Why would a zombie eat brains, when she could have chocolate?

This is how I keep from blowing up like a parade balloon in the week before Halloween: I don't buy chocolate.

I buy Twizzlers, and Jolly Ranchers, and Dum Dums, and Tootsie Rolls, and SweeTarts. I buy bubblegum, and suckers, and jawbreakers.

I do not buy chocolate. I also do not buy peanut butter candy.

There is no temptation in this house. Not one teeniest bit of temptation.

At least, not until late Halloween night, after the kids have gone to sleep ...

200 Things

1. Touched an iceberg
2. Slept under the stars
3. Been a part of a hockey fight
4. Changed a baby's diaper
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Swam with wild dolphins
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a tarantula
10. Said "I love you" and meant it
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long and watched the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights

16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
20. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Bet on a winning horse
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Taken an ice cold bath
28. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Ridden a roller coaster

31. Hit a home run
32. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
33. Adopted an accent for fun

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Felt very happy about your life, even for just a moment
36. Loved your job 90% of the time
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Watched wild whales
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Gone on a midnight walk on the beach
41. Gone sky diving
42. Visited Ireland
43. Ever bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited India
45. Bench-pressed your own weight
46. Milked a cow
47. Alphabetized your personal files
48. Ever worn a superhero costume

49. Sung karaoke
50. Lounged around in bed all day
51. Gone scuba diving
52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Done something you should regret, but don't
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Been in a movie
60. Gone without food for 3 days
61. Made cookies from scratch
62. Won first prize in a costume contest
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Been in a combat zone
65. Spoken more than one language fluently
66. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
67. Bounced a check
68. Read - and understood - your credit report

69. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy

70. Found out something significant that your ancestors did

71. Called or written your Congress person
72. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
73. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
74. Helped an animal give birth
75. Been fired or laid off from a job
76. Won money
77. Broken a bone
78. Ridden a motorcycle
79. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph
80. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
81. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
82. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
83. Eaten sushi
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read The Bible cover to cover
86. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
87. Gotten someone fired for their actions
88. Gone back to school
89. Changed your name

90. Caught a fly in the air with your bare hands
91. Eaten fried green tomatoes
92. Read The Iliad
93. Taught yourself an art from scratch
94. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
95. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt

96. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language

97. Been elected to public office
98. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
99. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
100. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
101. Had a booth at a street fair
102. Dyed your hair
103. Been a DJ
104. Rocked a baby to sleep
105. Ever dropped a cat from a high place to see if it really lands on all four feet
106. Raked your carpet
107. Brought out the best in people

108. Brought out the worst in people
1
09. Worn a mood ring

110. Ridden a horse

111. Carved an animal from a piece of wood or bar of soap
112. Cooked a dish where four people asked for the recipe.

113. Seen a child buried
114. Gone to a Broadway (or equivalent to your country) play
115. Been inside the pyramids
116. Shot a basketball into a basket
117. Danced at a disco
118. Played in a band
119. Shot a bird
120. Gone to an arboretum
121. Tutored someone

122. Ridden a train

123. Brought an old fad back into style
124. Eaten caviar
125. Let a salesman talk you into something you didn’t need

126. Ridden a giraffe or elephant

127. Published a book 128. Pieced a quilt
129. Lived in a historic place

130. Acted in a play or performed on a stage

131. Asked for a raise
132. Made a hole-in-one
133. Gone deep sea fishing
134. Gone roller skating
135. Ran a marathon
136. Learned to surf
137. Invented something
138. Flown first class
139. Spent the night in a 5-star luxury suite
140. Flown in a helicopter
141. Visited Africa
142. Sang a solo
143. Gone spelunking
144. Learned how to take a compliment
145. Written a love-story
146. Seen Michelangelo’s David
147. Had your portrait painted
148. Written a fan letter

149. Spent the night in something haunted
150. Owned a St. Bernard or Great Dane
151. Ran away
152. Learned to juggle
153. Been a boss
154. Been summoned for jury selection
155. Lied about your weight
156. Gone on a diet
157. Found an arrowhead or a gold nugget
158. Written a poem
159. Carried your lunch in a lunch box

