I love Thanksgiving.

I’m not much of a holiday person in a lot of ways – I hate the hustle and bustle and commercialism of most of the season in general. I don’t like forced cheerfulness or insincere wishes from people who don’t have any time for me the rest of the year.

But I do like the natural warmth that happens when it’s cold outside and there’s food cooking, friends and family laughing, toasts being made and prayers being said, all while the wind whips up it’s fierceness around a cocoon of love and fellowship.

I try hard to be thankful every single day for my health, the health of my family, my friends and my friends’ families. I’m thankful on almost a daily basis – especially with our current economy – that Jim and I have good and steady jobs, a roof over our head, food on our table, dependable vehicles, good health, pets we’ve been blessed to have grace us with their presence, family that love and care about us and a plethora of friends who we’re blessed to know.

But this time of year makes me reflect a little more, focus a little harder. Do I get a little crazy over my Thanksgiving Day dinner? Yes. Does anyone who joins us on Thanksgiving really care that there’s a little dust on top of my refrigerator or a stray dust bunny under my sofa? Probably not. But I get a little crazy nonetheless.

Candles, cloth napkins, colorful glassware, water with fresh lemon slices, tablecloth, appetizers, plenty to drink…It’s the details that I stress over and yet, somehow, every year  I pull it off. And every year I ask myself: Is any of this really important? No. What’s important is the joining, the laughter, the love.

Shopping, cleaning, scrubbing, filling, prepping, cooking, washing, lighting…I do it all not just to make it special for me, but to make it special for everyone I love and care about.

Am I alone in this ritual? Not at all. All across America, I am part of the sister and brotherhood that take it upon themselves to bring the people we care about together and make this day extra special.

But really, what makes Thanksgiving Day special is the people we love.

Many blessings and much love to everyone this entire holiday season. If you are not here at my table, you are still in my thoughts and prayers.

Here’s my morning so far: made bed, coffee, internet news, email, Facebook, more coffee, dishes, Tilly’s medicine, editing and posting of flower photos that I took last month. Here’s a good one:

Squirrels and chipmunks are going crazy in our yard, gathering their nuts and whatever else they gather for the winter. I throw tortilla chips out for them sometimes and we’ve actually seen squirrels burying them. “I’m sorry Mr. Squirrel, but tortilla chips are not known for their long lasting winter storage. You may want to go ahead and just eat them now”

At least the sun is out…free heat day with our wall-o-windows.

Sunshine and heat makes me sleeeeeeeepy.

Let the lower veggie garden go at the last frost. We’ve definitely harvested and saved as much as we can of the tomatoes, tomatillos and eggplants. Squash, okra and cukes came up a month ago, so we’re down to the peppers, brussels sprouts, beans, black beans, Swiss chard, onions and artichokes. Loving that we still have cherry peppers turning red, as everyone looks forward to them stuffed with prosciutto and provolone at the holidays. We have poblano’s and anaheim’s coming out of our ears but we’ll figure it out…we always do.

I still have herbs to dry and cannas to dig up; maybe next weekend, eh? We finally got the other apartment in our rental occupied and that’s a huge stress reliever. I’m looking forward to doing some inside projects this winter, such as painting and decorating. Jim’s uncle gave us a gorgeous desk that I’m looking forward to updating with some new hardware and a maybe refinishing.

Got to go to our annual Chicago Bears game last weekend and the Bears beat Carolina in a pretty great game. Devin Hester is just an amazing athlete to watch and, aside from the other season-ticket holder jackasses behind us, we had a lot of fun. Chad and Sarah came along and experienced their first Bears game, so that made the day that much more special. Lots of laughs, lots of expensive stadium food made the long day well worth it.

And on to the “other thought’s” segment of this post.

Much unnecessary drama unfolded on Facebook last month. How and when Facebook became the place to air all of your dirty laundry and insecurities is beyond me but that’s what happened. I’m not going to lie – I “friended” someone I shouldn’t have; someone I didn’t even know but was a friend of a friend that had sent me a friend request and I did what I don’t normally do and accepted it.

Suddenly I was privy this very insecure persons’ every thought and action.

It started out with a message: My friend would love it if I called them (my real friend).

