A Little Romance

Hubby and I got our eternity tattoos in May 2011 as a renewal of our commitment to each other after 11 years together.  We've been married 12 years now, together 14.  We've been through many ups and downs in our marriage, but I think the thing that works for us, and has kept us together even through the big-bad-awful-stuff is that we are both in it for the long haul. That is what these tattoos mean to us.  Always.  Forever.  Never giving up.

I can truly say that I have never been happier in my marriage than I am right now.  I wholly and completely love this man.  He is my best friend, my confidant, my comfort, my happy place.  He keeps me grounded, and balances me out in all the areas that I am lacking.  We make a good team, and know how to talk to each other to work through things after 14 years together.  We have a type of rhythm between us that just works.

We tend to be a bit non-traditional when it comes to how we show our affection to each other.  Flowers don't usually come into play, especially because they cost so much, and we're both trying so hard to be budget conscious these days.  Still, hubby has a way of surprising me sometimes.  He brought these home to me the other day after working at a teacher's luncheon where there were extra unclaimed bouquets leftover at the end.  He made a point to ask if he could bring some to his wife.  He thought of me.  He thought of my smile when I would receive them. He made a point to bring a little romance into our otherwise practical and hectic lives.  

Those are the moments I hold on to and treasure, and those are the things that keep me smiling long after the flowers fade.

Welcome Autumn

This is the last bit of sunlight that summer had to offer this year.  Hubby and I were lucky enough to soak it in while we went camping, just the two of us on the eve of the Autumn Equinox.

We are so lucky to live in this amazing place, surrounded by the world's largest Ponderosa Pine forest.  I can't think of a better way to welcome Autumn than out in nature, surrounded by our favorite sights and smells.

With the massive amounts of rain we have had this summer the forest floor was lush with all kinds of amazing green things.  I couldn't help but dip my toes in.

20 lbs of Tomatoes

Not quite ripe, but lots of possibility.  Any ideas?

Finding Fall

Anna and I went on an adventure to welcome in the new season.  First we stopped at the farmer's market to pick up some fresh fall produce from local vendors.  After that we went to our city's downtown square to hunt around for the biggest, brightest leaves we could find.

One thing that is glaringly and amazingly obvious to me is how much she changes with each new season.  I love watching as my little girl grows and develops into an incredible human being right before my very eyes.  She has a huge heart and a brilliant mind, and teaches me new things every day.

How did I ever get so lucky to be able to call her my daughter?

Our Life in Produce - 9/22

I am a bit late in posting this due to my crazy work schedule the past 2 weeks.  Still, here's a brief rundown of what types of fruits and veggies have made their way into our home in the past week.

(I'm sorry for the terrible picture - my camera wasn't working right Sat. afternoon)

Anna and I made a trip to the Farmer's Market in Prescott.  I was amazed at how many different vendors there were, and the variety available!  We came home with about $30 worth of produce.  Included in our haul were 4 different kinds of tomatoes (all the little ones have become snacking tomatoes, which I am SO thrilled with - yummm). I got 5 onions, 6 sweet chiles, 3 banana peppers, a bag of tomatillos, a pumpkin for Anna to decorate for fall, and a bag of apples that Anna had been munching non stop all day.

This week from the co-op we got a bunch of bananas, 4 sweet potatoes, 2 lbs of black grapes, a huge bunch of collard greens, two bags of carrots, 7 limes, 8 big slicing tomatoes, 4 huge cucumbers, 2 small zucchini, 5 red apples, and 4 red pears. Not bad for $15!

So What Happened to the Pears?

I made Belgian Pears of course!

I wound up giving away about half of the pears we had left.  They were just too good not to share.  What was still in the box desperately needed to be used, so I spent some time yesterday making Belgian Pears.  I'm not sure why they're "Belgian" (apparently the recipe has nothing to do with being Belgian), but we'll go with it.

I was surprised at how easy it was to make these, and how truly yummy they are.  The vinegar and sugar just helped to highlight the flavor of the pears.  The syrup is wonderful by itself too, drizzled over ice cream.  Next time I may add a little something extra to flavor them.  I'm thinking possibly some vanilla, or caramel flavoring. 

To make them, I used 4-1/2 lbs of pears, 2-1/3 cups apple cider vinegar, and 4 cups sugar.  I peeled and cored the pears (though the original recipe said you didn't need to).  Then I mixed together the vinegar and sugar until the sugar was dissolved.  I then put everything into a big pan and simmered it together 3 hours with the lid on.  I then simmered it all for 3 more hours with the lid off (for a total of 6 hours).  After that was all cooked down, I put the pears into clean jars and covered them with the remaining liquid, leaving a 1" head space.  I processed for 12 minutes at 8 lbs pressure.

