Bye bye August

Yes, I've been absent. Just busy a quick recap.

Sunday- 6 mile outdoor run- fantastic nice and cool. Came home did some laundry and then sat on the couch and read for hours. I cannot remember the last time I did that; it was so nice. I was reading The girl with the dragon tattoo. Highly recommend.

Monday- Back to real life and schedules. Got the eldest off to school, played puzzles with the youngest and attempted some preschool pages. Um not such a success. Went out to the garden and picked carrots- a lot of carrots. And then spent hours, a lot of hours washing, peeling, cutting. I canned 7 pints and while the pressure cooker was doing it's thing blanched and froze 4 bags of carrots that didn't fit in the pints.

Finished product

 I did not anticipate it taking so much time. Ended at 4:45 and did a quickie mini vacuum, folded the laundry and made an easy dinner. Then had to clean up kitchen bath the kids and run to the school for PTC (parent/teacher club) meeting.

Today's plan was mostly not dealing with any more carrots! Walked the eldest to school at his request. Had  a leisurely walk back with youngest. Well leisurely for him, do to advanced whining and my desire to not listen to it I packed him on my back up the short but hellish hell. Bonus workout points for packing 35 pounds of kid up that. Came home had breakfast while he watched sesame street and then decided to take advantage of the cool weather and trim some roses. And then got sidetracked out in the back garden. The acorn squash plants are happy and healthy. I harvested 8 nice sized squash-12 pounds worth. Nice

Then lunch, nap for boy and I hopped on the treadmill for long run #2. I do not look forward to my long runs on the mill. The outside long runs I adore, the mill ones not so much. But I did it 6.25 miles in 75 minutes. Yes I am slow, turtle slow but I get it done. Barely had time to shower and race down to pick up the boy from school. Now kids are finally in bed,  homemade horrible for you (read made with half&half and heavy cream) ice cream is chilling in the freezer and I'm finally getting a chance to relax. Tomorrow is Sept-Yay

Um can we just pretend the first picture is below the text discussing it instead of above. And that the alignment didn't get weird halfway thru the post. I don't know what I did and I'm to tired  lazy to fix it.

Sa- sa- salsa

Today was a busy day, walk/run with oldest boy while he biked. Grocery shopping w/o the children- yes this is my weekly "me" time. And finally the making of salsa.
I've made salsa many times, but I've never made "canned salsa" my first attempt was on Thursday. I followed this recipe.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/foodsafety/components/handouts/CanningSalsa.pdf
I did the tomato/tomato paste recipe. I followed the recipe pretty much as is ;except for cutting it in half because of the amount of lemon juice and canning lids I had on hand. I've never used cumin in salsa before- it was delicious; it also IMO was NOT salsa. More like enchilada sauce, so Yay I just made 6 pints of homemade enchilada sauce. Today at the store I stocked up on lids, lemon juice, came home picked tomatoes and tried again. This time I omitted the cumin and added a bunch of cilantro. Sweet err spicy success! So I now have both a batch of homemade enchilada sauce and salsa in my cupboard. I love my garden.

Under construction

Okay this is all brand new to me so please bear with me as I get things sorted out. I literally only started working on this blog  about 3 minutes before bedtime last night so it will be a while until I get everything filled in. The about me, pictures etc.

First a word about the blog name; well basically I just couldn't find a  really good name, because was it a running blog? Well there will be plenty about running but I do lots more than that. How about a food blog, not exactly. I do enjoy cooking and baking- both healthy and not so healthy foods. But my basic everyday eats are well really basic and repetitive. I good 6 days out the week I eat either oatmeal or english muffin with PB and jam for breakfast. And 1/2 the time the one I don't choose for breakfast I have for lunch. Not to mention that I really don't think I want to spend time photographing my food. My husband thinks I'm strange enough about food as it is. If I starting taking picture of it he'd think I had really lost it. How about parenting? Well I am a mom of two kids- a stay at home one currently. So there will be some mom talk. And probably a little gardening advice thrown in, some talk about canning, how I'm trying to live a little greener and more frugally so really just "a little bit of everything"