Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Summer days




From the garden - sugar pumpkins (minis!) and tomatoes turned into this: 


pumpkin puree (10 cups! Yum!!), tomato sauce (5 jars), pumpkin seeds ready to be roasted. Oddly, I decided this would be best started at 8pm last night, so I was up until 11:30 canning and pureeing. Next up is slicing and syruping the peaches so I can freeze them. We seem to be doing a good job eating them now, but last winter, it sure was tasty putting slices of peaches on our yogurt from our summer picking. 

Here's pictures of peach picking at Marker Miller Farms - a great orchard!




Very tart blackberries!



And I had to add these - Tate and a neighborhood friend helped another neighbor find their dog. After that, the two decided on helping out animals everywhere by making and posting signs around the neighborhood. They cracked me up! Just a general shout out to lost animals, people! And bogs - gotta look out for bogs. (We're still working on lower case "b's" and "d's".)







Thursday, July 12, 2012

Work & other complaints

Work has been so....worky lately. We have a big meeting starting next Friday, so I've been consumed. Much to the detriment of my family and my sanity. I have been missing (first and foremost) spending time with my 3 favorite people, having a clean house with clean clothes, having healthy food, and doing things I enjoy like crochet, knitting, reading, walking, and not thinking about work.

Things are starting to get a bit balanced again - the bulk of the work is done. I am coming up for air. It feels good.
I am so appreciative that I have a job, that I can work from home. but. BUT. It's hard. Balance is ever elusive. I think that's my problem no matter what - even at my slowest work times when I was working part time, I found making sure all was in balance was a challenge. And whose balance am I responsible for? Well, everyone's. Dinner on the table, laundry in the drawers, healthy lunch, clean home, not too much tv, good bit of activity - these are MOM balances. And of course they are important to me because my family and their overall well being is important to me. But if I'm going to be honest here, they don't create an overall sense of balance for ME. Balance for ME is having fun and joy with my family (the GOOD stuff, not the work stuff!), having time for myself (reading, knitting), bike riding with the kids, puttering around with recipes that I want to do (not making another dinner that gets eaten quickly or talked about how disgusting it is). The time for all this will come - I see my brother with his daughter about to go to college, and how his life has changed over the years with his responsibilities as a dad. And I'm not wishing this time away, but I would wish for more time for what I want to do. I suppose that's the real balance that I want. 

As my mom often said while I was growing up, I need a wife!


On a lighter note, here are some happy pictures - Tate and friend painting the box the new air conditioner came in, joy on a swing set, and our tomato bounty! I also picked 3 new sugar pumpkins that I will roast later today or tomorrow morning - see puttering above.




Sunday, July 8, 2012

Slack

I've been really behind in writing. Here are a few photo highlights. Overall, things have been going well, although very busy. My work gets a double whammy every 4 years (like leap year!) and this year is that year, so it's been extra work-y around here. But we're having fun where and when we can, and life is generally quite good! 


We've checked off some annual summer fun things - blueberry picking at Butler's Orchard, annual soccer party at Lake Anna (thanks to the wonderful co-coach family!), the 4th of July celebration in Leesburg - love love love our small town where we can get lemonade from one friend on the parade route and see another friend a few houses up, and have our kids randomly join the parade, see friends participating in it, etc. Smith finished up his camp that looked and sounded SO COOL - he took videography, podcasting, Lego robotics, and Harry Potter's Latin. We also celebrated Smith's 11th birthday with his friends at Luray Caverns. 


Watching "Downton Abbey," "Portlandia;" reading Jane Austen books but not by her, oddly - "Just Jane" and "Death Comes to Pemberley" which was EXCELLENT. Smith is reading the heck out of his kindle, specifically Riordan and Grisham, and Tate and I just started reading (again) Half Magic. Great series. David is on recumbent bike #2 as recumbent bike #1 left us this morning...still can't help but laugh at him when I see him on those bikes, they look so very ridiculous. Freakshow.


Okay, so that's the cliff notes of the past month or so - here are the pictures!















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