Summer in a bottle

I picked up my Bountiful Basket this morning, which included bananas, oranges, apples, asparagus, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, celery, zucchini, peppers and a pound of strawberries.  To that I added 16 additional pounds of fresh strawberries!  It's jam-making day for me.

Have you ever wished you knew how to make home made jam?  I know a lot of people say they would like to do it, but they think it's too intimidating.  Let me tell you, bottling/canning/preserving is NOT as hard as it seems.  It is actually pretty straight forward...you just have to have the right equipment.
*Leave a comment below if you are interested in a post about the necessary equipment

Ok.  Here we go.  This is how you make home made strawberry jam that will last for years and years.  Not only is it delicious, but look how gorgeous it is!

Nom Nom Nom

Ingredients:

5 cups crushed strawberries

1 package pectin

7 cups sugar

Supplies:

large pot

1C measuring cup

potato masher

canner

4 pint jars with lids (or 2 quart size jars)

ladle

canning funnel

jar lifter 

Step 1:  To start, you need 4 pounds of strawberries, this will yield approximately 5 cups of crushed berries.  Cut the stems off the berries and crush them with a potato masher.  The jam is much better if you leave the berries a little chunky, so the potato masher works great.

(Before you move on to step 2, you'll want to get your canner ready.  I use a steam canner.  I get the water in it, turn the heat up and let the jars get hot inside the canner.  I also put the lids in hot water to soften the seal, which helps ensure a good seal on the finished product.)

Step 2:  Mix a package of Pectin (Sure Jell) into the strawberry mixture and bring to a boil on high heat.  Once it gets to a rolling boil (does not stop bubbling when stirred) add 7 cups of sugar.  Return the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring constantly, and let it boil for exactly one minute.  Remove the pot of jam from the heat, and using a ladle and a canning funnel, pour it into your hot jars.  Place the preheated jar lids on the filled jars (leave 1/8" space for expansion), screw the tops on, and close the steam canner.  The jam needs to process for 12-15 minutes.

 Once the time is up, use a jar lifter to remove the jars of jam from the canner.  They will (obviously) be very hot.  Set them on a towell on the counter to cool for up to 24 hours.  This is my favorite part of all time...the popping!  One of my favorite sounds is that of the lid popping, telling me that the seal is good and the canning was a success!  When you hear this sound, it should put a smile on your face.  It means you did a great job!

I'm by no means an expert canner, but I do have a lot of experience  with canning jam, juice, pickles, peaches, pears, apple pie filling, salsa, tomatoes, and tomatillos.  I'm happy to answer any questions!

Arthroscopic Meniscectomy

We just can't seem to stay away from hospitals/instacare/dental offices, etc. around here!

Andy hurt his knee back in November when we were finishing up the construction on our house, and we were hoping it would feel better with time.  That didn't happen and I finally convinced him to go see a doctor.  We have an amazing Orthopedic Surgeon in our new ward, so I made an appointment with him for Andy to get checked out.  The verdict: A torn meniscus and Andy was to have knee surgery.  Today was the big day.

There is a good reason Andy has a sad face...

 He had to have his leg shaved!  Ha!  He didn't love this.  We realize there are plenty of men who shave their legs, but Andy has never been a huge fan of that.  He likes his legs manly.  Hairy.  Not soft and smooth like mine! :)

 One he got his IV placed, they put this lovely hat on him and took him back to the OR...

For some reason I was worried that things would not go well.  I'm not sure why I was so nervous, but I'm happy to say that everything turned out wonderfully.  There was a possibility that the damage in his knee was not only a torn meniscus, but possibly a fractured femur as well.  If that was the case, the bone would be screwed together and the recovery would be much more difficult.  

Dr. Cooley informed me about 20 minutes after Andy went back for surgery that it was finished, and only the meniscus was damaged.  The recovery will be quick and fairly painless!  Wahoo!
I am so grateful for modern medicine.  His knee was really hurting him, I'm glad that will be over once he heals from the surgery.

I got Andy his favorite soup for dinner, Chicken Tortilla Soup from Zupas.   It was delicious!  Then while he was sleeping I went out into the yard cut some flowers for him.  Ahhh, tender.  I know, what I should do is go get him so Peanut M&M's!

