Peaches, Pickles and Spaghetti Sauce

Well, it is certainly later than I usually get to this. We’ve had a busy couple of days. Yesterday we canned eleven quarts of half sour pickles and a bunch of peaches (I don’t feel like thinking hard enough to figure out how many, exactly) and I made a peach cobbler. Amena made brownies to take to a Young Women sleepover at the West’s. Joanna had two shifts yesterday. The first one was earlier (a big duh, I know) so she rode her scooter. She was due to get off the second at 9:00 so she needed a ride for that.

Paul called at almost 5:30 yesterday and said they were out and on their way home. He said, “I got out early. Can you believe it?” I said, “No!” I hadn’t had a shower yet having been working in the kitchen all day so I hurried and did that before he and Laura got home shortly after 6:00. We left to go eat and dropped Amena off on the way. In spite of having gotten home so early, our options were limited by fuel in the van (there wasn’t much) and when Joanna needed to be picked up. Paul was going to get cement also but decided not to. We ended up at SS Lobster again. I had haddock au gratin which was very good. The only problem is that yesterday and the day before, I do fine if I only eat toast or peaches and drink milk and water. The food was very good and the French fries last night were superb. I don’t usually like French fries that much but if they were always the way they were last night, I love them. Anyway, it wasn’t long before my intestines started complaining and I’m glad Joanna needed to be picked up when she did because as soon as we got home, I needed to use the bathroom.

Today was pretty much more of the same. We canned more peaches and ended up with a combined total of 42 quarts for the two days. I think it divides up to 25 today and 21 yesterday. Also today I wanted to get some spaghetti sauce done. We are going to end up with 13 jars of that. These jars aren’t quarts, they’re smaller. If you are familiar with Classico spaghetti sauces, they come in Mason jars which I keep because they can be used for canning (hmmm, odd, that). I thought it would be appropriate to put spaghetti sauce in spaghetti sauce jars.

Between boxes of peaches today, I went to pick Amena up from the West’s. She wanted to stay an hour longer but it was get picked up now or never so I went. I had some peaches in the canner at the time and forgot to tell Laura to turn them off when it was time so they were boiling the whole time I was gone. Hopefully they aren’t too mushy. I wanted to stop at Walmart so I could get all the rest of the regular lids they might have because if I get more peaches or if we get more cucumbers or enough more tomatoes, we’ll need more lids. I thought I’d stop at Hannaford first. They had lots of lids but cost about twice as much as Walmart. I got six dozen anyway. When I got to Walmart, I was glad I’d gotten what I had at Hannaford because there was only one dozen left. I ended up getting two boxes of rings and lids of both regular and wide mouth though as well.

I have some pictures of our canning and baking activities but will wait until tomorrow afternoon to post them as they are still on the camera and I don’t feel like getting them off. There will be some birthday pictures as well since we’re having Joseph’s birthday party tomorrow after church. Currently, everyone is in bed. Probably not all asleep but at least in bed. The sauce in the canner now has ten minutes to go. Once it’s out and I put the rest in, I’ll have a 40 minute wait while the second batch processes. If there was room in a refrigerator, I’d’ve put the whole pot of sauce in and waited until Monday to finish but there wasn’t room so I figured it would be just as well to get it out of the way tonight even if it is tomorrow before it’s all actually done.

This evening, Laura, Amena, Cedric, Seth, Joseph and I went to the wedding reception for Oliver and Soye Carmack. Soye is from South Korea. Her parents and a sister were here for the wedding. I think she said her parents hadn’t been outside Korea until now so what an experience. Very nice family. It was fun to go and was a nice break from the canning.

A couple of days ago, someone suggested becoming a professional blogger. At first, the idea sounded kind of strange. A professional blogger? Me? What on earth could I write about that would be interesting enough that would make people want to keep coming back? I don’t know. Maybe what I write is entertaining enough that people would like reading it, I don’t know. I just write about my days. What do you all think?

Have a wonderful night, what little there is left, and an even better tomorrow.