Meet me in St. Louis - Isaac

The first drops of rain are falling here in the St. Louis area from Isaac.  They are predicting storms (some possibly heavy with winds and possible tornados) for the weekend.  Right now all is calm just very overcast and spitting rain.  I can see on the radar that the ‘eye’ will pass to the west of us I think.  The storm is still very well formed for being over land for so long. 

The satellite repair guy is on his way right now – our DirecTV went out a few days ago when we had clear skies – I hope he is able to get a signal with the storm approaching to get it fixed.  Course, the kids may not be able to watch anything this weekend anyway!  LOL

I’ll be headed down to Bill’s for the weekend – we are planning on going to get the plumbing for the septic tank so he can install it next week – hopefully this means we will have a toilet in the shop before Samhain!  Woo Hoo!  We also need to get the duct work for the furnace that was delivered a few weeks ago.  It would be nice to have heat in there as well.

Well gotta get to work – as a friend of mine here says… Onward, Upward, Forward!

Aventures in Canning

A few weeks ago the kids had been after me to make apple butter for at least a month so I broke down and bought apples at the store - two bags. I peeled them and put them in the crock pot but alas this is a new crock pot from the one I used last year and it runs a bit hotter. So the first batch got burnt and had to be tossed out.

So, last week I bought two more bags and peeled them:



and placed them in the crock pot:



I only cooked them until they were soft enough to spice and whir in the blender so that I could can them. Water bath caning is pretty easy. (Sorry forgot to take pictures of that part but I know I posted some last year.)

So over the weekend I bought green beans at the farmer's market in Fredericktown. We had been gifted a pressure canner a few months back but had not tested it yet. So that is what we did on Saturday at Bill's house. One thing we learned - an electric stove isn't worth much with a pressure canner! But the canner didn't blow up so I brought everything home and started working on it today:







I had to reprocess one jar out of the first batch because it didn't seal.



So I got 11 pints of green beans put up now. If you noticed that I used some of the tattler lids on part of them. I had also used them on the apple butter. So far they seem to work really well. The test will be when I re-use them - they are supposed to seal as well the 11 billionth time as the first!

New Plans

Bill has been working on ‘The Barn’ now for several weeks getting the hardwood down upstairs.  We had a furnace delivered last weekend that will heat and cool the entire 2400 square feet of shop and apartment (it’s a heat pump with an emergency heat coil for those really cold winter days and nights and we will be able to hook the wood burner up to it in the future.)  We have to get the ducting and more 2x4’s for framing walls but the work has started to progress again!  Woo Hoo!

As far as the old rock building – well, we’ve been able to get into it more since Bill pulled the west wall down so that he could pull the old appliances out and take them to the scrap yard (recycling as much as we can and reusing whatever can be.)  There are lots of windows that while the glass is old and probably not very efficient will work well in outdoor storage sheds, cabins, cabinetry and various other applications around the place in the future.  There is also a nice French door inside that we plan to rescue for use somewhere.  But in looking at the actual outside walls – there really are only a couple that are worth saving because they are thick and strong – the rest are just too thin and brittle to save – we can use the rocks in the fence across the front of the property but I think we will have to pull them down.

So, this lead Bill to have a brainstorm of which I jumped right on it and expanded the idea (I do that.)  We are going to take the savable walls and create an outdoor living space.  We can build whatever walls we need and a covered area for an outdoor kitchen (summer kitchen) that will still be open to the outdoor living area that will include a dining area and a sitting area with a fireplace!  We can put a pergola over the areas and train grape vines and clematis to climb over the structure and hand lights in the summer for ambiance.  I’m so excited now about this idea!  I had wanted an outdoor area but just hadn’t figured out how to do it until Bill mentioned using the old rock building and then it just clicked!  It was perfect!

I’m sure it will be a few years before we even get to this project (we have to finish the ‘barn’ first) but it’s something to look forward to and dream about until them.  J

Silliness and Updates

Ok - I saw this on FB the other day and I just can't help but laugh every time I see it...



Makes me think of PSG and the 'Drama Llamas'!

In other news, I think I've finally gotten past the plateau that I've been on all summer long.
Since joining the gym and working out 4 days+ a week, I've finally moved down! Yeah! I had been loosing and gaining the same 2 pounds all summer long but this week I weighed in a the lowest yet!

Tom is in Texas. He left Tuesday morning at 7:00AM and arrived on base around 8:00 that evening. He was planning on having a place to put his stuff by Wednesday but apparently they put him in temporary housing until Monday when he will be assigned a barracks room. So he had to extend the rental on the trailer until Tuesday - puts a dent in the budget!

My fall is filling up fast! I have every Weekend in September and October filled now except for one in October! My how the weekends fill up fast now!