160. Gotten food poisoning

161. Gone on a service, humanitarian or religious mission

162. Hiked the Grand Canyon
163. Sat on a park bench and fed the ducks
164. Gone to the opera

165. Gotten a letter from someone famous

166. Worn knickers
167. Ridden in a limousine
168. Attended the Olympics
169. Can hula or waltz
170. Read a half dozen Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys books

171. Been stuck in an elevator
172. Had a revelatory dream
173. Thought you might crash in an airplane
174. Had a song dedicated to you on the radio or at a concert
175. Saved someone’s life
176. Eaten raw whale
177. Know how to tat, smock or do needlepoint
178. Laughed till your side hurt

179. Straddled the equator
180. Taken a photograph of something other than people that is worth framing
181. Gone to a Shakespeare Festival
182. Sent a message in a bottle
183. Spent the night in a hostel
184. Been a cashier
185. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

186. Joined a union
187. Donated blood or plasma
188. Built a camp fire

189. Kept a blog
190. Had hives
191. Worn custom made shoes or boots
192. Made a PowerPoint presentation
193. Taken a Hunter’s Safety Course
194. Served at a soup kitchen
195. Conquered the Rubik’s cube
196. Know CPR
197. Ridden in or owned a convertible
198. Found a long lost friend
199. Helped solve a crime
200. Name one thing we didn't mention: Milked a goat

Funny things my children have said #2408

The context: Oldest Girl child wanted to color a memorial heart for her teacher to put up on the wall as part of her school's Jump Rope for Heart campaign. I tried to explain to her that she didn't know anyone who had died of a heart attack.

OGC: I've had a heart attack.

Mommy: No, dear, trust me, you haven't.

OGC: Yes I did. Remember when we were waiting for Daddy outside his work and my chest hurt?

Mommy: That was heartburn, sweetie.

****************

The context: Youngest Girl Child saying family prayer before bedtime.

YGC: Please bless my family not to die, because I would be lonely.

****************
The context: Butterscotch is a FurReal toy which has been sold in the local stores for the last couple of Christmas seasons, and cost a little over $300 as of last Christmas.

OGC: I'm going to ask Santa for Butterscotch for Christmas!

Mommy: I think that might be a bit too expensive, dear. Remember, Santa has to give away a lot of toys.

OGC: Oh, I know he'll give it to me. My friend Maree asked for one last Christmas and he gave it to her!

Mommy: speechless and wondering how to explain why Santa gave one to Maree but won't give one to OGC

I thought they grew out of keeping you up all night.

Right. Blogging. Something I should do.

Wow, has it been that long since I actually posted something substantive?

Oops.

*groan* I am so not awake yet, though. I was typing a response to a comment before starting on this post and I kept typing the wrong words. I reread what I'd written, and kept looking at this one word, vaguely aware something was wrong, but not able to pull my mind together enough to realize what.

I'm like this in the morning. I can't make my eyes open for a while, then I have to wait until they consent to focus. If I try to make myself move too quickly I tend to lose my balance and walk into walls.*

Last night I made the fatal error of staying up until after midnight. A very, very bad idea.** It was very difficult waking up this morning and took much longer than usual to get all systems up and running. It's not my fault, though. It's because we had our ward Halloween party last night and it started at the same time as our usual bedtime.

So, we got home nearly 2 hours late for bed. This wasn't a problem for OGC (except for the crankiness we will undoubtedly have to endure when she gets home from school today), but Youngest Girl Child is a night owl. She never falls asleep until about two hours after I put her to bed. Whenever I put her to bed. It doesn't work just putting her to bed later, because she'll just fall asleep later. This makes me crazy, because it means I spend the entire evening fielding requests from her.

"I'm hungry."
"I'm thirsty."
"I want to snuggle."
"I'm not tired."
"I'm hungry."
"I'm bored"
"I'm thirsty."
"I can't fall asleep."
"I'm thirsty."
"Mommy, will you come talk with me?"
"I'm hungry."

It was 10:30 before she finally fell asleep.

Have I mentioned before my obsessive need for alone time? I tried once to get it by getting up earlier. You know what I found out? No matter how early you get up, if you don't want the rest of the family to get up, they will.

