Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

Life lately has been a little slow, mainly because I am still recovering from surgery. Can you believe it's been two weeks since the surgery already? I can't either. For the most part, it has gone by fast, but there are a few days that I can recall that seemed to drag. I am really grateful that my neck is healing more and more each day. I still tire easily, but I am only two weeks out from the surgery and I think I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll more than likely be tired for the rest of my life. That's alright. I can sleep when I die. Although, I don't think I'll want to...I might not even need to. Who knows?

Anyway, today is a great day because it's finally October!!! Woo-hoo!! These next three months of the year are my absolute favorite time. The summer is winding down. Days are getting cooler. The leaves change to the most brilliant colors I've ever seen in nature. Pumpkin is abundant. Fireplaces light up and the smell of firewood burning infuses the air. I love all things about this season. I have a freezer full of homemade pumpkin puree that is just begging me to make something. Perhaps I'll make this, or some of these, or maybe even this.

On Saturday, James and I went to a local farmers market. I was feeling well enough to want to walk around and I really wanted to get some homegrown tomatoes, since ours didn't turn out so well. So we went on a little outing and had a really fun time. We ended up getting a case of tomatoes and decided that we would can some diced tomatoes. It would be our first time ever canning tomatoes, and we were pretty excited about it. Monday comes and we start getting everything ready for the tomatoes to can. It was a lot of work! James was out bringing in the last items from our garden. We have a whole table full of parsley, sage, and basil that we are going to dry and use throughout the winter. It's fun to see all those herbs, but I also know that I have to dry them all today. My house is going to smell amazing. Anyway, while James was getting the items from the garden I was prepping all the tomatoes. I washed, peeled, diced, and stuffed the jars full and then James canned them for me. His was the easy part. We ended up with 16 pints of diced tomatoes. Not bad. Not bad at all. We also saw pumpkins at the farmers market so we plan to go back towards the end of the month and get some homegrown pumpkins to carve for Halloween this year.

We usually like to decorate for Halloween on the first day of October. James has to work today and I'm just exhausted from all the tomatoes yesterday, so we are planning on decorating this weekend. I am so excited about it. I'll be sure to post pictures of our Halloween decorations after we are done. Have a great day everyone!