Maybe I'll shave his other leg while he is all drugged up.  Hehe!

And so it begins...

I started my garden!  So far, I've planted lettuce and peas, but this is only the beginning.  They should germinate in the next week or so, and I can plant everything else in another month.  The transformation in my garden since last June has been unreal.  Here is what it looked like when we bought the house:

Just sorta mangy.  A teeny tiny bit weedy.  It was more than a few years overgrown.  BUT, here is what it looks like now:

Ahhh!  Look at that beautifully soft, fluffy, golden glowing soil!  It is like butter.  I love it.  This is (part of) my 2000 square foot garden just after I tilled it up with my new best friend:

The "Husqvarna DRT900H"

My new rear tine tiller turned this soil over in no time!

This garden was used my Mr. Orman, the previous owner, for years and years and years.  And years.  He passed on a few years ago and his children rented the home to a dear family.  They were here for 3 years when Mr. Orman's children decided to sell.  We were lucky enough to be blessed with this home in an amazing neighborhood with incredible people surrounding us.  The open house was crawling with potential buyers, and we somehow sealed the deal.  It was meant for us, I know we are supposed to be here.

So this garden has a lot of history.  I have been told by numerous neighbors about how Orman took care of it, how he invited all the neighbors to bring their leaves in the fall so he could till them into the soil.  How he was working outside every day he could, even when he could hardly see.  My sister had stories about him for me before I knew anything about this home.  She lived in this neighborhood years ago.  Mr. Orman used to dry the grapes on his roof to make raisins that he shared with my sister.  He left bags of apples on his porch for her and her husband to take.  Now those grapes, those apples, along with cherries, raspberries and pears, (and random garlic growing throughout the yard) belong to me and my family!  I am so excited to carry on Orman's legacy and share them with my loved ones.

I keep getting asked if I will be using ALL of my garden this year.  I plan to.  I will try to keep it up.  I have maybe unrealistic dreams of harvesting many different vegetables all summer long from every square inch of my garden.  I am, however, concerned with how I will water it...there is currently not a drip system in place.  I am trying my hand at irrigation ditches this week as an experiment.  We shall see how that goes.

Wish me luck as I take on this huge task.  I may need help eating all of the vegetables I hope will grow here over the next 5 months.  Just saying.

Not now, please.

This is currently the only thing that is soothing my angry throat. 

 Trader Joe's Peppermint Hot Chocolate 

Have you tried this?

I added a few marshmallows for good measure.  Oh baby, this stuff is delish!

I wish I enjoyed the taste of herbal tea, that would have saved me a million calories with all the hot chocolate I drank.

After helping at Man's preschool for a few hours, lunch in Park City with a dear friend, and a workout with another dear friend, I gave in to the urge for a bath at 4 pm.  For me, that's definitely a sign that something is not right.  Then I finished a book (Bossypants by Tina Fey, HIGHLY recommended for a good laugh or 92) while the kids played ever so nicely with each other.  No seriously, they were getting along!  I got in some rest thinking I would feel better in no time.  I feel worse.

I absolutely CAN NOT be sick.  I have a very important date tomorrow night.  No matter how sick I am, I will not be missing this event.  Luckily I am not throw-up sick, just sore-throat sick, but that will make screaming/singing/cheering at the Imagine Dragons concert tomorrow night a little rough.

I've loaded up on vitamins, zinc, clear fluids, and I WILL feel fabulous by tomorrow evening at 5:00 when I head out for dinner before the show.  I just will.

But I don't WANT to

You don't have to want to do something to do it

It is possible to enjoy something you don't want to do, but sometimes you really have to put your back into it.
For example, there have been many a times when I didn't really want to do the dishes, but I turned on some kickin' tunes and danced my way through it.  Before long, the dishes were done and I had enjoyed doing them...because I distracted myself with something else I really love.