I love how pretty they look, and how truly delicious they are!  It will be wonderful to bite into these when winter comes and it becomes more difficult to find fresh fruit.

Pear Butter

 

I found this amazing Rival Crock Pot Roaster at an estate sale 50% off for a total cost of $4.  It came at just the right time, since the big pot I usually use for cooking down large batches of things bit the dust.  Somehow the bottom of my pot separated from the sides while I was cooking, and it didn't make it out alive.  I love my new roaster, though!  It doesn't heat up the house, it uses less energy than cooking on the stove-top, and I don't have to babysit it all the time.

 12 lbs of pears went into this batch of pear butter. Total of 11 and a half pints made their way through my new-to-me crock pot roaster this weekend.  I love the way the house smelled so cozy and fall-ish with the pears cooking down for 36 hours at about 200* with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger (no sugar added to keep them healthy).  I processed the jars at 8 lbs pressure for 10 minutes in my pressure canner.

Now what to do with the remaining 20 lbs of pears? It is a good problem to have!

Zucchini Relish

6 pints of zucchini relish, and it only used 3 zucchini!!

I used this recipe to make the relish, and was thrilled with how it came out.  It tastes exactly like sweet pickle relish!  I heard that the zucchini keeps the texture better than cucumbers do, so it will still taste as fresh as the day I made it when I open those jars up this winter. 

Because the zucchini was a gift from a neighbor I am going to bring him a jar of the relish as a thank-you.

This Week in Produce

This week's basket from our co-op was a little bit less exciting than normal, but I am still amazed at the bounty. We have a lot to use up this week, and I will have a lot of fun being creative with the fruits and veggies! We got an english cucumber (thinking refrigerator pickles), 2 heads of broccoli, a head of lettuce, a bag of carrots, a personal watermelon, 4 white potatoes, 2 green peppers, 6 nectarines, 6 green apples, 4 oranges, a bunch of green bananas, and a huge batch of radishes. 

We have a quite a bit of produce leftover from last week to use up as well, and a few things I picked up with vouchers at the grocery store. Plenty to work with! We have a bag of red potatoes, half a bag of white potatoes, a green pepper, 6 zucchini, a pound of green grapes, a pound of red grapes, a package of oyster mushrooms, a package of button mushrooms, 2 packages of blackberries, 12 ears of corn, 1 orange, and 5 tomatoes.

In addition to all of that, we took advantage of another amazing co-op deal and ordered 8 lbs of strawberries to put up for the winter.  2 lbs will be yummy fresh snacks for our family.  The rest will be made into various kinds of delicious jams.  Yum!

Brought to You by the Letter R

The holidays are sneaking up on us so very quickly, and while the idea of crisp cool weather, warm woolen socks, the smell of fireplaces, and baked goods all sounds wonderful, I am also completely freaking out about how busy things are going to be.  I won't bore you with the detailed list, but suffice it to say there are 13 birthdays between now and then in our close family and friends (not including any that the kids are invited to from school), our baby is going to be born, plus we have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

Holy Moses.

With that in mind, I have been working like a fool trying to get things made up early so that I will be prepared when the time comes for all of these happy events.  I am also trying to do this without breaking the bank.  Not always easy. 

My first goal was to do all of this with stuff we have on hand.  While that is probably very possible with my shameful and immense craft supply collection, the truth is that I can't find it all because it is in storage right now.  So, I am having to be a little more creative and bend a bit on the "free birthdays and holidays" goal. 

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a bunch of their paper mache' letters when they were on sale 50% off.  That made them a whopping $1.24 each.  (You can find them on their website here). I then sat down with Anna and handed her a bottle of school glue that we'd bought in bulk back when the stores had their 10/$1 sale.  She made all kinds of cool squiggles and dots all over the place on the letters, which was perfect.  After that we just let it dry and came back the next day to paint it a pretty cream color with basic acrylic paint we had on hand.  I let Anna do that too, and she did a great job.  The paint crackled just a bit around the glue, which made it look old-worldy and perfect.  After that was dry I grabbed a wipey and dabbed it in a drop of brown and black paint and basically wiped down the letter, which made it look aged and hilighted the impressions of the glue.

Here's our final result:

All in all, not a bad gift for $1.25, and Anna loved having a hand in things.  Bonus, she did it at the kitchen table, so I was able to fiddle around in the kitchen canning things while she worked on the project.  We will make sure that when we give the gifts this year they say that they are from her specifically.  She is over the moon about that, and hopefully our friends and family will be happy too.

Pin Curls

Suffice it to say that the summer heat and humidity has had me less than thrilled to do anything with my hair besides throw it into a messy bun.  While that works for days I spend canning at home or hanging out with friends who love me anyway, the truth is I really should do something a bit more exciting for work.  I'm sure my husband would get a kick out of some pizazz when we go out too.

