Bittersweet September

Last day of September.

I think I am really getting good at teaching full time and being mom and wife. I am making Alina's lunch in the morning, which for some reason has always been really hard for me to do. And I'm even peeling and cutting up apples for her! I'm impressed with myself, anyway. It's still hard to keep Troy's work jeans clean, but, oh well.

I got new tires today! That's great because they were REALLY worn out. Dangerously worn out. Should have been replaced in the spring worn out. But times are hard. Today I feel good about getting behind the wheel to drive to work.

And the ladies that I teach with are really awesome. We meet to make and prepare lesson plans every week and I always feel prepared to teach, because we have great stuff ready for the kids. It's a very supportive mix of people to work with, which makes a world of difference in any job. My job is interesting because 1st graders are fabulous. They are funny, energetic, smart little people that always amaze me.

So things are good, basically.

There have been a couple deaths, and some illness in my extended family. A complicated part of life that no one enjoys. It does bring family together. And I have witnessed some amazing family relationships in watching my cousins this month. I am impressed with the people I am related to. Big family, strong values, an uncle and aunt who raised a family the right way.

On a happy note, Troy and I are planning a jeep trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas this weekend. Arkansas is one of my favorite places to visit in the whole world. And the friendliest people in the whole world seem to live in Arkansas (that includes many of my relatives). The weather is beautiful right now, and I am beginning to see some trees even turning a little. So I'm excited.

Troy's mom mentioned the other day that her pear trees were ready for picking and that some people like to make pear honey, and I got typically infatuated with the idea of making something I had never heard of before. So I asked Troy to bring home some of his mom's pears for me while he was out there on Sunday. He brought me a gigantic box of pears home. So I am currently collecting pear recipes.



Alina got to go to the Labor Day weekend rodeo in Uniontown and ride a horse with her cousin Haley, so she fancies herself a cowgirl now. Troy and Helen made a corral in Helen's pasture for Helen's pony, and Alina has been riding her regularly now. She's getting pretty good at it.




Kalyn has been driving around a lot, as per her requirements for receiving her restricted license next summer. I let her drive to Joplin last weekend, when we shopped with a couple of her friends for dresses for the homecoming dance. She even drove through a fast food drive-thru, which was hard for me when I was learning to drive. Of course cars were much bigger back then.



We did find a dress, and I hope to have pictures to post this weekend. The dance is tomorrow night.



My 42nd birthday was this month. Mom made an apple cake for me and also bought a cake she felt the kids would be more likely to eat and brought them over for dinner one night. Troy fried fish for me, my favorite. And sent some flowers to school for me, because he is really sweet. I am feeling kind of old. These hiking and biking excursions we do are a bigger deal to me now because they are more difficult. Not only was I really sore from our hiking trip in Elk City earlier this month, but my toenails were bruised! And for some reason I had a bad case of poison ivy on my legs and feet, which hasn't happened to me in about 35 years. Not sure how, but I'm pretty sure that's related to me getting old. And I got reading glasses this month. Yep, I'm on the downhill side for sure.

making myself really sore!

This weekend Troy and I went on our hiking and camping trip we've been looking forward to all summer. Troy has been before, by himself. He's hiked halfway in, camped overnight on the trail, hiked back out. I begged him to take me back, which he did a year ago, but he had a hurt knee and we only hiked half the distance. Months later he implied that, though his knee was hurt, he also worried at the time that I wasn't up to the whole hike. Which made me furious! So I've been looking forward to going back with him for a long time.



The trail is not a loop. So if you hike the whole thing you have to have a ride back to your vehicle. Which we didn't, as we took the jeep over. So we just hiked halfway in and then back out the next day. Someday we'll figure it out and hike the whole thing at once. It says it takes 11 hours, but really, we did it in 8.5 hours. We're awesome.

The difficulty ranking of "rugged" means there really isn't a "trail" so much as a series of trees and rocks with the blue marking to follow. Your "trail" consists of boulders to scale, smaller rocks to scramble over on foot, as well as massive tree roots, sticks, branches, leaves and those huge hickory nut balls that can get under your feet and really turn an ankle if you're not careful. You really have to watch your feet while you walk. And there are ups and downs to it also.



See, here's a portion of the trail. Walking on these rocks is a little treacherous because it's so easy to turn an ankle. If you have a backpack on, like we did, with our food provisions, clothes, bed rolls and sleeping bags, they can weigh about 30 lbs. If the weight is evenly distributed in the pack, it's not a big deal at all, in fact the weight on your back can help to kind of push you forward when you are walking up hill. But God help you if you trip on a rock, because that backpack will try it's darndest to TAKE YOU DOWN.



Here's a scary looking tree along the trail!

Troy's hiking nemesis is spider webs along the way. He used a tree branch to try to get them out of the way as we went. I would have hiked ahead of him, as they don't bother me that much, but he has a faster pace than I do....so.....I listened to him gripe about them instead. My favorite quote from Troy on the way back the next day was "I'd roll in horse poop all day long if I didn't have to deal with these spider webs." (part of the trail is also an equestrian trail, so you come across manure a lot too)



Troy the spider hater, demonstrating spider-like characteristics. He can't resist climbing bluffs.

