1.) VBS and Catechetical Debris
Our parish decided to do VBS this summer, but to condense it down all into one day rather than five.
We decided to enroll the kids, and got enjoy several hours to run errands (and just sit quietly) with only Bitty Baby to look after. The kids had a wonderful time; both were in a pretty good mood and talkative when they got back. Better yet, they were both talking about the story of Samuel and Eli-- the actual "Bible" bit of Vacation Bible School seems to have sunk in.
Unfortunately, I rediscovered the sheer amount of stuff (after repressing the memory of my own childhood) that comes with having kids in a religious education program. Why, pray tell, did the people running it have my children bring home personalized rocks?! Do I seriously have to abide an object with so much destructive potential just lying around my house? And of course, lots of random paper and pipe cleaner crafts that the kids will notice if I just toss.
School does this too of course, but now that the kids are old enough for regular CCD we're going to have it from multiple sources. I'm going to have to get an agressive clutter management plan in place.
2.) Last Day of the Month
We hit the mother load at the grocery store.
Turns out the produce and meat departments of the store both decided to purge of about to go bad stuff, and we walked in at just the right moment.
We ended up with more fresh tomatoes and mushrooms than perhaps was decent, some stuffed mushrooms, lots of sausages, and a few things of flatbread.
The stuffed mushrooms and some of the flatbread went towards dinner that night, and we decided to store the rest. We have a dehydrator, pressure canner, and chest freezer, and we're not afraid to use them.
3.) Tomato -- ToMAHto
The tomatoes were blended up and went into the crockpot and a pot on the stove as soon as we got home.
I tossed spices, sugar, salt, onion, garlic, and some fresh basil from our bucket garden on the front porch into the crockpot. The tomatoes on the stove we just kept plain.
Given the chance again, I would not have chosen to make sauce in the crockpot. It ended up more as flavored juice-- the amount of liquid that was supposed to boil off but didn't was kind of ridiculous. The stuff on the stove stayed really liquid too, but that didn't bother me since I didn't bother to season it.
Liquid or not, all the unseasoned tomato stuff ended up pressure canned. I pressure canned some of the sauce (none of which actually sealed, for some reason), and the rest got put in pint jars with a little lemon juice and were water bath canned.
4.) Mushrooms
We also ended up with about 8 lb mushrooms, which is insane.
Initially we were going to make and can soup, but then I decided to try and dehydrate a few.
They turned out well, so I started another batch...which also turned out well. At that point, we decided to ditch the soup idea and just dehydrate as many as we could.
The best part if dehydrating rather than canning is that there's a lot less storage space needed. They shrink down a LOT. This jar is about 5 batches from the dehumidifier.
5.) Baptism
Bitty Baby got Baptized this week!
Some dear friends of ours from Georgia flew down for the Baptism, and we had a little cake and coffee reception afterwards with family. Simple, sweet, and it was a nice chance for everyone to visit.
And we've gotten to bask in that new baby chrism smell all week, which has been lovely.
6.) Graced Friendships
It's really lovely to get to visit with people who are in the same stage that you are in your vocation.
I know that sounds a little corny and church-lady abstract, but it genuinely is one of the nicest things in the world to be able to sit down with someone facing the same or similar struggles to what you are and commiserate. That's been a bit hard for us to come by lately.
We ended up sitting in a Whataburger for two or three hours with our friends before they had to catch their flight home, just sitting and talking. It was really nice just to be able to connect with someone like that- to talk about our children and marriages and what we want for our families' future.
7.) Old Quilt
My mom found this mid 20th century quilt with a top made out of feed sacks at an estate sale.
Both really cool and really sobering if you think about it. This quilt was handmade, took hours of careful scrounging, cutting and sewing, probably existed as a family heirloom for some time and was carefully stored for at least a few years (based on the fact that it still exists)...and was sold for $10 at an estate sale.
Use your things and don't treasure them too dearly. Because, sooner or later, they're going to end up either in a dumpster or in someone else's home.
Momento Mori.
(EDIT: to my quick take peeps, sorry this is so late. This weekend has been WAY busier than usual. I'll talk about why a bit next week)
See the rest of this week's takes here.
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