Random Ramblings

It has been a long, HOT summer!  I'm sorry that I have been M.I.A., but as much as I love creating I love my family more.  On that note, for those of you who are fans of My Pink Stamper, she made a very important announcement recently.  I can relate all too well to her feelings and applaud her for her decision.

Where does that leave me?  It's very liberating actually.  I truly loved being a Pink Designer, but I tend to have tunnel vision when I'm working with a particular company.  If a product doesn't work or can't be used with the products I'm demonstrating, I disregard them.  I was a demonstrator for a stamp company for about 7 years and I had the same experience.  So now it's like I get a fresh start!  And I enjoy so much more than papercrafting!

I have been doing a little:

followed by a little:

So far I have bottle peaches, made peach jam, dried peaches, lots of peach cobbler, and today I think I may make some peach salsa!  I do a lot of canning.

I've also been doing:

My tomato plants are usually prettier than this.  It's been HOT and dry this summer.














followed by a little:

OK - the picture was of tomatoes, and this is tomatillo salsa, but you get the idea.  The tomatoes aren't ready yet!

And there has been a lot of this:

I didn't know it was possible to produce this much laundry!  During the summer you wear less clothes, right?  Who know that all that swimming could produce so much laundry?

Soon I will be doing a lot of:

 Concord grape juice or jelly anyone?


















After that, it won't be long before we'll be enjoying:

Can you see my "Casper" pumpkin hiding in there?  We have the most amazing pumpkin patch ever.  Apparently it's a good idea to plant your pumpkins where the compost used to be.  The Great Pumpkin is definitely coming to our house this year!  ;-)

Last but not least, now that school has started, I hope to soon be doing more of:

I think it's really important to have a creative outlet.  I love to work with my hands and there are so many crafty/homey things that I enjoy that I could probably putter around all day from one thing to the other.  But I have 3 children, the youngest of whom is 5, and they are my top priority.  That said, I also think it's extremely important that we, as women, spend time doing things we love - preferably while spending time with other women.  We need each other!  Honestly, I'm really bad at that part.  I love being with my friends, but it's far to easy to get so busy with life and the family's needs that you completely forget your own.  My goal over the next few months is to reestablish my priorities, find peace and joy in my family and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and invest some time in making a better me.