Crazy days

I have been feeling pretty crazy here lately and this will probably sound disjointed. David is sitting here next to me. He finally decided that he is interested in words & letters and wants to learn it all NOW. I think I need more coffee.

I've spent the last week or so dealing with this bounty from Friend Hazel:





Friend Hazel went to the Panama Canal with a tour group and asked me to come pick the last of her beans and tomatoes. It took me 3 separate trips out there to get all the beans. I need to go back and pick some more, as there are probably more that are past ready to pick, but I've been trying to deal with these first. Plus I need to pick in my own garden and do other pesky things like laundry, teaching, etc. Those are 2 5-gallon buckets full of beans (and a little bit of thyme, in one of them) plus about 50# of tomatoes. I'm almost finished with the beans. Still have another canning of them. The tomatoes...some of them I made into spaghetti sauce, which I had intended to can. Friend Husband had other plans, so we've been eating on that.



Spaghetti sauce is a messy undertaking. Especially when your dishwasher is broken, which ours is. The girls have been in high dundgeon because of my insistence that they take their turn at washing dishes. They are very spoiled. Except for Sarah, who is a willing worker. Keziah is a willing worker when it comes to dishes...she purely loves to hand wash dishes! I do put her to work but I have to keep an eye on her lest something formerly clean get dumped into the dirty water.

This week was Friend Husband's birthday as well, so we spent Tuesday getting ready for that. He requested vindaloo, curried cauliflower & chocolate lasagna.

While I was getting his cauliflower, I noticed that there were many heads on less than half-price in the produce section. I bought 5 of them and last night, turned them into cauliflower pickles. I do love the pickled cauliflower I get sometimes at the store. I hope these are as good as those. I don't have much luck with pickles. Mine are always soggy.

Speaking of which, I was hunting for more canning jars to can beans and came across some pickles that I had made in 1994. Yikes! They were mushy after I made them, which is why I never ate them. David and I dumped out the contents and the jars are now full of beans. Which I hope will not be mushy.

We got to go visit Friend Gina yesterday. Beforehand, we stopped at the store to pick up a few things (and to look for canning jars, which they did not have...I went to 3 stores yesterday before I got them!). I saw these marvelous donuts. We didn't buy any but I thought they were works of art in the bakery case:



I have a whole lineup of pictures to show, as y'all can see! This week, David also got his head stuck in the footboard of my bed. He and Zi used to slide off the end and slip through the rails. David found out that he has now grown too much to be able to do this. After laughing hysterically, then trying to get his head out, I ran to get the camera and took this picture. He was not thrilled with me. Eventually, he told me how he got into this predicament and I figured out how to undo it. Perhaps he's learned his lesson, at least for now!

Well, that's what's going on and I have to go pick my garden before the mosquitoes get too warmed up and fast. The weather here has been very much like fall, rather than the end of summer. I am grateful. I don't do so well with heat and humidity.

I hope you all are well! Pray for me as I pray for you.