The President is in the 'BURG!

We had a very exciting visitor to our humble town and local high school last week - President Obama! I am a bit left of center, and I really like our President. I do! His speech was great, very inspiring, got us all fired up. Both Smith and Tate were ready to vote even though, well, they have a few more years ahead of them before they can. The two of them actually got interviewed by an international station, but she is doing a story to be released later. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but Smith was going on and on and on. Until Tate cut in - no shy kids here.

Across the street from our high school was a house with about 50 Romney signs and a Romney tour bus. NOT KIDDING. It was huge with ROMNEY all over it. I also saw and heard a lot of people talking about how the school shouldn't host Obama, because it's an endorsement of him by our county. People, please. It is the President of the United States. POTUS. While, again, I'm slightly left of center, I did not care for George W one little bit. But you'd better believe I would have seen him if he were at the high school behind our neighborhood! It's the PRESIDENT. Respect the office! I won't go into my thoughts on Romney versus Obama here - but suffice to say I would also be at any Romney rally that were held in our town. Seriously. To listen. To show respect for someone working hard to try and become a world leader. OUR world leader. 

Stepping off soap box now...here are some great pictures!

oh the line!

95 degrees and standing outside for 5 hours

more lines

tate being interviewed

actual size from where we were...

...and with zoom...President Barack Obama!!!!

At it again

Habanero Gold Jelly. From garden grown habaneros, red and yellow peppers. The apricots and onions were store bought. Oddly, as we were going through Costco yesterday, they had this kind of jelly (but with pineapple) to sample with cream cheese and crackers and it was delicious! Haven't tasted ours yet, but hope it's as good as it looks.

David canned some pickled habanero slices last night, and today or tomorrow I hope to make some jalapeño hot sauce!

Ma Ingalls, revised

I want to be a homesteader. With air conditioning, not back in the Ingall's day necessarily. But this morning, I "put up" 6 pints of crushed tomatoes, to add to my 5 pints of tomato sauce that I put up a couple weeks ago, to add to my 8 cups of pumpkin puree, to add to my ice cubed frozen chopped basil and parsley, to add to my 3 freezer bags of sliced, roasted tomatoes, to add to my... well...that may be it.

I love this part of the garden - the eating fresh, the preparing for the winter (for luxury's sake, thankfully, not for necessity). I froze blueberries from pickings this summer; we ate all the peaches before I could do them. I think this all goes with my knitting lifestyle. I read something interesting about knitting yesterday - that knitters get that one small job/vote/task makes a difference, because that one stitch leads to another to another to another, until you have a hat or a scarf or a sweater. One little stitch/task/vote can go such a long way. Sorry, tangent.

If only this could be my full time job! Plus milking a goat and making goat cheese...although I admit, I find these things romantic, and the reality of having chickens and goats and a huge yard with a garden is quite likely very overwhelming.

Either way, this was my 2.5 hours this morning before anyone got up. See? I've got the early morning part of homesteading DOWN!

California

Just got back from a meeting in Sacramento. It was with our group of health physicists, or radiation specialist - a very nice group of people. David and I both went, as did my brother and his daughter, my niece, who is 18 and off to college this very month. It was such a great trip (especially when the work part was over!) - we were done on Thursday and had Friday and Saturday to explore San Francisco! I had some serious quality time with my niece (and husband and brother) and thoroughly enjoyed the sights. We hope to bring Smith and Tate back in January, with our biology group. Smith especially would love Alcatraz!

We found Rick's Dessert Diner and WOW and YUM!

Our elevator in Sacramento - wouldn't that be a great band name?

There's always money in the Icee stand

 

The kids had some time with my parents in Hilton Head - they got a week of grandparent LOVE and ATTENTION and ICE CREAM every night. Smith even got to perform onstage with Greg Russell, who performs under the tree in Harbour Town during the summer - and guess what, I saw him when I was a kid! How cool is that? I wish I had a picture from then to compare. Anyway, Smith did Flying Purple People Eater in front of a huge crowd, and LOVED every minute of it. Go Smith.

However, he had soccer camp start his first day back from vacation and he fell asleep on the sofa at 7pm! That's a highly unusual Smith-occurence. They had a ball, and Tate missed me (also highly unusual!), so I still have some job security in that regard.

I missed them a bunch - by Wednesday, it was a week away from them, and while it was nice only being responsible for us, it was weird. David even said, after we get the kids back on Sunday, that he wasn't used to dealing with kids and need!

Next stop is Smith Mountain Lake - we leave next week for that. I think, at 41, I have finally figured out that I am a lake/mountain girl. While I enjoy (and maybe even deeply like) the beach, I really love being at a lake, or Yellowstone, or hiking. We hope to get back to Yellowstone next summer - we are fortunate with our trips and meetings and adventures, for sure.

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".)

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.

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!