The only way I can get alone time - time when the house is quiet and I'm not dealing with any requests, needs, or injuries - is when I stay up late. Which is why I am so tired this morning.

Next year. Next year I will have everyone in school all day long. All. Day. Long. Hours and hours of solitude (except when The Boy Child and Husband Darling are at home. So, hours and hours of solitude a few times a month.)

I might actually get completely caught up on my sleep. Wow.
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*Of course, all that goes out the window when I start the day off with a healthy dose of adrenaline, the way I did the other morning when my alarm didn't go off and Husband Darling woke me at 7. "Bwaaaa!! Oldest Girl Child! GET UP NOW! Get dressed! Get your book bag! DON'T MISS THE BUS!"

**Gosh, I am getting so old. I was complaining to a friend last night that I was tired and it had been a long day and I wanted to go to home, sit down, and maybe go to bed early. It was only a little after 7 p.m. I used to stay up until 3 and 4 a.m. all the time and get up and go to class the next day without a second thought. And now I can't stay up past midnight. Sheesh.

Blogging Scholarship

If you:

1. Have a blog;
2. Are a full-time college student;
3. Are a U.S. Citizen or a permanent resident of the United States; and
4. Could use $10,000;

...then you might be interested in this scholarship. The deadline is Oct. 30! If you are interested, do not delay!

Pass the Hot Fudge, Please

I may be the crazy reading woman, with 34 books currently on my PDA. I may be known to read while unloading the dishwasher. Some of you might have witnessed me walking into parked cars as I strolled down the street with my nose in a book. (And then, instead of noticing I've walked into a parked car, get confused and wonder why I'm not moving forward anymore.)

But I am not book club material.

I joined a book club once, not long after we moved here, thrilled to have been invited and desperately hoping to make new friends. (I was so lonely right then.) I only lasted a few months. I found, unfortunately, that I like what I like and I don't like reading what other people like. The books the other members selected either bored or annoyed me. The book that I suggested* bored them. They were very nice women, but it just wasn't a good fit, so I quit.

I've just been invited to join another book club. The first meeting (which I didn't attend) was last week, following which I got an email letting me know what books they've chosen for the next seven months.

Wow. Is it just my limited experience, or are all book clubs like this? There are two non-fiction self-improvement type books (Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, and How to Win Friends and Influence People.) There are two classic 19th century romances (Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre.) There is one family saga novel from the early 20th century (The Good Earth.) There are two books that I'd never heard of, but which, when I looked them up, really, really, really did not appeal me. One is series of poems about a girl who accidentally kills her pregnant mother (Out of the Earth), and the other is the autobiography of a woman who survived a horrible crime and put her life back together (Forgiving the Dead Man Walking.)

Granted - when you get a large enough group together, not everyone is going to like the same things, so it's probably hard to find something that everyone can agree on. And this is a group of women from my church, so I can imagine the participants that night felt a certain degree of internal pressure to suggest "appropriate" books. These certainly tend to be very safe choices.

There's a thread of commonality here, though, that turns me off, a sort of grimly educational / good-for-you feel to the selected books. Reading, this list says to me, is a serious business. No time for fooling around! We must be Improving Ourselves! We must be Learning! We must Familiarize Ourselves With The Classics! We must Educate Ourselves!

Ummm, seriously? Is reading that hard to do? I mean, isn't anyone interested in reading for fun? (Not that people don't read Jane Eyre for fun. Not something I would do, but I've heard it's happened.) But it's the same sort of thing, to be honest, that I saw in the other book club. The books were almost all Books With a Message. There were only two exceptions - the one I chose, and The Blue Castle,** by L.M. Montgomery. Both books were received with something less than enthusiasm. I received the distinct impression that they were considered to be rather too light and fluffy. Not serious enough. Not educational enough.***

I read because I love reading. I love stories. When I was a little kid I used to beg my mom to read to me because I loved the stories so much and wanted more of them. I couldn't wait to learn how to read, because then I wouldn't have to wait for anyone to read to me - I could read the stories to myself, anytime I wanted! And when I was naughty? I was punished by having my books taken away. (Fate. Worse. Than. Death. Trust me. A totally panic-inducing threat.)

