{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Inspired by Soulemama

#27

on the list was to learn to can. This summer was the perfect time to learn, so much produce at the farmers market and in our own garden.

At the beginning of the summer I used up an amazon gift card and bought these three items -canning tools, water bath canner, and one of the Ball complete book home preserving. I have loved flipping through the book at all the fun recipes, I have so many ideas for things I want to do in the future - brandied peaches, tomato sauces, juice concentrates, apple pie filling. I would love to have a pantry full of food I've put away for the year. Someday I will...

Here is a small portion of the four things I've canned this year, I just pulled out a jar or two of each to take a picture of. There's strawberry and blueberry jam (which were by far the easiest things to can) and then there's pickled peppers and canned crushed tomatoes. I haven't tried the peppers or tomatoes yet but the jams were unbelievably yummy. I also made a bunch of bread and butter pickles a few weeks ago but they were so yummy that they're just about gone already!

I'm really so glad I learned how to can. It's really easy and fun and I love looking in the pantry and amid the various things I've bought to see things I made - even picked (like the blueberries) and then preserved is so great!

All You Need To Have Fun Is..

water and a cup


Sometimes the simplest activities are the most enjoyable.

Happy Birthday

to me.
I am 27 today.

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Inspired by Soulemama

Lazy Afternoon

Overcome with exhaustion this afternoon, I showed Q one of the greatest indulgences in life - laying in bed reading. I was trying to trick him into a nap (more than the 20 minutes in the car he thought could replace his normal 3 hour nap) so we surrounded ourselves with his books and snuggled in the covers to read them. Of course, wild toddler that he is he spent most of the time trying to shove the books between the bed and the wall but it was still really nice to snuggle down and savor what a bookworm he has become lately.

A Seriously WIP-y Wednesday

I've been meaning to get my sewing machine out for a couple of weeks but every time I start to I get overwhelmed with all the half done projects that are waiting for me. This week I finally got around to pulling them all out though and now they are waiting for me on the kitchen table, not to be ignored!


Hopefully I'll be able to show off some finished projects over the weekend, when I get more time to work on them. There are a couple play crowns that need elastic, some snack bags waiting for buttons or elastic to be sewn on, some pants to be patched, baby wipes to be finished and a couple shirts to be mended and decorated.

Butterflies

For Mother's Day I bought myself a subscription to Living Crafts magazine, if you don't know the magazine - it's awesome. Full of great patterns, tutorials, inspiring photos and great articles. I have been ear marking patterns I want to do for a while and this week I was thumbing through the summer issue and came across this quick easy butterfly decoration. I decided to make it one afternoon while Q was sleeping and hang it from a branch above our nature table.

I just took some random bits of colorful wool roving, in sections about 6 inches long and an inch or two wide


then I folded them end over end and with a 6 inch long piece of pipe cleaner I made the little rectangles into butterflies, twisting the pipe cleaners to close them up.


then I turned down the ends of the butterfly antenna by rolling them over a pen, then I put embroidery floss around the middle and hung them up on a branch.

I really like how they turned out, they really brighten up our house

Blueberries

I love summer cuisine. I love living in a place that grows amazing fruits and vegetables. My diet this past week has been pesto, tomato sandwiches and blueberries, so many blueberries. We've been blueberry crazy around here lately. We've gone picking every few days (or more) these past few weeks and I've lost count at how many pounds we've brought home, but it's a lot.

(this was just one days's worth)

Here are some of the things we've done with our berries.

frozen them

canned them

and eaten them. a lot.

I've tried a couple different recipes and so far the favorites have been this blueberry cobbler and this blueberry cream pie. I have these blueberry (spinach) bars in the oven right now and this blueberry zucchini bread planned for later.

We're also been eating blueberries by the handfulls at just about every meal and I have a dehydrator going on the table right now with dried blueberries and blueberry fruit leather. But you know what? Of all the different ways to eat blueberries my favorite is this

fresh, with vanilla ice cream.