Fall is here with its amazing bright yellow, orange and red colors and it makes my daily drive to work so much more enjoyable. I love seeing the leaves on the ground and I found it beautiful but some people may find it very messy. I love the sounds it makes when I walk on then. The tempeartures are colder, with mid-40’s during the day and freezing at night. I have to scrape my windshield in the morning and warm up the car, which means I have to leave a bit earlier (like 5:15 am is not early enough…) It is supposed to be very cold tonight and we may get some snow on Thursday. No need to mention that the garden is done for the season, with only few carrots, beets and turnips in the ground. The growing season was okay; everything was a month behind but the good thing I guess is that we are still enjoying our home grown tomatoes (which we hung upside down in the attic and it is ripening well). Hopefully we will learn from our mistakes and have an awesome year next year. My plan was to preserve enough food to get us through the winter but sometimes plans don’t go as planned. We did well with making jams (plum, cherry, raspberry, hucklebbery, blackberry), canning pear and making wine and branby but as far as real food, we don’t have much. Well, I take that back: we have about 200 lbs of potatoes (red, yellow and fingerling) thanks to Derek who ordered twice as much as what we needed : ) So we will be eating lots of potatoes if anything else. Gardening was challenging and I still think farmers are awesome for doing all the hard work. Once you farm yourself you realize while they charge so much for drying cherries for example: because it takes freaking forever to pit them and they should be charging more! Anyway, I understand more why things are more expensive than other and there is lots of work involve. Yeah for farmers!
Summer was unbelievable but way too short. I had a great summer and this is why I haven’t written anything in my blog; I have no excuses exept I was having so much fun outdoors and felt like I did not want to waste anytime indoors sitting at a computer. The truth can be brutal sometimes, I know. If you live in So Cal you probably have no idea what I am talking about because you get decent weather all year long (please don’t take it for granted!) but if you live in North Idaho, well, summer is VERY short so no messing around with priorities. It was very nice to swim in the lake (which never got warm) and have a good time with friends. I guess now we will be focusing on baking, eating, playing games, reading books and trying to stay warm. Ted and Nancy stayed with us for a week in August and we had a blast hiking around, spending a day boating on the lake and eating quesadillas. I guess sometimes we just don’t feel like cooking, even when we have company : ) Aaron came and visited at the end of September and it was also a blast. It made my birthday even more special and it was fun to hang and play games. I had to work a lot when Aaron was here but the boys had a good time and it was probably better that I wasn’t there to see everything that happened.
I saw a bear last week when I was coming back from work late at night. He is a big boy and I was glad I was in my car. The squirrels are running around, getting their supply of food (from our walnut tree) readyfor the winter. I wasn’t watching them the other day and they bury the nuts in the ground; it is very interesting and I am assuming that they come back later for their food. A silly though crossed my mind the other day and I wondered what would the squirrel do if it comes back and the hole is empty? I was thinking about getting my nuts back…okay, I have a twisted mind or maybe I was just bored that day. Just wondering…
Derek and I are doing well and are getting the house and garden ready for winter. We also bought a second car, “Blue Boy”, which is Derek’s car, because he is the one who wanted to buy it so he can have it : ) It is an old, beat up truck, with manual transmission, which is so loud that it sounds like a plane. There is an exhaust problem and I had to drive it to work the other day and I was so embarrassed; you know when you wish you could crawl into a hole… Hopefully, Dz will fix it.
As far as work goes, I quit my full-time position at the nursing home and I am now a PRN, which means I work there when I want to. I like that so much better because I can pick the days and hours i want. And no more coming home at 11pm when the weather is crappy. I enjoy working with the elderly and even though the company I work for sucks, I try to do the best I can and make sure I give love to these people. I am pretty good at that. I am also working part time at the hospital in the kitchen and so far it is going well. My coworkers are friendly and the work in itself is okay. My hours are better too and the latest I will to work until is 7:30 pm which is way better than 11pm or midnight. So I am happy my this work situation for now. Derek is still working here and there and he is also spending some time thinking about the bigger picture. I guess we are still trying to figure out what we are going to do when we grow up. It looks like we are on the right tracks though. We are both happy and feeling good about our future.
I hope everone had a good Halloween. I was working last night and we had treat or trick at the nursing home for the employees and it was cute to see little kids interacting with the old people. But the funny thing is that I told Dz to get candies because kids are going to stop by the house and if he is home, it would be a nice thing to do. Well, he did not. When I was driving home, I saw “treats” written with chalk in front of a couple homes and in front of our house it said “lame”. I thought it was hysterical. I guess next year I will be buying candies myself.
Until the next,
CC