Why

is it than time can go by and all seems to go real well, and then all of a sudden you are dealing with a ton of adoption related issues...... that is how it has been the last week or so....exhausted!!

8 hours

of canning, freezing, washing (laundry and dishes) and baking today. Today canned 6 pints of pear jam, 1 pint of pickled summer squash, 5 pints of sliced spiced pickles, froze 10 cups of peppers, froze 10 cups of tomatoes, and baked 20 loaves of pear bread. We also have the pears cut up for the wine, but I need to purchase a mesh bag to hang the pulp in while it is fermenting. In addition to this we have 3 crispers full of fresh peaches, plums and pears, and we are expecting to pick up the 1/2 beef this week. actually feel like we have a ton of food...like where are we going to store it all yet, especially since we still need to harvest the carrots, 3 types of pumpkins, butternut and spaghetti (volunteer plant that was quite prolific) squash, sunflowers and the egg gourds (not edible).....our cup runs over with yummy food. Our potatoes were killed off by the monster pumpkins and our cabbage may not fully mature by freezing since they were delayed from the rabbits and out tomatoes harvest has been low and late his year so I may purchase a bushel from our local farmers market so we can freeze more for chili over the winter.

Mim

gets to take French I in school. She has been wanting to do this for several years now, we even tried last year but then she wasn't in ESL support classes and within 3 weeks she was failing 3 classes. We took her out and put her in supported classes. This year she started at the high school, the ESL teacher stated at Back to School the other night that Mim didn't need ESL support for reading anymore since she is doing so well...she is now in French...and way excited about it and I am very happy for her since her hard work has really paid off for her...Way to Go MIM!!

Today

was Mim's cross country meet, her time improved by 40 seconds...a real improvement. Since it was a home meet, me and the wee ones helped manage the course for all the races. Ve and Tuki ran the mile fun run for elementary students. All three ran hard and did a good job. Once we came home, I canned 2 quarts of yellow beans, 4 pints of plum jam, set up the start of the plum wine, and tasted while moving the apricot wine. In addition I am baking about 20 some loaves of plum bread for the freezer. So far we have about 40 some loaves of blueberry and peach bread and now another 20 plus and tomorrow I plan to bake another 20 some more loaves of pear bread.....did I say that we love this bread...it is our weekend treat. Besides the pear bread tomorrow, we will can more pickles, pickled summer squash and start the pear wine, and freeze peppers. Next week our 1/2 beef should be ready for pick up, so our freezers are filling up once again for the winter. It feels good to know that things will quiet down for a while, just like I get excited when things heat up in the spring.

Tired

...all last week and now this week. We had back to school night last night so we were at school very late. I am amazed as to how tired I get even though I never really take a break all summer. I think it is different kind of tired, emotional and mental exhaustion and then the hard floors don't make my feet feel great, so it tires out my whole body. We are still walking the dogs 2 miles every night but I have not been running.....I know I am not proud but at least we have been dedicated to walk the dogs..better than what we did a year ago.  Hopefully I will work up to a more active life style again..like years ago.

Made it

through the day, and on fancy shoes, and my feet handled it just fine and we took the dogs for their nightly walk as well. Tuki made it through her first day of 2nd grade, Ve through her first day of 4th grade and Mim through her first day of her sophomore year. Typical of Mim, she did get lost but eventually worked it out...she is sort of direction deficient and I have learned to let her work it out according her to way..which BTW is very different than mine. But we are all ready for day 2 and I will be heading to my admin class tomorrow night...so no dog walking!!! :(

First Day

of school with students tomorrow...whew, not completely sure how I feel, on the one hand glad to be around all the action again, but on the other hand not quite ready for the crazy schedule that we will all be having. We all feel really tired today already and the week has yet to begin....