Fall....cleaning and festivals

September is sliding off and October is just waiting to hit the ground running.  I love the Fall...the colors, aromas, beautiful sunrises and sunsets and there are festivals galore where you can find everything from homemade apple butter to the next new crochet fashion.  I've always wanted to participate as a vendor at some of these festivals but the time it takes to make or gather up stock to sell and then the packing, unpacking and repacking have always pushed me toward just looking and not selling.  Maybe next year will be my "set up shop" year. 

I have been making all sorts of crochet items and am ready to start on a few quilted pieces.  Piecing and quilting items have always intimidated me but over the last year I have actually put together an entire quilt top.  Haven't quilted it yet but at least I am learning the basics.  Thank goodness for the Internet to use as an always available tutor and trouble shooter.  I had no idea where to find fabric wide enough for backings but a YouTube video showed me how to make a pieced one that didn't reek of "klutzy". 

The garden is pretty much done for.....what a relief.  The tomatoes plants are still pumping out fruit but to be honest I am about tomatoed out.  And, the old Brussels Sprouts have finally produced a very nice crop and will last well into the frost season.  The rest of the ground is cleared and ready to a final tilling.

My pantry shelves are filled with canned asparagus, beets, turnips, peas, green beans, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, jams (7 different kinds), peaches, apples, cherries and lastly,  beautiful quarts of canned potatoes.  Now if you have never eaten HOME canned potatoes they are a treat and vastly different from the metallic tasting rock-like ones you buy in the market.  Pressure canned potatoes retain both the texture and garden fresh flavor that summer imparts to those veggies.  I slice them for a quick frying or boil them a bit to soften for mashers.  They are great in stews, soups and casseroles and I have been known to just open a can and eat them cold with a touch of salt and pepper.  Yep, I am definitely a tater person.

Reluctantly I have begun Fall cleaning.  There are 24 windows to wash in our old house so I have to start in September to finish by the end of October.  Farmers are harvesting all around us so the dust is constantly swirling.  The first year we lived in this old Money Pit I decided to wait until after harvest before laying the first cloth to my windows.  Well, harvest rolled right on into late November and by the time they were done, snow was covering the ground.  Never got the first lick of vinegar solution on those windows.....ugh.....filmy, dusting, dirty windows to look through all winter long.  Lesson learned.

Also, I've been moving furniture around and chasing dust bunnies from corner to corner.  My gracious, those little dudes are fast.  Have one of the three upstairs rooms done and have a start on the second.  My studio will be the last room I tackle.  There are still cards to make and yarn to crochet/knit up so cleaning that room will be a hit and miss proposition.  Then I shift to the downstairs.

One of the best things about being retired is that I can make my own schedules and prioritize however I want.  Somedays I simply don't feel all that productive and other days I am a distant cousin of the energizer bunny (very distant).  Being your own boss is such a liberating thing.  Monetary compensation is a tad lacking but the emotional rewards pretty much make up for that.

Like now, I think it's time for just a little porch sitting.  The weather is grand and beautiful today.  Soon it will be too cold to enjoy the outdoor porch but then I will step on into my free standing library and watch the sun rise from behind the big old picture window.  Ain't it great to be retired.

Till next time.

Both the summer and this old lady is on the downhill side of 2012.  Whew....what a season this has been.  Hot, Hot, and more Hot were the order of the weatherman and NO RAIN for two months.  Of course this had to be the year I decided to get back into gardening.....Geez Oh Peets. 

Well, I did start the spring off with a few forays into "dehoarding" from both the library and the studio.  It's always so tough to pitch out books.  But, after trying to find places for the first 1000, the idea of tossing out the whole lot surfaced more than once...rolling eyes.  However, I restrained from wholesale trashing and began what appears to be a long process of "pitch and keep".  Over 400 cookbooks, craft, manuals, reference, novels, gardening and religion related books "left the building" back in March and April.  Then the canning season began and thus the clearing out ceased.

I wonder how many people grew up in a household where canning was an every summer occurrence.  My grandmother and my mother both canned jars and jars of produce each year.  I am an on again and off again canning participant.  This is an "on" year and so far my shelves have gained over 140 jars of fruits and veggies with more to come.  I honestly can't see throwing food away or letting it rot on the ground so what is not eaten is stuffed in a jar for future consumption.   I don't really feel that canning is difficult just tiresome.  The rewards are that the number of jars directly correlates to the reduction of grocery dollars spent.  Guess that's a good tradeoff but at my age I find my energy levels don't keep up as well with the demands of a garden....sigh.  Oh well, I will reevaluate the garden issue next year.  This year is already set and rolling right a long.  I still have potatoes, carrots, apples, onions and tomatoes to deal with.   I think it's going to be a very long fall.

A time to plan

Well, here it is 2012 and it's time to make a plan. I have always been a planner so this is not a new tack for me but it is hard to make that "direction" decision. All my life I have been a moderate hoarder due primarily to my crafting. The time has come to move forward past the "hoarding" and choose where my new path will lead. My hobbies are many: crochet, rubber stamping, sewing, quilting, beading, reading, penpalling, cooking, embroidery and x-stitching. With so many hand crafting interests my supply stash has become totally unmanageable. It's time to downsize but how do I decide what???? Finding a balance between tossing and keeping is my first problem. So where do I go from here?

Just acknowledging my dilemma is the first step. I will think on this and work toward my "next step".