Erik is playing fall baseball - was supposed to have a game last night but he had class so I'm coming home early from the property on Sunday to watch his double header then. His fiancé has not seen him play ball before so that will be interesting - he's not played in 2 years!

No plans for Labor day weekend as of yet – we may just BBQ with family and call it done! :)

What's Cookin

Monday: Roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, zucchini
Tuesday: Chicken Salad sandwich with veggie chips, Chai spiced apple samosas (Everybody Cooks Sept 2010)
Wednesday: Masala Pork Kabobs with Tomato Ginger Raita, Golden basmati Rice and Cauliflower Curry (Everybody Cooks, Sept 2010)
Thursday: Blackened Salmon, leftover rice with veggies
Friday: Spaghetti (freezer), salad and garlic toast
Saturday: Tilapia, mashed potatoes, green beans
Sunday: leftovers

As usual if you want a recipe just ask.

Update

Been busy at home and at work the past few weeks so I thought while I had a little time this beautiful (cool) morning I would try to recap.

The work on the ‘barn’ is progressing now with the laying of hardwood upstairs. Bill almost has it all down now. He called Wednesday morning and asked me to bring down another 100 sq ft as he was short just that much. So Tom and I picked it up after work. I had called Lumber Liquidators where we had gotten all the other wood to find out if they had it in the warehouse – they did. I told them I would be in between 5 and 6 to pick it up expecting them to have it ready. Ha. Not only did they not have it ready but it was buried behind several pallets of other flooring. 45 minutes later they pulled it out and loaded it on Tom’s pickup. We had planned on going by Costco to pick up some shelving for the shop on the way to discussion group at 7 but didn’t have time. It looked like rain and the bundles of hardwood were too long to put the tailgate up so after going by Harbor Freight to get ratchet straps to tie it down, we unloaded it into the garage at home and went on to discussion group. I’m really glad we unloaded it as it rained Wednesday night.

Thursday we loaded everything back up after I got home from work and had just dropped Aubri off at her work when 3 bundles flew out of the truck as we pulled out into traffic! YIKES! Thankfully, Erik was at work (yeah, three of them all work at the same place!) already and saw us and came out to help us get it all picked up. I’m hoping that we didn’t ruin too much. We had to break done the bundles so that they would fit with the tailgate up – leaving no room for shelves. Bill will just have to wait another week for shelves!

So today Bill will be putting down the rest of our flooring upstairs – hopefully I’ll get a pic once it’s all down. :)

Last weekend during a break in flooring – Bill and I went out into the campground with the tractor to pull stumps. We had three right around the fire ring that were in the way for Samhains labyrinth and if we had very many people trying to sit around the campfire they were right where everyone wanted to sit. So – up they came:




This weekend we are having a few folks over for Lammas on Saturday. So today after the floor gets finished, Bill has more leaves to blow out of the campground so that anyone that wants to camp will be able to find the ground! LOL We have a lot of leaves down – looks like fall!

Tom is down for the weekend to go through his storage shed and decide what to take to Texas with him. I know he is planning on getting all his clothes out, washing them and deciding what to keep and what to Goodwill – he has a lot of clothes! So, maybe we will have room in his shed to put the 10 x 20 that we bought at PSG to get it out of the camping trailer. We can’t get to our camping gear until we do!

Yesterday was Bill and I’s 4rth anniversary of being handfasted. It sure doesn’t feel like it’s been that long and we only have two more years before we can officially get married. August 9, 2014 – save the date! LOL

I’m hoping the heat has broken finally – it’s supposed to be in the 80s all weekend with overnight lows in the 50’s – actually chilly! Great camping weather so hopefully we will be able to get to our gear by tomorrow evening. We’ve had some rain both in St. Louis and at the property which is helping those trees in the woods to start leafing out again. We will have a really thick layer of leaves come fall!

Oh – I almost forgot I canned my first batch of tomato sauce this week. I forgot to take a picture but I was pretty excited. I ended up only getting a pint and a half from our roma tomatoes but we should have more on the vines ready this weekend so maybe I will be able to can more next week. I’m going to have to find some apples soon – we are all out of apple butter and the kids want more. Usually I can in October but I may have to do two batches this year if I can find good local orchard apples that haven’t been washed and waxed yet. If we had time to go pick our own I would but we just don’t have the time – fall is the busiest for us (like this summer has been any better actually!) We only have a few weekends left that aren’t booked up already!

I was hoping to be able to can green beans this year but the heat, drought and deer took care of our green beans. We got one nice batch – which we ate- and that was it. I can’t even find them at the farmers market – apparently everyone is having the same problem. I’ve managed to freeze a couple of squash but the plants are only producing 1 or 2 per week so I’ve mostly just been eating them as they come ripe. That pressure canner may not see much use this year after all!