My response: My friend knows how to get a hold of me and  if they want to call me, they will; my (real) friend and I were in continued communication and I don’t need someone I don’t even know telling me that I need to call my friend. This original message reeked of someone who likes to control things and act like they are privy to the nuances of something that they’re not. Not a great way to make me like you. This already smells like teen spirit and I left high school behind a long time ago.

To make a long, boring story shorter, this person decided that an eventual knock to them on their wall was akin to treason and freaked the hell out. Suddenly every post from them was about how they’d been “attacked” and “assaulted” and each of these posts became a rallying cry for help and assistance and back up. They were a good person, weren’t they? They were a misunderstood artist! (of what type of art is still in question. Unemployment?) They were soulful and deep! They were not *gasp* transparent, were they?

Yes. Clearly and utterly transparent.

I could throw all of this under the rug if, in the midst of this, they didn’t decide to throw my real friend under the bus.

Under a bus filled with friends of both of theirs and some of her family members, including her children.

And it continued to happen, even after I “unfriended” this person…screeching, banshee-like, plaintive wails of how they’d been wronged. Pushing the blame on others – including my friend, on alcohol, on the complete wrongness of the gods of the universe.

Telling notes: when you have over 300 friends on your Fakebook page and only a handful come to your defense…you really don’t have a lot of true friends.

And you don’t come off as any sort of artist, you just come off as someone very insecure about who they are and who is as transparent as the day is long.

Once again, Fakebook strikes and strikes hard. Sad that some people don’t understand the repercussions of the permanency of a simple post.

But today the sun is warm, the earth is warming and the world spins on. High school is far behind me and I’m blessed to know that I do have real friends that respect me.

Much peace to everyone.

And then there’s a great clip on a cheesehead.

When all else fails, I can always count on The Onion Sports for a great laugh.

Are you ready for some football?

Well, it went to gardening and canning and helping with garage sales. It went to kicking out some tenants out and then trying to get an apartment in my duplex rented. It went to a little bit of relaxing and a nap or two in the hammock. It was a busy summer but a fun one and I can’t believe it’s September already.

I canned some salsa and some more zucchini relish and pickles last weekend. I can’t believe how well our cucumbers did this year. We’re also growing these really cool Asian green beans for the first time that I’ll have to post a picture of in the next week or two. They’re really long and skinny and taste delicious.

It’s also been great to get together with some old friends this summer. Again, it’s amazing how fast the time goes by.

Now it’s almost sweater season: Boo! and football season: Yay! and soon it will be snowing: Boo! But we have tickets again to a Bears game this year: Yay!

This weekend is our wedding anniversary. 2 years married and almost 9 years together. Jim and I truly are amazing together, if I do say so myself. We make a great team and still share an extremely twisted sense of humor. I love him to death and know he feels the same about me, so happy anniversary to us.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday weekend.

Peace.

So many veggies, so little time…

Our cukes and squash are just going nuts I tell ya! In the last few weeks I’ve made 2 batches of triple dills using this recipe and some pickled zucchini using my own recipe. (Still using the same basic canning principles as the triple dills). I made the triple dills last year for the first time and was really pleased with the way they turned out. This year I added even more dill and garlic though, as I felt they needed it. Still, the Coconut and Lime recipe was the base and inspiration and one I highly recommend if you’re trying your hand at canning dill pickles.

I also started making pickled zucchini just last year and we love ‘em in Bloody Mary’s, so I made some again this year.

Canning vegetables is a precise science, especially if you’re concerned about not poisoning yourself, your family and your friends, which I am. Sterilization and salt or acid levels have to be high enough to stop those little germ buggers from ruining an entire butt-load of veggies.

Today (well, officially starting yesterday since these involve brining to remove excess moisture and ensure crispness) I’m attempting my first round of hot zucchini relish and my second attempt at bread and butter pickles. My first attempt at bread and butters was years ago, so we’ll see if I can do ‘em again.

I’ll also be shredding some fresh zucchini today to freeze for making zucchini bread this winter. Too hot right now to be firing up the oven and maybe not as exciting as shredding some waves but fun for me, nonetheless.

Do you really have any idea how many squash one freaking plant can turn out? I can assure you, it’s a lot. Every day there are more and more to pick, like God gets the giggles out of seeing me freak out each time I go out to harvest them.

I’m convinced that God has a sense of humor by the simple fact that to preserve his bounty I’m forced to stand over vats of boiling water in the dead of summer. We surely thank Him every winter though, so I guess it’s a win-win.