Sometimes if I think of the end result of that nasty thing I don't want to do, I will realize that want the result enough that it's worth doing.  There are many things that fall into this category for me.  Such as:

• scraping the kids boogers off the wall
• cooking dinner when I realize it's 5:00 pm and I'm still on the computer (eek!)
• wiping my 5 year old's butt
• cleaning bubble gum flavored toothpaste off the bathroom sink
• wiping the kitchen table after EVERY SINGLE MEAL AND SNACK!  Ugh!  Seriously.

But if I didn't do all of these things, how gross would it be around here?  Pretty freaking gross.  Yeah, I get the kids to do a fair amount of the cleaning, but there are just some things I must do myself or it will remain mostly undone.

ENFORCE

So here comes the "work" part, another thing I really don't want to do.  Mainly because it doesn't come easy for me.  I must take the time to teach the kids about these things.  

• I have (countless times) taught the kids that it's not ok to wipe boogers on the wall.  They have cleaned them up, or tried to anyway, yet a certain child of mine still has this disgusting habit.  Have you ever tried cleaning that?  Eww.  It's gross, and surprisingly difficult.

• I've started teaching the girls how to cook.  They are not ready to do dinners yet, but they can both successfully cook oatmeal and ramen on the stove, and eggs in the microwave!  Wahoo!  (This means I get to sleep in and don't have to make the oatmeal in the morning!!!!

• Teaching someone how to wipe their butt is not pleasant.  The end.

• Cleaning the toothpaste is easy, it's the avoiding getting the toothpaste there in the first place that's the tricky thing.  Working on it with the kiddos and trying not to yell about it every day.

• And finally, the kitchen table...oh boy.  That is a constant battle.  Kids are just messy.  They make crumbs everywhere, and when they "wipe the table" they just brush most of the crumbs onto the floor.  Then they complain about having to vacuum the crumbs up.  Battle battle battle.

So what is the point of all this complaining?  To point out that I realize that I don't have to WANT to do something for it to be worth doing.  These things (and many others that I refer to as my cobwebs) must be done on a regular basis for me to feel comfortable in my home.   I've got to clear the cobwebs.  Even if I don't want to.  I've got to teach my children, even if I don't want to.  I've got to fulfill my duties as a mother, even if I don't want to.  

I am SO grateful for a husband who gives me much needed breaks more often than I deserve!

What are your cobwebs?  

Enjoy

My word for the year is Enjoy.  This goal, choosing a word for the year as a theme, is something I heard about over at Only A Breath.  I decided to take the challenge, and this is the button she created for me:

I chose the word "Enjoy" because I am usually in such a rush to just get things done that I fail to enjoy the process of what it is that I am doing. 

Am I alone in this?

It has been a problem for me for a long time.  This month I have found three ways to enjoy:

Exercise:  This is something that comes and goes for me...the enjoying of exercise.  I usually don't, but this month I have been joining in with a dear friend who motivates me a ton!  Exercise has become an exciting social experience with one of my favorite people.  I am truly enjoying it!  

Healthy foods:  I am not usually one for preferring anything healthy to candy, but this month I have been drinking green smoothies nearly every day.  I have finally come up with a recipe that I just love!  I get my veggies in, it's energizing, and it's very filing.

"Living" sounds:  I love music.  Very much.  But lately I have really enjoyed the sounds around my home as I work.  The sound of the tapping keys on the computer, the washing machine in the background, the water as I wash dishes, the vacuum running, the spray of cleaning solutions, and lately the birds chirping outside my window.  I especially enjoy the sounds of my children when they return home from school.

Click here to read many very inspiring posts based on some amazing women's "One Word 2013"

What's your word?!

Trash into Treasure

I have a huge garden.  And I'm not exaggerating when I say HUGE!  It's 2000 square feet.  It's nearly as big as my entire house!  It's magnificent!

I hope I can create what I have envisioned in this little head of mine with the land.  I have purchased about 20 different kinds of seeds to plant.  Right now is the time to get the soil ready and prune back last year's growth on the perennials.  Or in my case, the last many years of growth as it hasn't been pruned in a very long time.  This is what my grapes (this shows only about 20% of them) looked like before I started pruning...

I did pull out a ton of dead stuff from this area last fall, but this is what the winter has left me with.  

