Where my mind roams

We bought a 20 lb flat of peaches a few weeks ago, I love peaches!  Absolutely my favourite fruit.  Up until we moved to this area I'd never had fruit trees in my yard, I mean there was always a crab apple tree at my grandparents place but I was never a huge fan of that fruit.  After we bought this house and realized we had both a peach and a plum tree in the backyard I was so happy and for the first 4 or 5 years they both yielded tons of healthy delicious fruit.  One summer the peach tree's leaves started to curl up and die...shortly after so did our tree.  We tried to save it and did the fertilizing in the fall and spring but nothing helped.   Since then we have looked to the local fruit farms to get our summer peach fix.

For the last few years I have been making jam with the peaches and usually I have good luck but I find I am not the best at being the most exact for following the recipes directly which comes back to bite me in my lazy corner cutting butt.  Sometimes too thick, sometimes weird off putting taste (vanilla added in at cooking time) bad idea.  This year it looks like I am going to have runny jam...time will tell, another 24-48 hours and things might thicken up (fingers crossed).  The few times when things have gone well its been pretty tasty jam no doubt.  I guess I wouldn't have been much of a wife back in the pioneer days.  Canning really isn't my forte but making cute jar labels is :) Gotta focus on the positives

Never was a cool kid

After a long absence from my blog, I pretty much forgot that this was still here.  I just kind of stumbled across a link on my laptop that I hadn't seen in awhile and went in for a look.  After I posted I went about researching where everyone who used to blog and create pixel sigs and cute animated gifs had gone.  I found out that blogging is a bust and no one is doing it anymore.  In its place are foodies and DIYers filling their websites with info and how to do this or bake that and in return are sponsored or funded.  It made me sad to think I had missed out on the knowledge of where all those wonderful creative ladies had gone after leaving their websites and forums that once were full of beautiful graphics and doll bases and primitive country gifs that were shared and happily gifted to others.

So blogging is a thing of the past now and yet here I am typing out my thoughts and sharing with an internet full of people who will never see it and that's okay because I don't do it for them or the sponsors or the accolades of an adoring social media hype.  I am here because to me some things should never change, blogging is still me and if I only do it for myself and to use the lovely sig tags that I have gathered over the years as gifts from creative beautiful people, then that is enough.

Lost thoughts

My mum passed away this spring from a devastating stroke.  We weren't expecting it, we weren't prepared for it and we certainly weren't ready for the final outcome.  

I miss her and I talk to her and I look for her in my everyday life, hoping for a glimpse that she is happy and that she still is near somehow.  Every year in late April the hummingbirds arrive at my window announcing that they are looking for some juice, they are like clockwork.  This year April came and went, then May, then June was here and I was still watching and waiting for them to arrive, I had the sugar water in the fridge all ready to go.  Finally the day came when a lone hummingbird appeared at my kitchen window to give me the thumbs up that they were back.  To me the hummingbirds will always symbolize my mum.  I know that she sent them to me...  

Grief is an unyielding opponent, it is always lurking, it waits in the corners of our hearts and strikes when we think we are doing ok but it has other plans to show us otherwise.  I am pretty sure I will never really be ok again without her, I will only just be.  There is no getting over the loss of a parent there is only passing through it and hoping we come out stronger on the other side.

 In memory of Mom 

November 1937 - May 2019