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I hate to inform our many devoted readers (all 3 of you) that my blogging has been interrupted by a baby with a cold.  I know you were all waiting with bated breath for my latest breathtaking peek into the world of a housewife and sadly my next post will be delayed until I can get little PJ well.

Here's a hint of what you're waiting for:  my next two posts involve 3 of the things in this picture:

Adventures In Canning

Since we have a small garden this year, we have been overrun with cucumbers, tomatoes, dill, oregano and basil.  I've done some canning in the past and have all the gear so I've had a few canning parties this summer (We party like rockstars around here!)

I was able to use everything we grew because I made pickles with the cucumbers and dill and I made stewed tomatoes with the tomatoes, basil 

and oregano.  Yum!

Our friends Andy and Felicia have a huge garden and they let me come over and pick fresh green beans in July.  I canned half of those and froze half.

This year I got to make something new, though, and it was a pretty interesting process.  My awesome in-laws grow grapes over their arbor and Linda gave me a huge ziplock bag full of grapes.  They have been overwhelmed with grapes this year, but we don't really eat them because they have seeds (Hello...Jackson only has 9 teeth, we don't want to break any of them!).  So since we eat a lot of pb&j sandwiches around here and the grocery store jelly is full of high fructose corn syrup (GASP!), I decided to try making grape jelly.

You have to start out roughly chopping the grapes in a food processor to get the juices flowing.  Then you move them to a pot on the stove and simmer them to break them down a a little.  After this, you have to strain them A LOT through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth to seperate all the gunk from the juice.  I was surprised at how much was left behind after this process.

Next, you have to put the juice back on the stove and boil it with some pectin and SEVEN, yes SEVEN, cups of sugar!!!  Check it out:

After all of this, it's time to can the jelly.  You just ladle it into hot, sterilized jars and process it in a boiling water canner for about 10 minutes.  I ended up with about 5 cups of juice-that's the perfect amount for one box of pectin and I ended up with 2 pints and 5 half-pints of jelly with a little left over for tasting.  

Jackson definitely approves and I'm happy because now I can feed him jelly that is free of preservatives, additives and corn syrup.  Yay!

Little Miss Suzy Homemaker...

That's what I've been lately, in a weird way.  I've felt the urge for lots of new project, unfortunately my day-to-day housework has kind of taken a hit.  

In case any of you are interested or can find some inspiration or maybe just get some new material to tease me about (...Jerrod...), I thought I could have a few blog posts about my adventures in canning, sewing and saving the planet.

Stay Tuned!

Here's a picture of Jackson's crazy morning hair to satiate some of the suspense.

Watch Your Mouth...

The boys are busy being cuties lately, so I thought it would be a good time to update.

Patrick is crawling now.  Not only is he crawling, but he is obsessed with crawling.  He is loving being able to get around and reach toys and even loves crawling around his crib.

He learned his first sign last month.  Of course, it's the "milk" sign, and he uses it a LOT.  He's gotten a lot taller and is eating us out of house and home.  All his footie jammies are too short for him now.

Jackson has really gotten into this talking thing and is constantly practicing and copying everything we say.  We really have to be careful lately...apparently I say the word "crap" a lot...

Last week while sitting on the potty (and doing nothing for the billionth time) he told Alex that he was going to "pee-pee in his brown eyes".  Wow...I don't know where he got that from, but Alex probably deserved it.

He started back to Mother's Day Out this week (Hallelujah!) and he is doing really well.  He's happy to go and doesn't seem anxious or upset at all.  It's awesome!

Be back soon to talk about our new 'puter (Alex's new love) and maybe a little about our new diet.

7 years ago...

This is a picture of Alex and me at the butterfly release on our wedding day.  Seven years ago today...

A lot has changed since that day.  We have a lot more stuff, a lot more responsibility and even more love.  When I look back at the pictures (terrible...our photographer sucked) I realize how fast the years have gone by.  Here's a picture with even worse quality.

This is from our first prom.  I guess it would have been in 1997.  Look how cute we were!

We have grown so much since then.  Fortunately, we grew and changed together and we have never been stronger.  We make each other better people.  We have beautiful children.  We make each other laugh.  My husband is patient, witty, brilliant, handy and hilarious.  He is a wonderful father, provider and friend.

Happy Anniversary!

Sorry for the gooey post...I'll be back with embarrassing toddler stories soon.

Delayed Update

It's been a while since we wrote to the blog.  Our computer took a permanent trip to the farm last week.  It slowly started resetting more and more often until it was too much of a pain to use.

So, we got a new family member.  Here's the pic:

She's pretty.

I also got a new lawnmower.  It's a 2003 Troybuilt, to replace my 1997 Scotts with a bad transmission.  The Troybuilt has a seized engine, so I swapped the engines.  This was a little bit of a mess since the engines weren't the same.  It's running again, but I don't have a muffler.

I also swapped television cable, telephone, and internet providers.  I had the same companies for 6 years, and they were really taking it to me.  We now have better everything for less money.  I like DirecTV, and all their HD channels.

Another new thing is that we started a budget.  I'm not the best at having a budget, but the little lady likes to have one.  I don't need a budget to help me spend money, but presumably, Lettie does.  As long as this doesn't hinder my lifestyle, I'll give it a try.

And lastly, we've changed our eating habits.  This originated from the chickens, but what we eat has been a focus lately.  One example of our change is, no more high fructose corn syrup.  Almost everything on the shelves has corn syrup for no reason other than to rot our teeth and make us obese.  I don't think the switch has been a big deal, but Lettie should tell us more details sometime later.

I think you are mostly caught up, except for the hypermiling challenge results.  I would talk about that, but the dog is in here with me and she has gas.  I need to go.  Spoiler alert, I didn't win.

Hypermiling

I've entered a hypermiling competition with a few guys, and an entire lunch is at stake. The competition consists of filling up our gas tank and driving normal for 1 week. Then fill up the gas tank and compute the normal gas mileage. Now drive with any hypermiling tactics you can deal with to save gas mileage. The winner has the biggest MPG improvement between weeks.

I filled up yesterday to complete my control week. I got 24.8 MPG. I'm not pumped about that since I don't see how to improve that number much with my 1992 S-10. Chris, the crazy neighbor, is in the competition as well. He emptied his entire car interior before starting his hypermiling week. You can see a little video of the empty car on his blog: http://diycarguy.blogspot.com/2008/07/eclipse-weight-loss.html The weight savings equates to higher MPG, and he looks really cool without unnecessary interior in his car.

Here are my tactics for this week:
1. 35 psi in all the tires (they were between 22 and 26)
2. drive 5 mph less than the speed limit
3. accelerate extremely slow
4. use neutral to an extreme. coast to a stop
5. don't let Lettie drive the car AT ALL
6. use the air conditioner when I'm hot, but no more

I've thought of plenty of other tactics, but I'm not sure of their roadworthiness. To compete with the tactics of the other crazy contenders (Eclipse weight loss, drafting behind 18 wheelers, etc), I decided to streamline the aerodynamics of the truck. Here's a picture which shows duct tape sealing door handles, the junction between the bed and cab, and the bumper (all the wind eddy current creators). I bet my truck is silent and efficient through the air tomorrow. Compete with that.


I think we should continue the competition with a week of EXTREME hypermiling. I could put bicycle tires on the truck to reduce friction. I would definitely remove the bed of the truck and any other unnecessary weight. It's also been mentioned that I should build a cone in the front and back of the truck to shape the air. Any other bright ideas?