An Update with Pictures

We've been pretty busy lately. So I've been having trouble picking what to post for you next. I'll start with the beginnings of our autumn colors. It has been cooling slightly and we are starting to feel autumn coming around the corner.


Our pomegranates are ripening. I don't know how much jelly we will make this year since our crop is much smaller than in the past.


Our garden is almost done for the season. We have potted our pepper plants, the pumkins are ready (a month earlier than we intended), we have one lonely canteloupe ripening up and a couple of overgrown tomato plants at the end of their productive season.


Here is another picture of that nice big pumpkin in the garden. I haven't measured it, but it is between 18 inches to 2 feet tall. We also have a slightly smaller orange pumpkin and a much smaller white pumpkin.


With the pumpkins ready a month before Halloween, plus the fact that the baby is due about that time. We will probably be cutting these lovely things up for cooking. We got ourselves a real pressure canner to handle canning vegetables. So we plan on trying it out by preserving our pumpkins for later use. The kids love pumpkin muffins and we will be able to make a lot of muffins with these.

Now we haven't just been gardening. After we replaced our livingroom/diningroom floor recently, we were planning to make changes to our kitchen floor next. You see the poor floor has looked nasty since we bought the house, it was discoloring, and we were tired of it. This is one of the few pictures we have taken that shows the old floor.


You can't see much of the floor. It was linoleum that had a white/cream tile print on it. It had at least a couple of deep cuts in it that went all the way down to the cement slab. It had scorch marks on it of all things. It was slowly discoloring to a grayish color and had been for a few years. About a month ago, while we were canning salsa, we were running our dishwasher more frequently than usual to clean canning jars. We noticed that when we did this we had water seeping up from the cuts in our floor. This should not happen. After checking for leaks under the sink (nope) we tried living with out the dishwasher for a few days (everything dried out), then ran the dishwasher (wet again). Yep... we had a dishwasher leak that was seeping under the flooring. Apparently the flooring only went a few inches past the front of the dishwasher then the machine was sitting on the bare concrete slab. When the leak happened, it was dripping on the concrete and seeping under the flooring. This must have been an ongoing leak for some time because I have been noticing the growing grey discoloration for at least a couple of years now. We were growing mold under our floor.

With our intentions of changing out the floor soon already firmly set in our minds, plus the added incentive of a leaking dishwasher, we decided that this was one change that was not going to wait until after the baby was born. So last weekend, Tim and a friend from work moved the appliances so we could do the replacement. We touched up the cabinet paint while we were at it. We also bought a new dishwasher. So our kitchen is back together, it is fully functional again, and the floor looks good for a change. It is relatively inexpensive vinyl sheet, but that is perfect for a kitchen. What do you think?


We are still eyeing the remaining floors. Perhaps we can finish up the floors in the family room and our tile entryway sometime this spring. We will progress as we can afford it. In the meantime some springs in our most heavily used sofa just gave out last night. We will be in the market for a sofa next.

That's probably enough for now. I'll do another post soon giving an update on the pregnancy. I have an appointment on Monday.

A Picture Post...Finally!

I intended to get this post up a little earlier, but life sort of got in the way for awhile. I needed to recharge the camera battery for the longest time. So here are a few pictures to show you what we've been doing lately. First, a picture of Tim and the kids taken in our backyard one evening. It is noteworthy mainly because it is a halfway decent picture of four of us simultaneously.


Next comes further evidence that our backyard is keeping us busy. Here is a picture of the vegetable garden currently providing tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cabbage, and perhaps in a couple of months cucumbers, cantaloupe, and pumpkins.


Here is a picture of our grapes (up close) with not yet ripe golden plums in the background.


We just finished up a harvest of nectarines. This is what the tree looked like after harvesting several dozen.


I finished dehydrating the last ones this past week. We will have nectarine chips for several months. Lots of plums too. The Santa Rosa Plums finished up just as the nectarines came ripe. I think that peaches will be ready next, but I have a bit of a breather before then.

For the last month, we have had regular visits from some wild guests. These fowl seem to like our yard. They hang out in our front or backyard for several hours every few days. We seem to have some tasty bugs and we let them eat what blueberries are left at this point. In this picture you just see the mom and one chick. There are three chicks altogether. They have gotten more feathers in and are now about two thirds their mom's size. The mom stands about three feet tall when standing sentry.



I mentioned in previous posts, that I was quilting up a storm to make a baby quilt for my brother and sister-in-law who will soon be having a baby. I managed to get it ready for the baby shower with one day to spare. Tim did the design work and I did the construction. We are pleased with how it turned out.



Here is another view:


I also include for your enjoyment pictures of the fancy dresses that I made last year. I promised pictures of them so long that the girls have outgrown them and I didn't get pictures of them wearing them.


That's the Pillowfight Fairy's choice of colors. She fell in love with the lemon yellow golden color and the overskirt and shawl are sheer with glittery sparkles.



The Adrenaline Junkie just likes pretty stuff and didn't care to choose her own fabric so I got to pick out the fabrics unhindered. That's a flowered satin with golden overskirt. They looked very lovely in them, but The Fairy started to get annoyed how often people called her "Belle" in her dress. They were thoroughly overdressed for everything except perhaps the ballet.

Next for your enjoyment are a couple of pictures giving a before and after view of our livingroom. This past weekend, we went nuts, enduring more chaos than normal, and changed out a floor. Here is a before picture from last year (the people are fun, but notice the carpet):



Now for the after picture (once again, I like my husband, but notice the laminate on the floor):


We love having the new floor. We like it so much we are planning what will be next, since we don't really like any of the flooring in this house and never have. So when time and resources are available, we will be making more new changes.

So, with all of the gardening, sewing, remodeling, and oh yeah I'm six months pregnant and four weeks into the new school year, I hope you don't begrudge me the time to rest a little and not take the time to blog. I've been really tired.