The past couple of weeks have been interesting on the home front. This year my good friend Jonah has been teaching me about canning. Much to my husband’s delight, and more often his chagrin, I’m slowly becoming a canning diva. While he appreciates the yummy product at the end, the stacks of dirty dishes in the sink along the way are a bit less appealing.
I am one of those people when I get something in my mind, I dive in head first and ask questions later. This can be a good trait, I suppose; but more often I inevitably get in over my head and, despite my most valiant efforts, I don’t always follow through on said project. This mentality is what led to what we’ve affectionately coined “Appleocalypse” or “Applegeddon” 2014.
On top of being overzealous with projects I am also pretty frugal. A couple of weeks ago, Jonah called and said he’d found a property owner who’d let us pick apples for free, and we could have as many as we’d like. The trees weren’t chemically-treated, to boot. Well, this set off all sorts of bells and whistles in my brain.
Here was my chance to not only test my canning muscle, but get a little exercise, eat a little healthier and to top it off it was free. Woot!
Early Saturday morning Jonah, Femme Wonder and I piled into his van armed with five gallon buckets, extension ladders and a good dose of humor and friendship. An hour or so later, we emerged with 10 of those buckets filled to the brim along with a few larger plastic totes. Jonah took two or three to add to his own apple stores, and the rest was hauled into my kitchen one container at a time.
Over two days, Beccie (Femme Wonder), our friend Wendi and I fought our way through the stockpile. When the dust settled we had 53 pints of applesauce, 44 quarts of frozen slices, 18 pints of apple butter, nine more gallons to dehydrate on top of what we’ve already done and made Erin’s horse Faith and her equine friends happy with the ones too small to process. For once, I finished a project. It felt pretty good. Tired but good. Exhausted but good. (To be honest, I never want to see an apple again for a while.)
Speaking of never-completed projects, I dabbled back into one of my discarded pastimes of cross-stitching this week. When searching for a project I started last year and didn’t finish for my hubby, I stumbled across a few more I started and never finished. Sorry Scarlett, I know that baby gift for you was due a good three and a half years ago before you were born. Don’t hold your breath, kiddo, it is back in the abyss of projects along with a few baby quilts that still need finishing.
Given I couldn’t find what I wanted to finish, I’ve started a new project once again, and a much smaller one — unlike Scarlett’s 36 page pattern wall hanging I was so sure I could knock out a month and a half before the baby shower…
The inspiration for this new pattern came from my co-worker, Julie. Julie started a sit and stitch group this week at the Center for Active Living. Femme Wonder and I headed up from Ocheyedan following the apple butter canning to see what it was all about. We had cross-stitchers, crocheters, knitters, embroiderers and more in the mix. Roughly a dozen of us gathered for three hours to relax and enjoy good conversation while pursuing our creative passions. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only crafty procrastinator in the bunch, too, as another admitted her project was one several years in the making.
While it may seem boring to others, it was nice to get back to something simpler. Activities without the Internet. Activities with good friends and new friends that allowed me to take a moment to step away from the hustle and bustle and just breathe.
Often I think we forget to take a moment for ourselves. We get caught up in what we have to do and what we want to do or need to do, and somehow the time for ourselves goes by the wayside. Now that jewelry season is over until next spring, I hope to find more of these opportunities.