I have a legal question....

In Illinois – my sister and I just sold my mother’s house.  The ‘agent’ who handled the contract with the buyer did not have us sign the contract nor did we see it.  He just told us what the price was. 
The real estate taxes were not out yet at the time of the sale so we had not yet paid the 2011 taxes on the property so we gave the buyer a credit based on an estimate of what the taxes would be (also based on the 2010 taxes).  We also gave them a credit for the first part of the 2012 year based on this same rate.
Here is the question – apparently there was a clause in the contract the agent had the buyer sign that said if the taxes ended up being more than 5% higher than what was estimated we would pay the difference.  We were never told of this nor did we sign this contract.
Are we still responsible for paying this?  The house has sold and is in the new buyers name (they received the tax bill).

Book review

One of the series that I regularly read has a new installment.  It’s a prequel.  It’s only available on eBooks.  My son bought it on his Nook so I read it over the weekend.  I read the authors comments at the beginning about why he decided not to publish the book in hardback and why it will NEVER be published in hardback because he chose to self publish it as an eBook.  I’m all for authors having the rights to their own material and I understand the reasoning behind it BUT.  What about all of his fans that won’t be able to read this book now?  What about those that do not have an ereader and cant go borrow it from the library? What about fans who collect his books?  I refuse to purchase this book – EVER unless it comes out in hardback which he has stated it NEVER will so I guess I won’t have one volume in this series – that sucks!

As I was reading the book I noticed that the lack of an editor and a publisher has left this book less polished than his others.  It’s not as good as it could have been.  The story is good but he spends too much time repeating himself - a lot – those mistakes would have been edited out I’m sure – and that is why he didn’t let a publisher have it.  Really?  I find that kind of arrogance astonishing – but then I’m not surprised by this author – he seems to be that type based on interviews I’ve read and posts he has made on his website.  It’s almost enough to make me NEVER buy another of his books – but then I may not get that chance anyway if he decides to self publish the rest of them!

I don’t think this guy is popular enough to make the kind of impression on the publishing world that he thinks he is going to make.  I don’t think he’s going to make as much money on this book as he seems to think he’s going to make.  I wish him well but I also home he wakes up and smells the ink! 

I joined a gym

Ok, my weight loss has stalled out this summer.  I’ve been gaining and loosing the same 2 pounds for a couple of months now – it was time to change something.  At least I have not got UP this summer but I’ve not gone DOWN either.  So… I joined a gym on Monday.

My original thought was so that I would have access to a pool to swim laps.  Part of the problem with my lack of results I think is the fact that I had quit going to the pool regularly to swim laps.  But I got tired of fighting with all the local high schools for lap lane time.  You see the place I used to go has an Olympic sized pool (they built it for the 2000 Olympic trials) so all the area schools use it for their swim and dive teams – practices and meets.  That doesn’t leave but two lap lanes for those of us that want to swim after work.  There are supposed to be two lanes – but between the swim team and the water aerobics class – some times there is only one lane and 6 people trying to use it!

So – I searched the area for a different option.  I came up with a membership at Gold Gym.  The great thing about this is I can use ANY Gold Gym anywhere – so I can hit the one that is on my way home from work on Tuesday and Thursday and go to the one by my house on Monday and Wednesday.  

I met with a personal trainer last night (free consultation) and he took measurements, weight, height, health history – etc and then took me through a workout to show me how to use some of the equipment.  My legs are certainly telling me about it today!

Well, I should back up and say that Tuesday night I went swimming.  I usually was swimming an hour (yes, non-stop) before my summer hiatus so I was planning on going for 45 minutes.  30 minutes into my swim my right calf and foot decided to cramp.  I tried to continue on swimming – sometimes that will work it out – no good.  I tried walking it out and stretching it while still in the water – no good.  I ended up standing in the hot tub for 5 minutes while both muscles finally decided to release!  AGH!  So, now my right calf muscle is tight and yelling at me and my thighs are yelling at me.  I tell you that’s a lot of yelling!

I got home from my workout last night, showered, ate dinner, (thanks Tom, Aubri and Erik for cooking) and then settled into the living room with the kids to watch to Olympics… I could barely keep my eyes open!  I was pooped!  The little workout I did didn’t seem so strenuous at the time but apparently it was – I was in bed by 9:00!

So tonight, I’m going over to a friends house for some yoga (been doing this for several weeks already) and will see about stretching out some of these sore muscles and hopefully my next weigh in at Weight Watchers will show some positive results!

(Oh, I DID lose 3 pounds on Tuesday nights weigh in – so I’m now at my lowest weight since joining WW – 69.8 pounds down!  Woo Hoo!)