Our neighbors own and run a food stand that they set up all over the northeast at various fairs and festivals. As the season ended they had lots of lemons & limes left over, so they gave us a box of each. Pretty nice, huh? Mom lent us her juicer, and I spent several hours making and freezing lemon and lime juice. I hadn't realized how long the process was going to end up taking, but when it was over the house smelled great and we had around a gallon of juice in the freezer.
We are slowly trudging through our Get-ready-for-winter-checklist. Eric worked on the boiler this weekend. There was a lot of muttering coming up from the basement, but when it was all over we had heat. He spent the rest of the weekend working on the cars. If I understand him correctly my whole car is being held together by spray foam or something like that. The Saturn isn't even that lucky. Apparently it is on it's death bed... it's been given only 2 months tops.
My weekend was filled with laundry, yardsale fodder and tarantulas. We are planning a yardsale with our neighbors this weekend. I've been prying old toys away from the kids along and collecting things from their hiding places for a month now. I'm about half way through pricing everything. When we are finished with this fiasco we will probably come out with a $20 profit for weeks of work, however think of all the junk we will get rid of. The tarantula costumes should be done by the end of the week. They are coming out so cute. I'm adding red stripes to the legs and that made them look so much cooler.
Corie swimming in September
yes it is a front loader. Eric has put several of these in "green" houses, and said that he has never had to service one. It is amazing how much cleaner our clothes are. Our second new addition is a female Betta for Corie. Now let me tell you something about Betta's... We got Zakary's Betta because they breath air, so you don't need a pump. You can put them in cheap glass fish bowls and they are relatively low maintenance. Right? Wrong! They need to be kept at a water temp in the high 70s, and that means they need a heater. Heaters don't fit in glass fish bowls, so we had to update to an aquarium. When we took Corie pick out the fish she had earned we steered her towards a female Betta. I knew males couldn't share a tank, but I'd been told that a female tank mate would be okay. Wrong! Of course we 
didn't find this out until after Corie fell in love with her fish, and I had already paid for it. So... I found this great tank divider for only $10, but we needed to sort of block their view of each other. So... Here I picked up a great set of aquarium plants for only $14, but despite their weighted bottom they kept floating up. So... We got two bags of gravel for $4 each and placed it on the floor of the tank and on the base of the plants. Of course now the tank was so complicated there was no way we were going to be able to keep the water clean. So... We picked up a new pump and filter. Of course all these purchases were separately, because we learned everything the hard way. You should see how cute our tank is though!
We went to Harvest Fest with Dad and Pat again this year. It's kind of a family tradition. The forcasted "torrential downpour" never occurred, and we had a great time. We did miss our Amber though. She is away at college, SUNY Brockport, where I hope she is having a great time. The following day we went up to Bob & Cheryl's for a visit. Aunt Karen was up visiting from Maryland, and we hadn't seen her since they moved away from Vermont. The sun was out, the air was brisk, the company was great, and the trees were at peak color. It was a perfect Fall day, and we did what any self-respecting New Englander should do under those circumstances... we drank (lots of) wine. We talked about important things like how your body starts falling apart after 40, the size of our butts, healthy recipes that don't taste like cardboard, and how cute my kids are. At least that's what we girls did. The boys did testosterony-things. I saw them holding their beer bottles, looking at tractors and cars, and talking a lot. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I'll bet it covered topics like gas mileage, property taxes, engines, the pros and cons of different heating systems, and the cost of oil this winter. It's no wonder women live longer! Men bore themselves to death. Speaking of the greatness of women... Cheryl gave me my birthday presents early!
They are great! Of course people are starting to expect me to sew now, but that is something that I am looking forward to doing. The "Simply Sublime Bags" is actually a no-sew/low-sew project book, and it has the coolest bags in it! The "Making Vintage Bags" has bag patterns from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, and I already have requests from it.We had a great harvest from our garden this year. We put up lots of tomatoes, green beans and peppers. We still have carrots and squash that need to be put up, but there are also 2 Halloween costumes that aren't going to make themselves! The kids are going up to their Grandparents house this weekend, so Eric and I will try to make the most of it by knocking things off the things-to-do-before-winter list. Poor Eric has to repair the Saturn (again), and work on the boiler. I have two tarantula costumes to make, a fish tank to filterize, and a house to clean. Remember Bette Midlers apartment in "Outrageous Fortune"? That's what our house looks like... and if you don't remember or haven't seen that movie then you really need to.
Here's a short, but interesting commentary. Just click "listen": Pundits
Our neighbors own and run a food stand that they set up all over the northeast at various fairs and festivals. As the season ended they had lots of lemons & limes left over, so they gave us a box of each. Pretty nice, huh? Mom lent us her juicer, and I spent several hours making and freezing lemon and lime juice. I hadn't realized how long the process was going to end up taking, but when it was over the house smelled great and we had around a gallon of juice in the freezer. 
