Fall Weekends

Besides my other million something goals I have for this upcoming school year, one of my most enjoyable goals that I'm really looking forward to is to improve my weekends.

For the past two or three years, my friday nights (which often start at 10pm if there is a home football game or track meet), have consisted of me falling into my house completely exhausted. All I want to do is sleep, read a book, watch tv, zone out at the computer and basically not even think or exist. It's awful.

So hopefully, now that I'm becoming a little more organized at school and only have to half-way pretend that I know what I'm doing (opposed to completely not knowing what I'm doing), I will have some more time to make my weekends relaxing, but enjoyable.

So some crafty fall goals I have:

• finish crocheting that soft warm brown blanket I started more than a year ago
• make hot pads for the kitchen
• clean out the spare bedroom closet. seriously, it's ridiculous.
• organize my newer pictures. get some more prints. 
• catch up on editing.
• learn how to knit better and make something awesome. amy butler?
• make a quilt (as long as it doesn't cost me a trillion dollars....)
• keep the garden alive. 
• cook + bake more often.
• catch up on family history research. print all records, pics, etc. organize in box or book.
• sew more clothing. skirts + tops + dresses.
• paint living room (maybe more of a spring break thing??)

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homemade.

Last week I went to Bend for Kayla + Dustin's baby shower. I made these burp cloths

and a few appliqued onesies. The onesies were cute, but I forgot to take a pic, so here is an example from where I got the idea.

From Pinterest.com

It was nice to see my mom and sister and family in Bend.

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2ish weeks of harvest

Finally, my garden is in full harvest swing! I've had baskets and baskets of cherry/grape tomatoes, it's awesome! Here are some pictures from the past couple weeks. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted almost a whole weeks worth of pictures. I also harvested a few baby french fingerling potatoes, a ton more tomatoes, green beans and of course a ton of yellow squash and zucchini. Oh well.

Finally a cucumber! It was delicious. I don't think I'll get many more. :(

Left: the 1st Brandywine tomato. I'm going to try it tonight. This plant would have been more successful, but I accidentally broke off a main stem when it first arrived from the nursery. I'll hopefully get nearly 7 or so more, so it turned out okay.

my crazy wild sweetheart grape plant. definitely the most prolific so far!

My poor San Marzano romas...totally destroyed by BER. They look so gross, nearly all the fruit has BER. But I've been cutting the ends off and they are still delicious. Not sure if i'll plant them next year as the plant grows just out of control. But I'm surprised how many have turned color by mid Aug. Pretty good, for this weather I think.

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Flannel.

greenweddingshoes.com

I love the feel of these photos. Love the flannel. I can totally see Dan and I fitting right into a photo shoot like this. 

Look at what I also discovered. Not sure why it is so amazing, but I can see a lot of good use of this. This website will break down any photo's (with a URL) color palette. Dan should love this. Amazing.

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Outdoors. Beautiful.

Look at all this beautiful outdoor photography. Jealous.

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Harvest Monday

The week of tiny tomatoes and green beans. 

I wish I lived in the south, just for a perfectly large gardening harvest. 

Oh well.

 Each harvest was so so small, but we are now daily getting a couple ripe cherry tomatoes and beans, I can't wait until more are ready!

Sweetheart grape, Oregon cherry, Blue lake bush beans and a few green tomatoes that fell off by accident.

Finally, 2 larger Early Girl tomatoes are ready! I pulled them off while they were still blushing so they could ripen in my windowsill. I haven't tried them yet, but I'm excited. A few more will be ready this week! Also, another zucchini (sigh...). I've got to blanch, freeze, and store all of them today!

Every summer we always get into making homemade pizza. This BBQ chicken garden pizza was super! We piled on BBQ chicken, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh zucchini, fresh onions, and a ton of mozzarella and Parmesan! I love when I can make dinner with fresh food from our garden! We've made another since this one. I also plan to bring some pizza dough camping so we can make an easy pizza while at the San Juan's.

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Tote Bag

This week has been a week of mini projects. Dan and I both got on a sewing kick (yes, my husband sews...probably better than myself).

I'm pretty proud that I quickly found this fabric and I wasn't too indecisive with my decision to make this cute tote bag. It did take me about 5 hrs, which is far longer than it should have. But I haven't sewn since I made these curtains in February. Most of that time was spent yelling at my sewing machine or trying to figure out how to sew the lining/strap in. I used a tutorial/pattern from a fun sewing website called thimble. The pocket was also super easy and based off of this.

I love the silky teal blue liner. 

I plan to make another small version of the bag (it's actually quite big!) and move my pocket up higher (it is a little low for my liking). I'm hoping it will only take 2-3 hrs next time.

The total cost was probably ~$10-$12.

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Nothing beats BEETS...

This week I finally admitted that my beets just weren't growing anymore. I'm blaming it on the weather. I pulled them all up (along with a few spare carrots) and made some room for my Top Keeper Onion and Marble Red Onion seeds. I've been babying these since and hoping they will overwinter properly. Overwintering is completely new to me. As is most of this gardening stuff.

Since most of the beets hadn't formed significant roots, I gathered and washed all the beet greens. Maybe I'm like a grandma, but I love the taste of beet greens!

Being a family of two and myself the main consumer of beet greens, I decided to blanch them (also new to me, and incredibly easy!) to allow for better and longer storage.

 This will allow the greens to stay fresh longer in the freezer and we can use them in stir-frys. I do prefer beet greens in salads...but what can I do?

With the teeny tiny roots that had formed these past few months, I made a delicious little pot of goodness (see top photo) mixed with carrots and brown sugar. It was delicious, but I wish I had bigger beets!

Hoping my fall beets are more successful....

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