Books aren't medicine. They're not something you force down, because they're good for you. Books are dessert. Books are hot fudge dripping down over slightly melty vanilla ice cream, with strawberry syrup stuff around the edges, toasty bits of almond sprinkled over it all, and a generous dollop of real whipped cream on the top, with a thoroughly carcinogenic, but oh-so-yummy maraschino cherry in a color nature never invented.

They're the sanity pill that lets you go one more hour without screaming at anyone. They're what you tear yourself away from in order to do important things, like feed your family, and earn your paycheck. They're the delicious treat you hide in your purse and take out when you're supposed to be shopping while your daughter is at preschool. They're the addiction that lets you escape when things are Just Too Much, feeling your muscles and posture relax as you slide into another world, where the problems are only real to the characters, and no threat to your life at all. Because real life has enough problems, and I don't want any more of it than I already have to deal with, thank you.

I'm just not book club material. There's nothing self-improving about ice-cream sundaes, after all.
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*The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King. Fantastic book. First of a fantastic series. I loooove the Mary Russell series. Pink puffy hearts love it. The only Sherlock Holmes books I have ever liked that were written by anyone other than Arthur Conan Doyle.

**I immediately fell in love with it and it is now one of my all-time favorite romances, right up there with Daddy Long Legs.

***Or, as L.M. Montgomery said in The Blue Castle: "It was permissible, even laudable, to read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was enjoyable was dangerous."

Home Preservation

Right now the love seat in the living room is unusable, because it is covered and stacked with various boxes. This is because I have a little galley kitchen, which, while it is not as small as it could be, is still not nearly big enough to accommodate the needs of a serious home canner.

I usually keep my canning stuff in the basement, but it is upstairs right now, where I have no room for it all. I can't put my boxes and pots on the counters, because I need to work there. I can't put them on the dining room table, because we need to eat there, and I am also using it as a workspace in between meals. I can't put anything on the floor because the dog will do unspeakable things to my boxes. So I am using the love seat, and my husband is being very nice about it.*

Currently, I have a mason jar case, containing 7 quarts of applesauce and waiting for 5 more jars to complete the dozen before going to the basement. I have the huge box that my Roma strainer and all its assorted accessories came in, which is holding all the pieces that are not currently air-drying on the dining room table. My water bath canner is on top of the applesauce case. My dehydrator is sitting on the kitchen table, but when it is done with the current batch of apple chips will go back onto the loveseat.

In the kitchen I have a 10 quart stockpot full of applesauce. I made it Monday (didn't have time for it yesterday) and need to reheat it, flavor it cinnamon, and can seven quarts. I also need to get started on the spiced apple rings. I am not making apple butter this year, since I still have several pints from a couple of years ago. We go through strawberry freezer jam much, much faster than apple butter.**

I also have plans to make some salsa since I have everything up here, another item which makes my husband very happy. That isn't as hard as it sounds - I make it with canned tomatoes and a salsa mix packet. All I have to do it cook it a little while, pour it in the bottles, and water bath it.

But first, I have to stop goofing off and procrastinating, so I'll end this post now.
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*Because he is unreasonably impressed that I know how to can, and thinks it is hard work. (It is, but it is fun hard work.) He also loves spiced apple rings.

**My daughters are such jam snobs. They refuse to touch commercially made jam, turn up their noses at jam which I have canned in a water bath, and go crazy for freezer jam. I have to threaten them to keep them away from it, and still have to hide it in the back of the freezer to make it last more than a few weeks.

Rings on Their Fingers and Bells on Their Toes

"More blue," said Oldest Girl Child, and her serious tone amused me so much that I poked my head around the corner to spy on her and Youngest Girl Child. They were busily coloring their finger and toenails with crayons, a new hobby as of last night.

Evidently OGC came across this idea at school and was delighted to show me, last night, all the pretty colors she could make her fingernails be. "And it doesn't wash off! You have to scratch it off!" she told me.

Today, both the girls have parti-colored nails, and every so often will scratch the color off one and recolor it to something new.

