{ Yummy oatmeal, crochet and kitchen time }

 

Good morning everyone, hope you've had a restful night.  

 

I am sitting here with Elliott sleeping next to me, and just having swallowed my very last bit of coffee.  Thinking I may need another cup in an hour or so, it's not that I didn't sleep, I actually slept pretty well thanks to the random thunderstorm that blew into our area around 3am.

Anyone else love sleeping to the sound of rain?

I think for breakfast I'm going to have another bowl of my Instant Pot Oatmeal.  It's cloudy, the temperatures have cooled down a bit, and my body immediately goes into Fall mode.  *we won't talk about the 90s temperatures still going on during the day*

 

If you want to learn how to make this oatmeal, go on over to Full Bellies, Happy Kids.  The recipe is up.  It is so good, so creamy, and one of these batches usually lasts me for 3 days, if I'm the only one eating of course.

As summer winds down, I've been making full use of the clothesline, because soon enough I will have to rely just on the dryer for laundry during the cold months.

 

I was hanging up some tablecloths that I had washed, and I just had to smile at my vintage clothespin bag.  When we had the family reunion back in July, my husband's aunt brought over a few big storage tubs with items that used to belong to her parents (Curt's grandparents).  She offered the items to anyone who wanted to have them, and I ended up with this beautiful vintage clothespin bag, dating back to the 1940s or 1950s, she couldn't remember the exact dates.

 

The minute the bag came out of the storage tub, everyone in the family yelled "Sandraaaaaaa"  Hahahah 

 

They know me so well.  We also have a beautiful and I mean BEAUTIFUL Bible that is from the 1800s, and belonged to my mother in law's aunt.  Wait until you see it, I'll take pictures today and show you in tomorrow's post.

This weekend, I started processing some of our garden harvest.  I don't like wasting anything, and I know sometimes it's easier to just let things go bad and throw them out, but we are basically throwing out money too right?

Over the years I've learned to bite the bullet, set aside some time and with a little effort and organization, bake, process, can, freeze etc.  Nothing goes to waste now.  And, I've learned to love doing this.

We grew pumpkins for the first time this year, and now that I know we can do it, I'll be growing more next year, but planting them about a month or two later, so that we can have pumpkins all the way through October and November.

But from the two vines that have been growing so well, we already got 5 beautiful pumpkins, and we currently have another 5 on the vine.  I didn't want them to go to waste, so I kept them in a dark, cool area and they have lasted almost 2 months off the vine.  

This weekend, I cut up and roasted 3 of them to make pumpkin puree for the freezer.  The seeds will be roasted today, because I have another 2 that I still need to roast and puree.

I've also been freezing tomatoes, and harvesting tomatoes daily.  Our plant is starting to die, but is still producing a huge amount.  From the ones I have in the fridge now, I will be making some tomato sauce to can, and then whatever is left, will be made into my Tomato Jam.

By the way, is there a shortage of canning jars?  Has everyone suddenly taken up canning?  I can't for the life of me find them in stores, only place is online.  Goodness!!!

I'm also doing some crafts for the house, some crocheting, of course.  I've been wanting to make some crochet baskets for a while, mainly to use for my plants.  Since I had done all my housework on Monday, yesterday I was able to sit and crochet for a while, and quickly whip up this basket.

I'm using cotton yarn and jute to give it some stability and will add some handles too.  I'm not sure if it will fit my current pots, but if it doesn't, it will be just be used as a basket.  It is so pretty, I love the white with the jute peeking through.

I'll be sure to show you the finished project, which I'm sure will be done sometime today.

I've also been in the kitchen more, cooking and baking, and updating my food blog.  Feels good to be back to business, so to speak.  

 

Last night for dinner, I made a quick pasta dish, it's actually called Hay and Straw, but I used some rigatoni instead of spaghetti, for no other reason than I just felt like it.  That recipe is also on the blog, if you want to check it out.

 

To go with it, I made this really yummy Cheesy Garlic Monkey Bread.  I wanted something different to the usual garlic cheese toast.  So I made my Honey Pizza Dough, broke off small balls, stuffed them with mozzarella cheese, then rolled them in a melted butter with garlic, parmesan and italian seasoning mixture and just popped them into my bundt cake pan.

 

So good, so easy and it's perfect because you can just pinch off individual bites.  I'll put the recipe up on the food blog today, though there's nothing to it, but I always like having a written recipe for future use.

And that was my day, well with some TV thrown in here and there.  I tend to watch most of my shows while busy doing other things, for one I get more done, and I also don't fall asleep. Hahaha

I want to end this post by thanking you all so, so, so much for the kind comments you left on my previous post.  Makes me so happy knowing that you all still enjoy my blog and these kind of posts, and some of you have been following me for years and years.  So neat!

I'm going to start replying to comments in my comment section, I think that will make it easier for me to interact with you all.

Again, thank you so much ladies, you motivate me to keep going and to keep sharing my days.

I need to pop into my local post office this morning, to mail off 3 books that were requested from my Paperbackswap.  I've talked about that many times, but it really is a great way to exchange the books you no longer want, for some you may have wanted for a while.

Speaking of which, I have one on the way that I've been wanting, and it finally popped up on the site.   

Having a Mary heart in a Martha world by Joanna Weaver.  So excited to get this one, can't wait to read it.

Let me know if you've read it and what you thought.

Alright, I better get on off of here and get my day started.  I hope you all have a blessed Wednesday, and I'll se you back here in the morning. 

♥♥♥♥