So, I bought some decent loppers and went to town.  Pruning is essential for optimal fruit production.  I spent about 7 hours pruning all of the 75 feet or so of grape vines lining my yard.  Like I said, this is only about 15 feet of the total amount.  Here is the same area after pruning my side of the fence...I still have the back side to do when I get another warm day:

As you can imagine, I had a gazillion vines all over my garden floor.  I gathered up the good long ones and made something useful out of them:

 Grape Vine Wreaths!

It was a first for me, and this was so much fun compared to the earlier work of the day.  I felt all crafty.

Then I had some major fun after gathering some of the really dead vines and burning them.  Goodbye old dead things, I need some ash for my compost.  

 *this was a controlled bonfire in my fire pit, don't panic

Stay tuned for an Easter-themed grape vine wreath post!

Midnight snack

I have found my favorite granola recipe, tweaked it over time and made it just how I like it!  I think it's the perfect mix of deliciousness.  I love to add it to yogurt, eat it like cereal, or just take a little with me for a delicious (and filling) snack on the road.  

gorgeous, isn't it?!

Here she is:

• 6.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats (not quick cooking)
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup dried apple slices
• 1 cups chopped almonds 
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup flax seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp almond extract (just adds a great flavor)

other optional ingredients include:

 chocolate chips, sunflower seeds, nuts, shredded coconut, mm's, 

and anything else you want in there!

You can also replace the honey with maple syrup if you prefer.  

Adding 2 Tbsp of brown sugar also gives a richer flavor 

if you don't mind adding a little extra sugar.  

Mix everything together, spread it on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.  You'll need to stir it around halfway through.  Remove from oven when it turns a golden brown, but don't let it burn.  It will still be pretty soft when you take it from the oven, but it will get crunchy as it cools.  I hope you ENJOY it as much as I do!

Alligator land...

I have this unrelenting urge to prune everything.  Right now.  This is how I know when I have spring fever these days, I look at every plant the secretly prune it in my head.
Even the palm trees here in Florida.  It's getting so bad that I wanted to get out of the airboat at the Everglades and get rid of some of the dead cat tails.  The poor gators were surrounded by them!

See, look!

 

The edge of the water is just littered with dead stuff.  

Not as dead as I would have been had I jumped in to clean it up though.  Check out that gator!  Gaaah! 

Meet "Bubba"  

He's a 13 year old 9 foot gator that got so very close to our boat.  We ran into him.  I mean literally, the boat hit the alligator as we were drifting closer to him to get a better look.  He was swimming around us and just didn't get out of the way fast enough, and:

We just grazed him, really.  No damage.  It just scared the living daylights out of him.  And most of the people on the boat.  He was flailing around in the water trying to get away from us.  He rested in the dead junk for a while before making his way back out to the water.  He was a friendly little thing.  We liked Bubba.  We were told to keep all limbs inside the boat so we could take them home with us.  It's really a shame we couldn't pet him.

Here are a few more shots of the beautiful Everglades!

Birdies waiting for the popcorn that our tour guide let us feed them. 

 Vultures waiting to eat something dead.  Sadly though, not the cat tails.

By far the most beautiful bird I have ever seen.  She wanted my potato chips.

 Some crazy men fishing among gators.

 Lovely little flower that grows from those lillypad looking plants called Spatterdock.

 Ah-maze-ing trees all throughout the Everglades.  They are so beautiful!

This airboat trip was unexpectedly the highlight of my trip!  It was so fun to speed along the water and right over the foliage.  The wildlife was spectacular.  We saw fish, gators, and many different kinds of birds and plants I had never seen before.

So now that I have had a taste of spring, a few days in the 70's, I am so ready to go home and start pruning my yard!  The trees need it bad, I think I'll get some profesh help for that.  I can manage the grape vines, roses, shrubs, and maybe some of the smaller tree branches.  Don't worry though, after I get a little advice, I WILL be breaking out the chainsaw for some apple, pear, and cherry tree pruning action!

I'm back, and I'm off!

So, I'm back.  Kinda.  I feel like writing a blog post, so here I am trying to figure out what it is that I want to say.  I'm not sure really.  Let's find out together what comes out of this little head of mine...

