Draft 2021

I've been having disturbing thoughts lately. As in, what if I die and my mother comes and sees how messy my house is? What if I set my oven mitts on fire again and we have to call for help. What will the firefighters think? The paramedics? Someone once said "a clean house is the sign of a misspent life." I'd like to invite her over and give her a big hug. But my house is too messy for company...

The pictures say it all.

I prematurely signed off on OLS last week. Turns out there was one more week left. We haven't showcased a breakfast yet, so this weekend we had a local brunch extraordinaire. The meal included arugula frittata, roasted potatoes and a mixture of blackberries and blueberries. All local, all fantastic. We even washed it all down with local milk. OLS has been great fun and we hope to continue our local meals through the fall and winter.

Sunday afternoon Michael, Melissa and I went for a walk through a local forest preserve, Brown's Woods . We hadn't been there since early this spring and thought a nice hike on its 2 miles of trails would be relaxing. We noticed that many of the paths seemed unused, with grasses growing into the pathway. It seemed a little odd, but, oh well. We sprayed ourselves liberally with bug spray and took off for a little stroll through nature. I get easily creeped out in the woods. It must be some primordial instinct kicking in. When I get deep in the woods, I can't help but think of all those Grimm's fairy tales and begin to relive my ancient Germanic relatives' terror of the Black Forest. After all, the big bad wolf could be just around the corner... or I could get totally lost, like Hansel and Gretel. My heart starts to beat a little faster and a thin film of sweat forms on my upper lip... There's not much comfort in knowing I'm not the only one who suffers from

It's just the end of August, but already signs of fall abound. This has to have been one of the coolest summers on record for central Iowa, with only about 10 days of truly hot, humid, miserable weather. Last weekend we took the window air conditioners out. We hadn't used them in weeks and I didn't want to keep blocking the cross ventilation. Now, cool breezes waft throughout the downstairs unfettered. I was startled to notice the first leaves changing color. The mornings are cool and crisp, making my 2 mile walk a joy. Some of these pictures are a little blurry. Melissa is learning how to use the macro lense. These were taken on Monday, when I made her go on a mile walk with me through the neighborhood. I found out later that afternoon that she had a fever. No wonder she told me she didn't feel well. Bad mommy moment of the week. Fall is my favorite time of year. Since I've gained weight over the past 4 years or so, I've aquired quite a wardrobe of

These are the first two ripe butternut squash from our garden. I bake them, scoop out the innards and puree them in the food processor. The squash is then ready to use in any recipe calling for pumpkin. These two squash yielded 3 cups of puree. I got tired of freezing sauce and our tomatoes just won't stop! We canned 11 quarts and 10 pints. We froze 44 quarts of sweet corn, too. Not pictured are the half bushel of peaches and 4 pints of blackberries we canned.

Our latest foray into self-sufficiency involved making our own root beer. I'm actually not sure that it should be considered self-sufficiency, since we bought root beer extract for the process, but it sure was fun and homemade. Here's Sarah stirring the pot. Melissa stirring. Michael siphoned the concoction into the bottles. Sarah capping the bottles. Both girls love the homemade flavor, so we'll be making another batch this weekend. I want to try other flavors, but am going to search for recipes that don't require extracts, at least for gingerale.

Several incidents in my neighborhood over the last few weeks have made me question the wisdom of our move to the area. I'm sure I'm overreacting in the emotional rush of yesterday afternoon's events, but I've never lived somewhere that caused me to have worries and fears about my surroundings within conscious reach at all times. The first event was tragic for a family that rents a house down the street from us. Their young adult son was gunned down at a suburban nightclub one night in June. While this didn't happen in the neighborhood, there were rumors that the murder was gang related and there was talk, that admittedly reached my ears as gossip, of retribution. Things have calmed down and the murderers were arrested, but worries of gang violence on my street have seeped in around the edges of my consciousness. The second incident happened just two weeks ago when I saw a kid methodically breaking windows out of an empty house with his basketball. I called to Micha

I had no idea walking sticks could be green! Melissa spotted this guy on our garage door last week and we all trooped out to see it. We once kept a brown walking stick for a pet several years ago, but nobody wanted to capture this beauty. He's amazing, isn't he?

Wow, it's hard to believe this is the last week of OLS. It really hasn't been difficult to create 12 local meals and, in truth, most of our meals have been largely local the entire summer. I hope there will be another challenge to take us through the fall and winter! This week's meal included tomatoes straight from the garden, kale pie and homemade squash buns topped with homemade jam. The kale pie was sort of like a quiche, made by sauteing onion, then adding the prepared kale and garlic. This was added to a mixture of eggs, sour cream, salt and pepper. The pie was topped with a mixture of fresh bread crumbs and parmesan. All major ingredients in the dish were local - and it was fabulous! The squash buns represent the first time I've ever radically adjusted a bread recipe. I couldn't find my favorite squash bun recipe, so I took one from the internet and modified it; fortunately, the buns turned out great! The flours and squash were both local. Dessert was h

with my crockpot. I'm relatively new to crock pot cooking, having taken it up just this summer. I got my first crockpot two years ago shortly after moving into this old house. When we first moved in, we were undergoing a major remodeling project and had no kitchen for 3 months. Our only water source, for a time, was the bathtub upstairs. We bought a fancy grill with a burner, thinking we could do most of our cooking outdoors. But simply making pasta was an ordeal, involving filling the pot upstairs, traipsing down through the house and all the construction, out to the grill and putting the pot on to boil. Once the pasta was cooked, we then had to carry it back to the upstairs tub to drain it and bring it back downstairs to add the sauce. Needless to say, we ate a lot of carry-out and did our darndest to appreciate microwaved meals, but when you're used to making almost all your food from scratch, these options don't hold much appeal. You know you're in trouble when your

This meal was courteous of my dh and it was fantastic! One the menu was potato, tomato, mozarella casserole, fresh green and wax beans, and garlic bread. Everything was local in this meal except the seasonings; the potatoes, tomatoes and beans all were from our own garden. I know we had dessert - we always do - but I can't find the photo and don't remember what it was!

Zachary is upstairs at his computer, no doubt playing WOW. I can't help but work the countdown in my mind. Only two more evenings after this and he'll be gone. He's going to Iowa State, which is a mere 45 minutes from home, but damn, I'm going to miss him. The past week has been busy with shopping trips and list-making, doctor's appointments and planning. He spent the summer working full-time, often more, so we've already had a transition, of sorts, to his being gone. But on Tuesday, we'll load up his stuff and help him move into the dorm. Then we'll say goodbye. I can't help but remember Stephen's first day of first grade. He had just gotten on the bus and I had taken Zach and Sarah around to play in the backyard. I started to cry and Zachary came over to me, all of 4 years old, and said, "Don't worry, Mommy, I'll take care of you." I've always tended to think of the boys as "the boys," so although Stephen has bee

Whatever made me think I could have white bathroom towels?

My family life has been full of love notes. It started before Michael and I were married, with me adding little "I love you!" notes to his lunches, which I lovingly packed. This continued into our newlywed years, with the occasional notes to one another. Though, as I remember our 3 years before children, there wasn't much need to write each other notes as time together was plentiful and generally uninterrupted. Then came children, 4 in all, and I started to get sweet "I love you, Mommy" notes and drawings on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes, after one of the kids finished in the shower, I would go in and leave a love note or goofy picture in the fog on the mirror. One weekend, when my youngest was 7-months-old, my mom and oldest sister came and stayed with the kids overnight so Michael and I could have a little time to ourselves. In preparation, I left each of the older kids notes telling them how much I would miss them. I put on lots of lipstick and kissed eac