I tend to be a "have your cake and eat it too" kinda girl. (I mean really, who doesn't eat their cake?  I worry.)  I want something low-maintenance, pretty, and something that won't damage my hair as I continue to grow it out.  

I tried out pin curls last night, and was surprised that they were very easy to sleep on using this tutorial. About 10 minutes after my shower I started to put them in, and really it took less than 15 minutes to do the whole thing.  That is actually less time than it takes for me to do it with my curling iron.  Bonus is that with this technique there is no heat involved to damage my hair, or to burn curious 6 year olds who can't remember that I told them the curling iron was crazy hot less than 5 minutes ago.

The only downside is that the pin-curls-in look really isn't as charming as one would hope.  I think I scared my husband just a wee bit.  The good news is that it is totally worth it (if not for the funny expression on hubby's face, then for the hair).

 

 This picture shows what my hair looked like after I had done nothing but take the pins out and let it rest for about an hour.  I didn't use gel this time just to get a baseline of how my hair would hold the curl without it, but I may use a little bit next time to tame the frizz monster (thank you monsoon season).  Please ignore the mutant curl by the left side of my face.  Bobby pins saved me with that one, and I will just ignore my growing-out bangs from now on when I put the pin curls in.  Note to self: shorter hair curls waaaaay up.  For the normal portion of my hair, I love how soft and bouncy the curls were, and that they loosened just enough around my crown area to look more natural.  My hair is normally a bit past the middle of my back, so you can see how the curls will definitely shorten the length a bit, but I'm cool with that.

Since this is a style I am planning on doing on a regular basis, I wanted to try out a variation that I can wear to work or on a date with hubby, and look a bit more put together.  I did sort of a French-roll starting on the right side of my head, and kept it going around the back, and then put it all in a low pony on the left side, letting the curls cascade down.  I pinned back my growing-out bangs to keep them out of the way too (and to hide the mutant curl by my forehead).  The whole thing took me less than a minute to put up, and I would feel comfortable going into meetings, or out to a nice dinner with this style. 

Let me know if you give it a try! 

Food Challenge - Week of 9/8

Here's a picture of this week's co-op box!

Included are 2 leeks (YAY!!), 4 peaches, a bunch of golden potatoes, 4 plums, 6 vine tomatoes, broccoli, 4 oranges, a bundle of bananas, a head of lettuce, green grapes, and 4 ears of corn.

 We also got 38 lbs of pears!  I have about half of these cooking at the moment.  Check back to see what they turn into!

 

 In addition  to all of the goodies we got from the co-op today, we have some more fruits and veggies to eat up.  Shown (and not shown) are: a bag of red potatoes, a bag of idaho potatoes, 2 yellow squash, 3 peaches, 2 green peppers, 1 red pepper, 1 avocado, 4 grapefruit, 1 asian pear, 4 plums, 6 yellow onions, gobs of zucchini, 8 ears of corn, champaigne grapes, black grapes, and a flat of strawberries.

I can't wait to see what all of this bounty turns into!  Check back to see what is on the menu!

Barefoot and Pregnant

31 Weeks Pregnant.

I can still see my toes.  This is a good sign, I suppose!  I can definitely feel our little man moving around like crazy almost all the time.  You can even see my tummy jump when he kicks and wiggles around.  Kevin likes to play games with him while I'm sleeping, poking my tummy gently and waiting for him to poke back.  These precious moments and days go by so quickly, and I am trying so hard to soak it all in. 

Fruit and Veggies Challenge

Food has a big impact on our lives here at the Rose household.  I do my best to cook from scratch when I can, stock up, and live frugally.  I also try to not waste anything, which can sometimes be a fun challenge to keep up with what we've bought.  

I have recently challenged myself and several of my friends to commit to using up all of the fruits and vegetables that make their way into their home.  In addition to that challenge, I have committed to buying a basket from Bountiful Baskets each week.  Sometimes I even buy extra fruit and veggie goodies from them, like the24 lbs of  peaches I got last week.

Aren't they beautiful?

The point of this challenge is to:

1. Keep our grocery bill low, while remaining focused on healthy foods.
2. Increase our intake of fruits and vegetables.
3. Try new things each week.

In addition to regular blogging and crafty stuff, I am going to commit to sharing on here the many ways I succeed and fail at this challenge.  I hope you'll join me and do your own version of the fruit and veggie challenge!  

Here are some goodies from this week's haul of peaches that I have been putting up in pretty jars. 

 

10.5 Pints of Peach Salsa

3 Pints of Cherry-Peach Conserve

7 Pints of Caramel-Peach Conserve