Okra? Snow Peas? Green Beans? Blanching and freezing everything we’re not eating. This also involves boiling water. *Huh* Delicious though…they all freeze really, really well. So does zucchini bread, for the record, but again…just to hot to be doing right now.

Our tomato plants are currently producing about 1 red tomato a week which, as I mentioned in my previous post, is akin to chewing on a wad of tin foil. I know that when they all start to go though, I’ll be loving and cursing my maker all at the same time.

Jim and I know how to do a salsa making party though…we stock up on Corona’s and limes and tortilla chips and make an afternoon of it. For some reason though, the more Corona’s that are consumed, the hotter the salsa gets, which is testament to the fact that alcohol truly blurs your senses. Seeing as how the bulk of our salsa is consumed with beer during football season seems to justify our actions.

Still praying that His Imminence blesses us with tons of hot red cherry peppers this season, as last years was a bust thanks to His need to feed the deer that frequent our property. This year we used one of God’s other gifts – coyote urine – to deter the doe that is our nemesis.

I guess I can say, in a nutshell, that canning is a lot of fun and a lot of work. We’ll be doing some of our “Bacteria Pickles” in the next week or two; this is our own name for fermented half-sour dills that we really, really love. No canning necessary, but a fortitude to scrape scum off of the top of something and still be willing to consume it is a risk we’ve worthily taken in the past.

Many blessings to all our friends and family that enjoy our company and our produce. One day Jim and I will “retire” on an organic herb and vegetable farm, working along the hot days and preserving the beauty that has been bestowed upon us. We’ll have a little store to buy and taste our treasures and maybe a vat of fresh ale or wine to wash it all down with. These are our dreams and we cherish each moment we have of them.

Peace and love.

Our tomato plants are heavy with fruit, so much so that we’ve had to stake them already. San Marzano’s, Lemon Boys, Cherokee’s, Black Cherry, Big Reds….amazing. But sadly, the wait for nature’s transition from green to red is akin to slowly chewing a piece of tin foil.

Pale lavender and white Rosa Bianca eggplants are going strong, while the black Japanese are a little slower going. But I know when those start showing themselves that we’ll be quickly buried in a glorious avalanche of dark purple wonder.

Black beans are amazing – it’s our first year with growing these and the pinkish purple blooms alone were worth the garden space. They’ve proven quite fruitful, though again we wait for Mother Nature to complete her course.

Brussels sprouts are always slow going but worth the wait come autumn. It’s our second year at attempting artichokes, so only time will tell. Green beans and okra are going strong, Rainbow Swiss chard, Detroit Red and Chiogga beets, along with Red Sails, Romaine and Black Simpson lettuce continue to flourish. Already we’re giving away zucchini and summer squash, much to the delight of our friends and co-workers. Our lovely deer haven’t touched our butternut squash yet this year. I’m hoping she and her brood weren’t fond of the 1 or 2 she had last year and have decided against it, though I hope that doesn’t force her to move on to our peppers again.

Habanero’s, Jalapeno’s, Anaheim’s, Red and Yellow Bells, Pimento’s and tons of Hot Cherry are going strong, thanks to an impromptu deer fence and some coyote urine.

Chinese beans that I planted last week have sprouted with grace and the new scallions are coming up already. And thanks to succession plantings of snow peas, we’re still enjoying them.

Easter egg radishes are done and so is the arugula, though I’ll replant them both in a few more weeks. Isn’t God amazing that in 30 days you can go from seeds to food? I sure think so.

Asparagus patch is all going to seed finally, grapes are absolutely insane, we’ve been enjoying raspberries and blackberries for weeks, and though our little blueberries are too new to fruit, we hold faith that one day we’ll be rolling in blueberry preserves.

Oh, and then there’s the rhubarb that’s taking well that we got from my parents this year and the horseradish that we are looking forward to and dreading processing all at the same time. Last years canning of the devil root required safety glasses and a lot of cold beer, and we made it though only because the tears of laughter and the tears of pain got mixed together somehow.

Are we crazy? Garden Insane? Probably. But could we go even further? Oh, you betcha.

