My most recent find

Recently while out riding my bike one morning I came across a pretty cool find - well I thought it was cool anyway.  But by the time I had finished riding and got back home I had completely forgotten about it.

Then that same night I was online and saw something similiar that reminded me of the find earlier in the day.  I immediately got in the car headed back to the house where I had seen it and wrote the phone number down.  I returned home and called the number and talked to the sweet lady on the other end, had a brief conversation with her and was quickly headed back to her house (in the truck) to retrieve my treasure.

What is this treasure you ask?  Well here it is----

Is this cool or what?  I have been looking for one for some time.  I can't wait to start redoing it - although it is at the bottom of a long line of other projects. 

The best part of it - It. was. FREE.  The lady has more like this (and some of just the desk) that had been given to her for her homeschool and she just didn't have room for them anymore so she was downsizing.   She just wanted it to go to a good home.  If you look close you can see the hole in the top - you ask what that is for - it's for the ink bottle.  How cool is that?

Where did August go !!

So I'm not sure where August went and I would like to say that we have done something wonderful but that's not the case.  Jake and Alexis got registered at their new school and started back on the 22nd.

Each year on the first day of school (and then the last day) I measure their height - it's fun to see how much they grow in just the short nine months of school.

This year on the first day:
  
     Jake is 5 ft 4 1/2 "                                  Alexis is an even 5 feet

The end of the month brought a surprise in the way of a bountiful garden.  I wish I could say that it was my garden but no such luck.  My sister's father and mother in-law has a large garden (haven't seen it but have heard about it).  They were very generous this year to us and gave me about 3 bushels of tomatoes, green beans, zucchini and yellow squash, carrots, cucumbers and other wonderful fruit and vegetables that I am sure I have missed.  We have thoroughly enjoyed his graciousness (is that a word?)  So after the kids would head off to school I got busy with my canning supplies.  Here's what I have been doing-

 



 

 

Here's the count to date:

 

27 pints of salsa

9 pints of beans

17 pints of tomato juice

6 quarts of tomatoes

26 pints of tomatoes

 

With our recent move I was actually pretty lucky to even find some of my canning supplies - I guess it was just meant to be, when I went to look for the bottles and canners they were on the tail end of the storage.

 

Thanks Mark & Ruth for the produce it has been greatly appreciated.