I rarely wear make-up, rarely wear jewelry, never wear nail polish, have two pairs of shoes (black pumps for dressing up and pink sneakers for dressing down), two skirts and one dress that I alternate wearing to church, several pairs of jeans, several niceish shirts that I wear with either jeans or skirts, and a hairstyle that I can pretty much ignore.

OGC wore a dress or skirt to school 8 out of the last 10 school days (I make her wear jeans on Wednesdays, which is gym day.) YGC would rather stay inside all day than have to take her dress-up costume off to put on jeans to go play outside. They color their nails, beg me to let them have play makeup*, and would live in princess costumes if I let them.

I always thought I was fairly girly, but my daughters have disabused me of this notion. Once again I am left with only the thought, "They look too much like us to have been switched at the hospital."
___________________________________________

*Play make-up, by my standards, is stuff that looks like make-up but is plastic and has no ability to actually color a little girl's face. If it actually leaves a mark on skin, it is not "play" anymore, it is real make-up. I refuse to buy that kind of play make-up, no matter how hard they beg.

Just Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale

Someday, my adult children will get together and laugh at me, the way my siblings and I laugh at our parents' foibles. "Remember how Mom used to panic if we were late getting home," one of us will say to another, " and then she'd call the police?"

"Do you remember how she never picked us up on time," will come the reply, "and we had to wait forever, sitting on the curb?"

"Oh, yeah. That's how I learned to always carry a book with me!"

My children will say to each other, "Do you remember how Mom always got lost coming out of the airport?"

"And then she'd panic, and yell at us to be quiet, when we weren't talking, and it would take her half an hour to find her way out of the bad part of the very large city we were in?"

"Yeah! Wasn't that hilarious? At least in retrospect?"

I drove The Boy Child to the airport today. He is visiting his mother for the next week. Getting there was no problem; it never is a problem. We have three major international airports near us, however, and not one of them uses the same road leaving the airport that you take going in. I get lost every time, no matter how careful I am. The worst experience was the time I wound up in rush hour traffic, which took us two hours to get out of - and the first landmark we recognized was the airport, which meant we still had to find our way out. It was very late by the time we got home.

Today, a three hour round trip took over five hours. Less than 10 minutes of that was spent actually dropping TBC off. About 45 minutes was spent on rest breaks for the little ones. The rest of the extra time I spent trying to get away from the airport.

I kept Oldest Girl Child home from school today* because she was complaining all yesterday evening that her throat hurt, then woke up with it still hurting. Also, she said her tummy hurt, although she swore she didn't have to throw up. So she had to come with us, which had me on edge the whole time, waiting for the vomiting to start.

Coming back, I started worrying about whether or not TBC remembered to take his ID with him. At first I comforted myself with the thought that if something went wrong, he was an adult and could take of himself. And then I comforted myself with the thought that if something went wrong he could call me and I could turn around and go rescue him. And then I realized I left my cell phone plugged into the charger at home. And then I just chewed my nails and tried to breathe slowly and calmly. Also to stop speeding up as I panicked.

All of which didn't help me keep my mind on the exit signs as I drove around (and in and out of) that airport's Big City. I refrained from pointing out the drawbridge when we drove over it (twice) since I didn't think I could panic and provide chirpy explanations at the same time. I narrowly avoided the toll road I didn't know was coming up until the big sign announcing "TOLL PLAZA AHEAD". And I managed to turn around every time without too much trouble, although I never did find the original road on which I'd gotten lost.

The last hour of the drive Youngest Girl Child upped the stakes by crying continuously that she was on the verge of throwing up. Every so often she'd make abortive retching noises into the plastic garbage bag I stuck in her lap. (I might have nudged the speedometer a bit at that point.)

I was so frazzled when I got home, that my husband suggested pizza instead of me cooking. Which was just hunky-dory with me.
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*Which led to much crying and sobbing.

The Debate Society

Well, sweetheart, in all the furor this evening* I forgot to tell you about the conversation I had on the way home from preschool with Youngest Girl Child.

"Mommy," she started, "are you the boss of me?"

And, being the perspicacious, quick-witted mother that I am, I responded, "Huh?"

