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

Craft Bug

There was a time many moons ago when I was a certifiable craftaholic.  I tried my hand at pretty much everything I could and especially the ones my friends were doing.  So the spectrum was wide and all encompassing, unfortunately I wasn't exactly gifted at really any of it.  I did however really take a liking to woodworking and folk art painting on wood pieces.  I spent lots of time and money buying crafty books, acrylic paints and pre-cut pieces to decorate and hang around the house but all that came to a smashing stop once I started having children.  Crafting took a backseat to baby time and stayed in the backseat, firmly locked in and soundly sleeping, until just recently.  Now that my kids are 15 & 13 I am feeling that old pull of wanting to create again, to pull out that tote full of paints and brushes, crafty books and long forgotten patterns and see where things go.

I am sadly behind the times with all the modern moms and their own domain name crafty/foodie/do everything websites but I figure its time for me to enter back into the big bad internet world and learn a few new tricks.  I am drawn to all the wonderful sites out there with scores and scores of recipes/crafts and diy ideas, I could and do lose hours sitting in front of my monitor oohing and awwing at all the creativity that is shared so freely and that is when I think to myself "she made that look so easy even I could do it".  And so here I sit trying to creatively blog out my thoughts and hope that one day I too will inspire other surfers to say "if she can do that so can I".

Sunshine, soccer and company

With summer comes all the fun and chaos of doing too much in quick spurts of time...example...Canada Day long weekend was spent at the soccer field in Kelowna with both kids on two different teams in the tournament.  That saw Greg and I driving in different directions with one kid in tow.

Once we were home again we unpacked, washed clothes then repacked for the kids to head out to staff training at camp where they stayed for about 3 days, then home again, unpack, wash, repack and off to the lake to stay with friends at their cabin, which was amazing for those two sun filled, water soaked days...

Then it was home again in time to clean the house, wash clothes and get ready for Greg's sister and family's visit.  This was nice, it was more downtime then we had had in a few weeks, I also took this time to try a new recipe that I found on Pinterest...huge huge hit with everyone from 8 yr old niece to 40 something adults:  I found the recipe here along with all the skookum pictures that every mom foodie on the net does but that I don't have the energy or patience to do...

Chunky Monkey Brownies

Prep time 15 mins

Cook time 30 mins

Total time 45 mins

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 ½ cups brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup white sugar
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• ½ cup banana, mashed with a fork (about one medium-large banana)
• 12-oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ¼ cup chocolate chips for the top

Instructions

1. Mix butter, eggs, sugars, salt and vanilla with mixer until well combined.
2. Add flour, mashed banana and chocolate chips.
3. Stir to combine.
4. Spray a 9x13” glass baking dish with cooking spray.
5. Spread brownie mixture into prepared pan.
6. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula.
7. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top.
8. Bake at 350° for 30-40 minutes just until lightly golden brown, and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
9. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Enjoy...

Photography newbies

Greg and I finally managed to agree to purchase a better camera for the family.  Our daughter has been showing interest in photography and we thought now was as good a time as any to see where this will take us.  So far we have taken lots of photos of both kids playing soccer and a few nature shots.  All in all I am pretty pleased with our new camera.  Easy to use and easy to download onto the laptop.  It's a Canon Rebel t5i 

 I'm amazed at how well it does with action shots too, guess I was fooling myself for all these years thinking that my iPhone pictures were good enough...

Cleaning House book review

I was supposed to have reviewed this book quite awhile ago but somehow it got pushed off to the side and piled under life and ultimately sat forgotten for far too long.  So at long last here is my review:

Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement 

by Kay Wills Wyma,

The idea behind the book interested me, taking a year to teach your children how to do chores and in turn learn to help others rather than doing everything only for your benefit.
Not exactly sure if I agreed with this author's view on exactly every point she touched on but I did appreciate her lessons on life that she was trying to teach her children.

I also picked up some good techniques to use in my own home such as the chore charts.  Anytime we can teach our children to be responsible human beings through love and worship I am on board.