versus mine. I had our old passports out for renewal. I showed my son mine and asked him who it was. He said, "Mommy!" I showed him husband's old passport and he said "Who's that, tell me!"

 

Habaneros Jelly

 

1/2 lb Habaneros peppers

4-5 Orange bell pepper

2 cup water

1 cup apple cider vinegar

 

4 cups suger

1 package MCP pectin

 

Stem and cut in half peppers. Discard seeds. Run peppers through the food processor to chop them. Put 2 cups of the chopped peppers into a large sauce pot. Add water and vinegar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

 

Pour pepper mixture into a jelly bag, hang it up, letting it drip into a bowl until you have 3 cups of prepared juice.

 

Pour the 3 cups of juice into a large clean saucepot. 

 

Measure the 4 cups of sugar into a separate bowl.

 

Add pectin to the juice in the saucepot. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the sugar quickly. Return to a full rolling boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

 

Remove from heat and skim off foam.

 

Ladle into jars, seal and process. I used a boiling water canner for 5 minutes.

 

This was really hot - I had to mix it with other jellies.

 

 

Preschool starts this week. It is only three mornings a week, but this is hard for me. I am sure I will adjust quickly - but my world is CHANGING!

 

 We did a little clothes shopping. My son is no longer in toddlers. He also has his own ideas about what he wants to wear.

 

Mom and I have continued to make jams and jellies. We get together once a week and make a few batches. So far we have made lots of Blackberry Jelly and Salsa Jam. We tried plum jam, which was a little blah, and Grandma's recipe for plum compote - which we over reduced. It is pretty tasty.

 

The garden is finally producing tomatoes, though some of plants are having problems. Next I will start making tomato sauce.

 

We went to Powells (an incredible bookstore - if ever in Portland, it needs to be a stop) Rich was looking for books for his fall class. I looked for books on canning and jellies. I also bought a lot of books for Carl. We also went to see Ratatouille. It was fun. We did have a little trouble with Carl kicking the seat in front of him, but that was easily fixed (he sat on my lap or curled up in his chair.) I  loved the food and the sites of Paris (even if they were animation...)

 

Well off to fix dinner.

 

 

 

 

Where did it go?

 

It was a busy one. Carl was in classes through the rec center. We are cuting back this fall - I want to make sure he is ok in preschool first, THEN we will add the extras. He made major strides this summer. His swimming improved. He really liked the violin - and he still LOVES basketball.

 

Carl turned four - we had a kids party in August. I planned all these little games and had prizes for all the kids. When they got to the house all the little boys were drawn like magnets to the box of Cars toys - all his little Cars characters that they all have at home too.  After a while they all got into the musical instruments. Two were willing to do Pin The Tail. They LOVED the pinata. I bagged the rest of the events and just stuck the prizes in bags and sent them home with the kids. We had pizza and cake and the moms picked blueberries to take home.

 

I am doing really well with the Weight Watchers program. I am now down to less than a pound from my goal weight. Hopefully I will be at goal next weigh in. I am so glad I have lost that 50 pounds - I really feel like a new person.