So about 3:00ish we reached the half-way point and set up camp. The one bad thing that happened was our water purifier stopped working, or broke. So we had to boil lake water in the morning to drink. Ugh! Other than that, it was all good. We took military ready to eat meals with us. We love them, we think they get a bad rap! The main courses taste like something out of a can, like Campbells or Dinty Moore Beef Stew, but so what! The sides they pack in there are always a fun surprise to me. I got dried, sugared cranberries in mine, and they were delicious! And there's always also some kind of dessert, like m&ms and crackers with some kind of spread (cheese, apple jelly, chocolate peanut butter), so what's not to like?



Troy fishing at the campsite with a fishing pole he made from a tree branch (no luck) and me eating the giant tootsie rolls that were in my MRE.

And speaking of Troy crafting things, he's a blacksmith, you know. With an interest in all things "Smithy", he occasionally will make knives. And he carries these knives with him while camping, because he has them in all sizes. One of these was a huge knife that he figured would be good for whacking away at tree branches or getting rid of spider webs. Before we left he used some leather scraps that were left behind in his shop by previous occupants to make a leather sheath for the knife. He says it's really crude, just something he put together to take the knife with us this weekend, but I thought it looked pretty cool.




I can't get a good shot (non-blurry) of him because he walks pretty fast, but there is his knife sheath sticking up from the back of his backpack. It looks like it would be a cool part of a Native American Halloween costume!




Troy said his "dogs were barking" and he went to the water to soak his feet. I did too. Especially with the backpack on, going downhill on those rocks just kills my toes. I didn't think anything else hurt at the time, but I discovered the next morning when I put my backpack back on that my shoulders were sore as well. My whole body just said "Whoa, I didn't complain too much yesterday, but this backpack and hiking kind of hurts" And I worried a little about hiking out. I'm a 42 year old mom. I don't train for things like this. I'm not obese by most people's standards, but certainly overweight and out of shape. I love being outside, and especially in a rugged way. And these hikes are conducive to a lot of deep thinking, which is good for the soul, too. But I'm not an athlete.

We slept in our sleeping bags by the campfire. No tent, of course, because who wants to pack that? The weather was perfect. It turned cool when the sun went down. The stars were awesome. The owls hooted a little, didn't hear many tree frogs. Very nice. I slept well, Troy had to keep the fire going, though, so he didn't so much. I remember at 2:00 thinking that if I woke up again and the fire needed more wood I would take care of it. The next thing I knew it was 6:00.

We put our backpacks back on our sore, stiff bodies and headed out. We ran into an actual person a little way on the trail, a runner in an orange jersey with the #31 on it. So we thought maybe he was part of a 5K through the trail or something, but we never saw anyone else. He cheerfully declared to us that all the spider webs along his running path were taken care of for us. I told Troy that runners are happy people and he said "They better be, because running sucks." Our attitude was a little different on day 2. We got the hang of it all again a couple miles in.



Here I am on the hike back. I did see things on the way back that I didn't notice on the way in. It got really dry as we hiked in and where there was normally running water (where Troy camped previously) there was nothing. So I was surprised on the way back to see the main river again and noticed how big and wide it really is! And the bluffs along the river are very pretty, which I didn't notice so much on the way in, focusing on my feet so much.



Ha! Here is sweaty, happy me at the trail head again. I know, I totally missed my super model calling, right? It feels good to have hiked 15 miles!

We were happy to get in our jeep at the end and drove down the road to get some fountain drinks before heading home. Well we needed to sit somewhere and eat before home, actually. We really wanted to eat at Ernesto's in Parsons, but apparently the only restaurant open in Parsons (small town USA) on Sunday is Sirloin Stockade. All you can eat steak special on Labor Day weekend! Good enough for us.

Yay! Blogging time again!

So glad to sit down and add a little to my blog!

School has begun, and I've had my 2 weeks of whining "This is SO hard. I can't believe I forgot how HARD this is. How do I do this 9 months out of the year? I'm totally exhausted by 2:00 pm. No, I guess you don't have any jeans clean, I've been busy lately, you know." Yeah, that's over.

I know how this works, a couple months from now I will forget I even felt that way. I'll have no tolerance for people who whine about managing time.

Then there will come a day in late May when I realize I can get a cup of coffee or use the bathroom any time I want now.

I will spend the first 2 weeks of my summer vacation trying to stay on regular routine and doing an excellent job getting everything that needs to be done DONE.

It will take me exactly 3 weeks into vacation to fall into that summertime pit of not managing my time well, because no one is making me.

And then we're right back to last week and the week before.

It can't be avoided, apparently.

Alina's 7th birthday was on the first day of school! Look what I did manage to make for her.


I had asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted and she said "hmm, a zebra. No, a giraffe"
And then I remembered the giraffe that was shaped like a 7!!! cake that I had cut out of a magazine back in 1997.



There was also a swan in the shape of a 2 that I made for Kalyn, and an apple and worm in the shape of a 5 that I made for Alina a couple years ago in that magazine feature. It's been useful over the years. Here she is opening her gifts.