But there is something about planting a seed and watching it grow. Watching the plant produce its fruit and then being able to eat it. Yard to table…no pesticides but a lot of love and water and sun. Picking a fresh tomato and putting it right into a fresh salad – or better yet, just eating it still warm from the sunshine. Canning and freezing and having a taste of today’s suns rays in the middle of a frosty January.

Pickles, sun-dried tomatoes, pickled okra and squash, flash frozen beans, snow peas and okra, canned tomatoes, hot cherry peppers stuffed with prosciutto and provolone, pickled hot pepper slices, fresh dried herbs, frozen homemade pesto…We are truly blessed and I thank God for all of it.

Peace.

My sister came to town a few weeks back and we had an awesome time. We ate a lot, caught up on a lot & my mom, my sister and I all got tattoos together! We decided on forget-me-not flowers & we had a blast getting them, though they hold a special meaning for all of us.

Us girls also took a day trip down memory lane and drove by the house we grew up in, plus a ton of other places that we remembered. We took a ton of photos and really had a nice time.

Jim and I had everyone out that Monday and fired up the grill. I made us bloody Mary shrimp and grilled calamari for appetizers, then steak and chicken tacos for dinner. We even got a round of badminton in (in-between courses) and laughed our butts off! Easy food, easy fun…it was a great night.

Between my mom and I cooking and then eating out every other night, I’m pretty sure I gained at least 5 pounds, but it’s all in the name of family love so it’s cool.

4th of July weekend we said goodbye to my sister. *sniff* But I know she wanted to get home and enjoy what was left of the weekend with my brother in law. Jim and I just hung here on the 4th – his mom stopped by late that afternoon and we chatted it up on the patio for a few hours. It was a nice end to a holiday weekend.

Now Jim has started a new project – a berm at the back edge of our backyard. He did the biggest part of it yesterday – getting it cleared out and filled and planted with some trees. He’s truly amazing.

I got lots of tedious projects done that I’ve been putting off, but am proud I got through them finally.

Now we have an open unit at my duplex, but there’s hope that there’s a renter on the horizon so we have our fingers crossed that they’re half as great as the couple we still have in the other unit.

The gardens are going crazy – we’ve already eaten zucchini and summer squash from the summer plantings and tomatoes and peppers are on their way! (along with black beans, okra, eggplant, butternut…lots of stuff!)

So, another busy few weeks but we’re happy nonetheless. Family is an important part of our lives and it’s great to be able to share so many special moments with them.

Blessings and peace.

As teenagers, I think we were all a little self-involved, if only by the fact that it’s the nature of youth. Though a few of us hung with each other back in the day, others were known to me simply by name or association – back then we weren’t all group, per se. Tim was always the artsy one, the ‘cool’ one; Kerry was always someone fun to be around; Jodell was artsy too, or quirky, for my lack of a better adjective. She would know the right words; Jodell, the author.

I was always hanging on the fringe of the “clique” enough to be invited to the parties but standoffish enough to never be considered one of them, never wanting to be one of them. I always reveled in my ‘oddness’, hence the possible reason that I still have a pierced nose and gained a tattoo and belly ring along the way.

Funny now to hear these present friends tell me that I was cool, I was fun back then. These, the kids that mostly went to grade school together, who had many memories created before and beyond my short time with them. I think it’s nice for anyone to hear that they are remembered.

So in one night, from as far as Texas and as close as Roscoe, we converged on the Rockton Inn and rekindled old friendships in person. We talked, we laughed, some of us even sang, and a few of us snapped some photographs. We introduced spouses, we reintroduced ourselves and we reminisced over food and drinks. Best of all, we got to see where we all are now – We spoke a little about our losses; loved ones passed on, and a little about our families both old and new, and how far we’ve come.

A group of us moved on to The Firehouse – a little quieter, a little more catching up; and then a full-on blitz at The Whiffle Tree; laughing, telling tales, a few more photographs. How to capture a moment in time when all you want is for time to temporarily stop?

In a few short hours though, we discovered a little more about ourselves and each other. To badly paraphrase The Breakfast Club, we discovered that we’re all cool, we’re all a little nuts, we’re all a little criminal. Best of all though, we discovered that we’re all still friends.

Thank you all for the distant memories and the lasting friendships. Peace and love to each and every one of you.

Surround yourself in your life with people who love and support you; people who have open minds and open hearts. Life’s too short to live around anyone who thinks they know what is best for you, without having any regard to who you really are.

Peace.