Our life is very exciting!

We made salsa tonight. 

I’m going to show you pictures. These are not staged. I use my iPhone. I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to present an edited version of our life. I’m a regular person, in an outdated kitchen, and this is our real life.

My son just walked through the kitchen while I was typing and said, 

“Salsa smells good!  Its a bubbling!”

Success!

These are the last of the tomatoes from our garden. 

   

Sliced for the handy chopper. 

    

This is the best chopper ever. It’s called a Vidalia Chopper. 

  

Let’s be real. This is a messy job. 

Chopped tomatoes. We needed 17 lbs of tomatoes for the recipe.

   

I am not a super cook. I use this…

  

And this…

  

And all mixed together it looks like this. 

 

Right now it’s simmering for 10 minutes. Then we plan to process it in the steam canner in pint jars. 

Tonight I will feel like I accomished something, and there is a sense of relief that the tomatoes didn’t go to waste and rot on the counter!

Because it’s real life here, and stuff rots sometimes!!

Fall has arrived. The mornings are cold. The air is fresh and crisp, and the nights flirt with 32 degrees regularly now. 

The sky was brilliant today, a perfect mixture of clear blue with clouds like pillows, floating past gently in the breezes that stirred up during each hour. 

The leaves are mostly gone, but a few swirl in a dance that goes nowhere and then settle in edges and cracks along the playground and parking lot at the school. The children wear hoods and gloves because the warmth of the sun doesn’t penetrate so efficiently now with winter around the corner. 

I snapped this photo late in the afternoon today. It seemed to embrace the essence of “fall” with the colors and cleanness and long shadows. 

  
The green of summer still hangs on, grasping for a few more days, a few more hours, before a hard freeze paralyzes the vibrant color and forces the soft grasses into a long sleep, and the delicate flakes cover the ground with a blanket of snow. 

Change is about to come. A change in the weather. A change in the scenery. And a change is happening inside as well.  

 

This meme speaks a truth that few ever own. What could be better than living a life that brings you joy daily, and one you don’t need a vacation from?  Is it possible to have peace amidst the daily schedules and surroundings?  This sounds like a very appealing life, and while it may take a few years, I am working to get there. 

I’ve been caught up in the Marie Kondo movement. I’ve read her book. I’ve done my clothes. That’s as far as I got. I expect that I will continue, but things may not happen in the “correct” order. 

I found myself with an hour to kill today. I can thank the fact that our kitchen clock seems to have missed the memo about “falling back” a few weeks ago, and all the humans that live here have not noticed the incorrect time until today, after it was too late.  

So I spent my hour deleting emails. Yes, I did that for a whole hour and managed to delete THOUSANDS  of them. There are still thousands more to go. I worked in topics. Facebook. Bunkbeds & Betties. Erin Condren. Flylady Flybabies. EC Fans Gone Wild. These are all Facebook related. I had my settings set up so I would receive an email notification for every last thing that happened on FB. While I dedicated an email account exclusively to this purpose, there was a LOT of stress caused by seeing over 60K in that little red email bubble on my phone. Yes, you read that correctly. OVER 60,000!!  So I deleted and deleted and deleted, select all, after select all, after select all. Nothing felt better than removing all the negativity from the last mentioned group, and all those names that contributed to the stress from that group. It’s all gone now, and there is a sense of relief and lightness. 

Etsy, Little Passports, Michaels, Bank of America, and Alaska Airlines are a few more topics I attacked in my email “inbox zero” quest today.  I look forward to the next chunk of time I can dedicate to deleting more emails and simplifying my life and finding peace without needing a vacation. 

   
 

Something fun I did today was getting photos of these precious puppies!  They are all 3 weeks old and touching their squishy faces and hearing their scolding little growls ranked this day as one of the finest in the past few weeks. 

Happy Fall to all of you. Thanks for stopping by!

It has been forever. Actually, it’s been 9 months and 17 days, almost as long as a full term pregnancy, since I’ve posted on this blog. 

I received the renewal notice. I am paying money to have a blog. I better use it. That is one motivation for posting. 

But there is a more important reason. This blog is supposed to be about my journey in this life. It’s supposed to highlight all the hats that I wear and all the good things in life. It’s supposed to be about grace, and finding grace, and showing grace in the midst of the toils and struggles. I’m afraid I fail often in the area of grace. I am struggling right now. 

I learned a few months ago that I have a fibroid in my uterus. It is rather large and it seems to be getting larger. I need to have another ultrasound. I’m sure I need to get it removed. I think I am facing possible surgery. 

I have no medical insurance. 

I want to blame someone for this fact. Isn’t a husband supposed to take care of the wife?  To look out for her and to protect her and keep her safe?

I feel like I travel this life alone, even though I’m married. He has no idea how to deal with my pending medical issue. He has covered no ground in finding a solution for the financial burden this will be. 

He only works in the summer and brings in the equivalent of a part-time income. I have taken a part time job to supplement our income. I am trying to get us out of debt. I am trying to keep the kids in private school. 

I don’t know how I can be a cash patient for this process. I don’t know how I will get medical insurance with a pre-existing condition. I’m not sure where to turn to get help. 

I’m going to tell my story how it is. I’m not going to hide the facts or protect the players any longer. 

I continue to look for grace, but It is always with tears. And the tears are angry and sad and hopeless much of the time.