She repeated herself. "Are you the boss of me?"

The answer came to mind immediately. No, you are the boss of you. I figured, however, that beginning with that response was going to lead to trouble and questioning of parental authority down the line, so I started by asserting said authority.

"Well, I am your mommy, which means ..." I started to flounder a bit, the words to express the concept just not coming to mind. "That I, umm, have authority to tell you what to do." Yeah, that's good, Jennifer, I thought. Like she knows what the word 'authority' means.

I gave up. I try to be smart enough to know when I'm taking the wrong track.

"You are the boss of you," I told her. "Heavenly Father made it so that you are able to make decisions for yourself about what you are going to do." I shoved back the frantic impulse to qualify the statement by pointing out that it is a Very Good Idea to listen to your parents.

And then the discussion turned a corner I hadn't expected.

"So, I don't have to dress modestly," she decided.

Bwaaah! What?

"Uh, no, sweetie. That's one of those things that I have to use my authority as your mother on, and not let you do. You have to dress modestly."

"But Carly's parents let her dress immodestly."

Ohhh! That's what this is all about. I'd seen Carly's outfit when I picked YGC up. In spite of the coolth of the day, Carly had been wearing a halter, miniskirt, and strappy heeled sandals. Carly's mother had expressed to me that she was less than happy about the outfit, considering the weather, but that she had let Carly decide what to wear and this was it.

YGC was going on now about how beautiful Carly's outfit was. I replied that Carly and her parents were very nice people, but they didn't see the world the way we did. YGC responded that it was alright to wear costumes, and they weren't modest either.

"Well, yes," I admitted, regretting ever letting them accept those costumes (you know the ones I mean), "but, remember, you only get to wear your costumes inside. You're not allowed to wear them outside."

"Halloween costumes aren't modest and we wear them outside," she retorted. (Are we raising a lawyer here, darling?) "They don't have sleeves."

"Yes, they are modest." I wasn't going to let that one get past me. "I always make you dress modestly for Halloween. Remember we put a shirt under the costume?"

She conceded the point, and the discussion segued into upcoming Halloween preparations, the confirmation that she wants to be a princess this year** and people she wants to come to her birthday party.

Which left me wondering - who taught her the phrase "the boss of me"? Or is that just a childhood osmosis thing?

Also, I really, really need to ditch the old store-bought costumes and sew up a bunch of new fairy princess superhero dresses. With sleeves.
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*Putting groceries away, getting dinner ready, dealing with YGC's skyscraper temper tantrum, and Oldest Girl Child's teary fit.

**Gee, what a surprise. I never would have guessed.

She Works Hard for the Money

Right. I keep forgetting about this. Need to post. Tamping that down into my brain. Hopefully, one of these days, it'll actually stay in.

We have our new heat pump installed! Although, while it's absolutely wonderful to have heat and air conditioning available at the flick of out programmable thermostat, both my husband and I commented on how nice it was to have all the windows open. I really enjoyed feeling the breeze. There's something special about fresh air. I need to remember that and not get too much into the habit again of just leaving everything closed.

I've been canning applesauce today. I bought a Roma strainer* a couple of years ago, which has made it possible to make so much applesauce in no time at all. I used it this spring for crushing my strawberries for jam, too. It worked very well, since all I had to do was rinse the berries and throw them in the hopper. No more picking the leaves off the top and going around with stained fingers for days! And with applesauce - no more peeling and coring! I wash the apples, quarter them, throw them in my turkey roaster and bake them in the oven until they're soft. Then I let them cool and run them through the strainer. The only hard part is heating the applesauce back up until it's hot enough to put in my canning jars.

I only got 7 quarts done today, but I should be able to get a lot more done in the next week or two. My goal is to have two or three dozen - 2-3 quarts/month. My family really, really loves applesauce. This won't be enough to keep them completely happy, but it should help out a lot.

Right now, though, I'm tired. I'm going to spend the rest of the evening doing nothing beyond amusing myself. Maybe I'll watch a Loki video.
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*If you happen to be in the market for a strainer, this is where I got mine from, and trust me, it's the best deal online. It's unbelievably cheap for what you're getting.