Oh, Grapes!

It all began Saturday morning. I went to Lance's parents house with the kiddies to pick muscadine grapes, they are yummy and make great jelly. The japanes hornets kept me company till Sandy came and we picked together. Two hours later I had 7 walmart bags about half full, 9 hours that afternoon and evening produced 7 gallons of juice (and 6 quarts of canned tomatoes, had to be done). It is now Tuesday moring and I am still working on jelly. Here is what has come of this so far:

First batch burned due to leaving for a moment

6 quarts of "not sure it is set right" jelly

A lot of stickiness

And the following is stained grape: the kitchen sink, my fingertips, my pot that I use to cook everything, many towels, and Christie's jelly bag.



Despite some minor set backs, I do enjoy canning. (I would love it if my jelly sets the way it is supposed to.) My weekness is feeling that I am doing this less affectively. If this jelly does not set, I am going to be canning grape juice instead. Either will be happily consumed by all.



Hope just keeps asking me what I am doing. And William keeps going into the fridge saying,"Boo", which means juice, our fridge is FULL of it. We have to venture in to the attic this morning for more canning jars, happy hunting.

Just Another Day

I want to post more often and I haven't really let many people know I have a blog yet. Today is one of those days that I start out with high ambitions and at the end feel like I haven't accomplished anything. Well, it is only lunch time. We are cleaning out the attic and going through clothes and prepareing to can tomatoes and grape jelly and cleaning up after all our messes. The kids are watching "The Polar Express" for the hundreth time. Hope loves Christmas and William loves trains, so what a perfect fit.

Lance and I found out that we are having a boy. The due date has moved up to January 13th. Sorry Maya, we really didn't plan it that way. Lance is thrilled, as is his Dad. I am just excited to have another little baby, I love my babies. Hope and William are getting big so fast.

We went to the fair last night and had a blast. The kids rode a bunch of rides. Hope gets pretty adventurous when she is out with her cousin Jacob. She is actually just tall enough to ride a few more thngs than he can. I drew the line at the "go way up and fall straight down" thing that she was about to get on with Sammy, Jacob's favorite neighbor / playmate. We watched pig races, fed the animals, Hope rode a horse, and William and I went on a hay ride. they both won some ribbons this year, thanks to Papa's garden. Hope made chocolate chip cookies and won second place, I figured she had to make something she liked and could make with a little help. She loves to make cookies, and eat cookies. I won first place for apple pie. It is the yummiest recipe.

I may put some pictures on soon.

Beautiful Article

I found this artilce on another blog I read. It made me cry. I printed one for Lance to read before I put it in my journal.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/homestyle/08/21/rs.words.feel.beautiful/index.html

I do want to add pictures, I'm working on it.

j

So New To This

I am not one to blog. I love to read them, but never tried it out before. I am in the middle of cleaning off the desk and heading out the door to go swimming, so this is short and sweet. time to go soak up some sun.

J