New Favorite!!

I think I just found one of my new favorite websites...

Make It & Love It

This gal has brightly colored pictures, easy to read tutorials and some Fabulous project ideas! Also, she has children so she's does do other things besides cut, sew and blog all day... or at least, I assume she does. I found her site due to a link on Dietel Days, featuring another S.A.H.M. (stay-at-home-mom) re-decorating her daughter's bathroom. Ah- I'm inspired.

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Well okay, go have a look for yourself and don't be surprised when you ask me where I got the idea to make something or another. God Bless.

All Played Out

Our garden has weathered this hot, dry, summer very well; producing 4 varieties of tomato, white squash, bell peppers, anaheim peppers, cucumbers, a few baby corn, 5 juicy cantelope, 2 acorn squash and a pitiful butternut squash.

(Not to mention lots sticker burrs as well!)

But the time has come to dig it up- weeds and all & all the weeds- and get ready for fall. We will leave the okra, peppers and some tomatoes, since they are still producing, but the rest is getting ripped out... this weekend I hope!

(Pictured above are the 3 lg tomatoe varieties:

Old German- yellow/ orange

Purple Krem- deep red

Early Girl- bright red

and one of our delicious cantelope!)

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

So long juicy, summer fruits-

it's time to make room for roots and gourds!

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3 Things

1. I am excited about piano starting up again.

Suppose I should give Michael lessons?

2. The County Fair starts tomorrow- HURRAY! There are contest entries to be made, ribbons to be earned, a parade to watch (and sweat through), carnival rides to be ridden and ridiculously expensive, hot, sugary funnel cakes to be eaten!

3. I love my husband.

He is being such a hard worker and a diligent leader for our family.

A Late Night Snack

OH, the guilt of it! Of course my hips won't slim down if I keep eating dessert late at night. And of course I'm busting most/all healthy eating rules but it just has to be this way sometimes......

Reasons why a Mommy HAS to eat ice cream late at night:

A. Because that's the soonest possible moment she has to sit down and ENJOY food at it's proper temperature.

B. Because there's no one around to beg for a bite of it or "their own bowl."

C. Because she finished the wine last night!

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.... or at least, those are the reasons why I eat ice cream late at night.

A NOT So Glorious Sunday

11:30 am: load up kids and depart home to attend Mass

12:45 pm: stuck in slowed traffic on Hwy 281 near 1604

12:46 pm: disposing of 'grey water' from the portable potty chair because

3-year old said she HAD to go potty and can't hold it

1:00 pm: Mass begins and we aren't there

1:30 pm: 5 miles further than we were at 1:00

1:45 pm: no where near the church because the alternate route had road work too

****CHANGE OF PLANS****

2:00 pm: AC in suburban quits blowing cold air while we are driving across town

2:15 pm: happy family eating lunch together at delicious Mexican restaurant

WITH air conditioning!

3:45 pm: driving down yet ANOTHER city road stifled by construction

5:40 pm: depart friend's house after delightful visit

6:00 pm: ARRIVE AT MASS- FINALLY!!!!

6:30 pm: Priest calls us out from the lectern pointing out that we should

use the cry room. ???????

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Wow.

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"God , can next Sunday be a better one? Pretty please????"

Oh, I get it Dad!

So just like the lunatic-fringe-anti-choice-homophobic-bigoted-fanatics we are, today the 7 of us loaded up and made our way for an hour and a half to the only Tridentine Mass in one the nation's largest dioceses. That's right, we're those kinds of Catholics. Really though, it's for the best, because I think that we really do make rank-and-file N.O. Catholics feel uncomfortable when our veil-wearing three year old refuses to hold hands with whichever poor soul manages to squeeze into the empty spot on the pew next to us during the Our Father. Well anyways, today was a special day. Today I was given revelation #5,281 on why the Traditional Mass is the better choice....for us.

If you've ever attended the TLM anywhere other than your weird aunt Sally's living room,

you're bound to have seen them. The little red cash cow of the Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei called the Latin English Booklet Missal. On the front cover is one of those

delightful black ink drawings of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that was so prevalent in Catholic kitsch when the Benzinger Bros ruled with an iron fist. Sadly the spirits of Vatican II brought to the liturgical artists the new light of amorphous symbology perhaps ending forever (if not for Summorum Pontificium) exchanges like this that happened today.

Daddy: Anne, I want you to draw something that you see happen during Mass today.

Anne: OK. Like what?

Daddy: Anything. Here look at this [hands her the red book]. What's happening there?

Anne: Jesus is on the cross.

Daddy: What about at the bottom?

Anne: The priest is holding up the Blood.

Daddy: That's right.

Anne: [Sitting quietly with Pooh Bear's thinking face on for several minutes.]

Daddy: [Enjoying the repetitious sounds of the Rosary before Mass].

Anne: [Beginning to draw the altar]

Daddy: [Wondering to himself if the demon will manifest in Michael this Sunday.]

Anne: Ohhhh, I giiiit it Dad.

Daddy: ?

Anne: The priest is Jesus and Jesus is the priest.

Daddy: [Dumbfounded] That's right, Anne.

Anne: [Quietly continues on with her neorealistic, slightly amorphous liturgical sketches.]

More Garden Delights, PLUS Canning!

We planted our garden in April/ May, knowing that we started late, but we didn't think it would take THIS long to begin producing!

Despite the drought, our garden is green and lush (with too many weeds as well) and we are beginning to pick more and more daily.

Praise be to God!

Sadly, my in-laws just lost most of their garden to desperate deer.... all except the tomatoes and eggplant. I'll post a picture later of the beautiful eggplant they've grown.

Last week, my Oma gave me a crash course in pickling. It was much easier than I thought to make dill pickles.... I guess the hardest part is waiting 3 weeks to try them!

Also, a friend and I made 18 pints of Jam. Some of it was strawberry and some, peach.

It was her first time to can and we had a great system going with one of us at the stove stirring fruit & the other, manning the canner- despite 2 fussy babies and a slew of other children darting in and out the kitchen ( oh, and husbands too).

God Bless them- the husbands that is- they tried to get the children out of our hair by taking them on a wild grape picking excursion, only the place they went to didn't happen to have any grapes on the vine.

Providence or poor planning? - you tell me.