She had a good family birthday party, but once again I was too stressed out to plan a good kids party for her. The past couple years I have had a pumpkin party for her and her friends at the house in October to make up for it, but I will have to be more creative this year. Or less creative, maybe. But I'll have to do something different. Something that SHE wants to do.

last official day of summer

I was reading my list of 20 things to do this summer I made back in June. There are a few things that didn't get done. Darn! I tried to make it pretty easy for myself too.

I picked out a shade of blue for our bedroom but haven't begun the process of painting. Trying to decide what to do with our folding closet doors before I do. Should I paint them also, like they are now? Or remove the doors and replace them with fabric on a rod? That way I can rearrange the furniture in the room and still be able to access my closet. Yes, our room is that small!

We didn't go to Worlds of Fun. That seems to be on my list every summer. I LOVE roller coasters. But it was always too hot and I was always too broke. Did schedule a trip to the zoo and then backed out because it was miserably hot. I mean, seriously, it's been in the 100's lately. We went to the dinosaur exhibit at Union Station in Kansas City instead.

Switching out the craft room and Kalyn's bedroom didn't happen because that was her choice. I'm off the hook on that one.

Scrapbooking trip was post-poned to October, when we can have more people there. And I will totally kick butt that weekend on the scrap booking then, I always do!

I did do a whole lot of canning, recipe collecting, baking, movie watching, reading and bike riding. (but not in this heat!) I worked at the shop a lot and got together with friends regularly. And the camper is in great shape! I think I've finally got it down, what we need when we camp.

I learned that buying my girls passes to the pool was not necessary! They hardly went. Alina got to take a friend on a camping trip with us. Kalyn got to babysit for others some this summer and I think it's something she's pretty good at. She finished driver's ed. We've had a little bit of teenage drama to deal with this summer, I consider myself initiated into the world of teenage parenting. That's okay, nobody gets through untested!

Okay, so what are my plans for today? My last official day of summer break. I need to mow our ditches (the part Kalyn doesn't mow) and take Kalyn to the dmv to get her driver's permit. And there are tomatoes on the table that I need to deal with somehow.

BRING ON THE FALL!!!!

making tomato juice

I picked a few more tomatoes this morning, so I needed to do something with the 4 quarts of cherry tomatoes that I picked on Sunday. Somebody told me they make really good juice.
So I blanched all 4 quarts.




Then I used my cone colander and pestle to juice them. Easy and fun!


The 4 quarts of cherry tomatoes yielded 6 cups of juice. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and fresh basil, finely chopped. I boiled two quart jars, but you see I only filled one. I added 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon of pickling salt to the jar, just like I do when I can tomatoes. I re-heated the juice and water bathed the filled jar. The rest is in the fridge.

20 year anniversary!

Troy and me at a party at a friend's house in 1987.




Our wedding day: August 4, 1990. A 20 minute ceremony in a non-air conditioned church.


My brother-in-law, Travis, took this picture of our complete family in his hammock during a visit to his home in 2004.



I married my best friend, you know. Sometimes I wish that wasn't the case. Especially when he ticks me off! It would be nice if I could get mad at him and run to a girlfriend to talk about it. But he IS my best girlfriend! You know what I mean? There isn't anyone I would rather be with or talk to, most of the time. I do things with girlfriends, weekend trips. He has guys that visit with him up at his shop, but it's usually me and him. Camping, riding in the jeep together, sitting in front of the fire pit, watching documentaries on the History Channel. Or Star Trek reruns on SciFi.

We were young when we started dating, I was barely out of high school. He was 20, but he owned his own house! I have always been attracted to Responsibility. And you know when I knew he was something special? It was our first date, and we were with a few other couples. All of us girls were wearing white leather Keds. We all kicked off our shoes when we got back to Troy's house after eating at Red Lobster. When it was time for Troy to take me home (I had a 12:00 curfew) we looked at that pile of shoes. Troy began laying them out singing "one of these shoes is not like the others...." From Sesame Street! Which was my all time favorite show! I remember all the Sesame Street skits. I used to feel so bad for the poor chef that always dropped the pies trying to carry them out those doors, no matter what number of pies he was carrying! Anyway......Troy sang the song, and I was his. Cheeeeeeeesy. Turns out we had many other nerdy interests in common. Soul mates.

We have done everything together ever since. Our kids will say that we argue a lot. And while I totally understand where that notion comes from, it's not entirely true. Because what we do is not really arguing...........it's more like.... bickering, I think............about stupid stuff. Like, say, whether Memorial Day has ever fallen on June 1. (OF COURSE NOT!) Which is why google search has become my other best friend in life. (yeah, we spend too much time together, especially in summer) And Troy has the kind of passionate voice that makes it sound like he's arguing. I guess what I'm saying.... is that it's possible that we may be a little annoying to some people, sometimes. And that may explain why we spend most of our time together. Without other people. It's part of how we get along. When we are old, maybe people will think it's cute.

What to do with a gazillion cherry tomatoes?

.......stay tuned