Going and going and going

I have a friend that thrives on GOING. She has four children. Three are in after school sports, sometimes more than one sport. Her days are spent driving them back and forth to school, practices, and games. She is always on the go!

I'm not like her. I'm a homebody. My goal is to do all of my errand running on the same day so I can spend as many consecutive days at home, without leaving the house, as possible. I get more done, my children play better, and I don't go crazy trying to chase a toddler around in public. Home is just more comfortable. I don't like being gone all the time - too many hours away from home starts to make me a little bit edgy and anxious. I wonder if I'm depriving my children because I'd rather just stay home?

It's overwhelming sometimes the places we can go and the things we can do. There's always somewhere to be, ya know? One more way to make life complicated, I suppose.

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I harvested four pounds of tomatoes last night from the garden. That added to the three pounds from a couple of days ago makes another batch of tomato sauce to can. A friend of my parents allowed us to pick plums at her house. My mom canned something like 12 pints of plum jam. I've got enough plums to make another four pints - probably ought to stop typing on the computer and go cut up plums. I want to make a list of all that gets put up for winter this year, see how much we use and how much more we'd want.

I'm experimenting more and more with cooking meals grown entirely (or mostly) by us. Stuffed peppers the other night with peppers from the garden, tomato sauce made from our tomatoes and venison my husband shot. The only things we didnt' grow were the rice and the cheese. We've been doing lots of stirfries and pizza (found an awesome recipe for homemade pizza sauce!) And of course, tons of salad. I'm not quite sure what else to make and fear we're going to get bored, but I'll figure something out. I think I'll make venison steaks tonight with glazed carrots from the garden, maybe a salad too. Cooking is tremendously fun and when you're doing it with veggies you grew yourself it just adds to the pleasure.

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Had a chat with my dad yesterday. We don't chat often. He intimidates me. But it was a nice chat. He was all nostalgic about a house his grandpa built in Utah, and the way there were pomegranate and plum trees nearby and his grandma would can jams and jellies from them. He talked about his grandmpa sitting and reading them children's stories when he was a boy. It's neat to hear my dad mention stuff like that- he always seems so stoic and hardened, but every so often I get a glimpse of what he really feels.

He said when we were moving to Colorado from California (I was 12) he read an ad for a peach orchard for sale in Palisade, CO. He thought very seriously about buying it and having an orchard as a side business, but decided my mom might not like all the work very much. That was a nice story to hear as I sit and dream about someday owning my own veggie farm - my dad doesn't think I'm crazy for wanting to do that!

My dad's a pretty nice guy. He's got feelings and is actually quite sentimental, which tends to surprise me. Too many years of being his teenage daughter made me think he might actually be inhuman. It's nice to realize he's not. :o)