I should be vacuuming my basement at the moment, the vacuum has been sitting out all day waiting for me.  She's very patient.  I filled her up twice already this afternoon with the upstairs filth, but the basement is crying out to be as clean as it's counterpart.

I'm vacuuming (and cleaning all the bathrooms, sheets, shiny things, dusty things, laundry and dishes) because my dear friend is moving in for the weekend.  She and her family have offered to stay and house/kid/dog sit while my hubby and I go off to Fort Lauderdale!  Yipee!!!  I am so excited that I just can't not (I know) stop cleaning to tell you all about it. :)

I have everything packed and ready to go, including the shorts I borrowed from my fav homey due to the fact that mine no longer fit me...*ahem..........more on that later.  All I have left to do, aside from vacuuming the blasted basement, is my nails.  Yup, gotta have fresh "looks like she had a pedicure" nails when you go to the beach.  Only, I'm gonna do them myself.  Pedicures only come once or twice a year around here.

I'm mostly excited to be doing this:

  

Doesn't this look heavenly?!

(photo found here)

I'm pretty sure I'll post pics of my journey in FL.  I have spring fever SO bad.  I need me some sun, some waves, a pool boy bringing me drinks and cool lemon scented towels (that totally happened during this trip in Hawaii!) and a few days alone with my super sexy man!  

P.S.  I'm so looking forward to the cranberry juice on the airplane!   I love me an in-flight cranberry juice...even if it's a red eye.

Color Me Rad ~2

My first race!  I have never loved running.  I had a quick stint (It's pretty much over now) where I loved it for a few weeks and I signed up for some races to make me keep running.  The first race I ever ran was:

Color Me Rad!

*For the record, this was not really a race.  There 

were so many people we couldn't run if we 

wanted to, and they didn't even time anyone.  

It was all just for fun, which I loved!

I convinced Andy to run with me, and I asked a few friends to join me too!  

Also, my mom and sister were kind enough to run with us!

 Just the girls!

 Most of the way through the race, we decided we needed a picture before we hit the crowd.  We were having so much fun!  I was so happy.  I was covered in PURPLE, how could I not be?!

My and my man! 

 With my mom and sis!

 I missed the good picture, but this is a bunch of the color being thrown in the air at the same time.  It was beautiful!

 Me and my girlies!

Posing with the runner statue on the UVU campus. 

 I love this picture of me and my sweet husband.  

The race was amazingly fun!  Thanks mom, Jaycie, Andy, Heather, and Tanisha for running (walking) it with me!  My next race is The Dirty Dash on June 2.  I haven't run more than a mile in weeks.  It is going to kill me, but I will be getting all muddy so I won't care.  :)  I can't wait!

Color Me Rad ~1

I have some of the best girl friends in the world.  I have always had many, many friends, but most of them are so spread out and from different parts of my life that they don't know each other.  It's sort of bizarre, but it's just the way it's been my whole life.  I love my friends, and I keep them (those who will have me) for years and years.

These two amazing friends of mine are Tanisha and Heather.  Tanisha (left) was my roommate at Dixie from 1999-2001, and she is one of my favorite people to this day!  She has stuck with me through thick and thin, and helped me through all the ups and downs of my life, talks sense into me when I am being insane, and helps me see things for what they really are.  She is a true and forever friend who ALWAYS makes me laugh my guts out when I am with her!

Heather (right) has been a dear friend and one I have looked up to since 1994.  She is a strong and dedicated woman and mother.  She and I have been there for each other through very hard things as well, and we have been a good source of strength when we have both needed it.  We keep each other in check!

These two wonderful ladies have been dear to me for half of my life, yet they just met each other for this race.  It's odd to me, but that's the story of my friend life.  They both came out to my house for a....you guessed it...a sleepover!!!  A real life girl sleepover!  With nail polish and candy and everything!  It was so much fun.  I haven't had a sleepover party for years.  :)  They came to spend the night so we could all ride together to UVU for the "Color Me Rad" 5K race!

Who better to run a super fun colorful race with than two of my best buddies?!

Well, I just HAD to have my best buddy of all there with me too...my hubby buddy!  My MAN!

Aren't we just so tough?!  Haha!  :)
 Off to the races in the morning!!!  Pics to come...