Back to Reality

I try to get together with my college girlfriends at least once a year. Since they live on the East Coast the get together usually involves me having to fly across the Country to see them. Our friend Erica was the last one to turn thirty in the group so we decided a girl's trip to Las Vegas was in order. Since the trip was planned for the day after my mother-in-laws birthday I decided that we needed to fly in early to surprise her for her birthday. It is very hard to keep secrets from this woman and all she did for two weeks was complain about the fact that her husband would not let her fly up to Oregon for her birthday. Let's just say she was very excited to see us in her house when she arrived home from running errands. Our son stayed with my parents while I was in Las Vegas and my in-laws decided to keep him for an extra week and will be bringing him back next weekend. It is very weird being in the house without him. I have started a huge to do list so that I can try and be as productive as possible with our free time.

The garden doesn't need that much attention at the moment. The three tomato plants have a ton of fruit, but everything is still green. The last of the onions are falling over so I will pull those out and get a planting of lettuce and carrots for the fall in their place. It looks like the raspberries we planted this year are going to have a small fall crop, we are very excited about the prospects of a few raspberries for the ice cream bowl. There are three pumpkins on the vine and the melons are just now starting to flower since the weather has finally warmed up.

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks there will be enough ripe tomatoes so I can start canning some sauce. This may sound crazy to most of you, but I don't really enjoy a plain tomato. I really only eat fresh tomatoes in bruschetta and salsa. We make homemade pizza quite often and I always find that I open a jar of sauce, use about a cup and then the rest just sits in the back of the fridge until it is bad. I am going to can the sauce in half pint jars so that we always have the perfect amount without any waste.

I better get started on my list. Today is supposed to be a beautiful day and if I work fast enough I can enjoy some time floating in the pool this afternoon.