Funny things seen around town

First of all, canning season is done!! Yay!!!!!! It's officially done when I put away the water-bather pot (I'm sure this has a technical name for it but I prefer my use-descriptive one instead), I stop searching for Sure-Jell rather than any other lesser pectin, stop buying salt and sugar in abnormal quantities, and replace the tongs and jar lifters back into the drawer. I have no idea how much we canned this year but I'm pretty certain that we could live the rest of the winter on our applesauce, pear sauce, pickled beets, spaghetti sauce, and various jellies, although we would probably end up with some type of protein deficiency BUT we would be scurvy-free! Yay for no scurvy!!

We had been freezing our tomatoes as they came ripe so we could "can them at a later date" which made perfect sense every time you popped a tomato into the freezer but after a while, our freezer was only tomatoes and we had no room for ice cream (a true tragedy if you ask me!) So last weekend was "Can or Bust" weekend. Matt and I canned 5 quarts and 3 pints of spaghetti sauce which we cooked down in our Nesco cooker because we don't have enough large stock pots to cook down that much sauce (no one has enough stock pots unless you have an institutional kitchen with 30 gallon pots). We also made 16 jars of beet jelly. We could have made more. I had enough juice for one more batch but I was out of sugar, pectin, and jars. I only had jello and juice. SO, I made the hard decision and dumped the juice down the drain. Still, we have plenty of jelly! But now our freezer is ours again complete with pumpkin ice cream (very yummy!) and now when you open the freezer, frozen tomatoes don't come flying out at you like little frozen Ninja balls of death fruit.

School is going well. I found out that if I take a full load next semester (which I was planning on doing) and some summer classes (what else would I have to do in the summer), I can student teach next fall and then start job hunting/subbing more full time. Most of my classes are fairly easy but a couple (microeconomics) make me want to pull my hair out. But I just have to get through them and I will. (This philosophy comes with age, experience, and grad school, in my opinion. I would not have felt this way in Mer's undergrad experience, part 1, the saga begins)

Ok, for the true nature of this post:

Three funny signs seen this week:
Sign on a quik-lube place "Stop here for your tranny flush"
At a health foods place "Colon cleanse, yay!"
"O-B-A-M-A" spelled out on the sides of hay bales (true sign of living in the country, when you campaign for president using hay)

Matt

Today is Matt's 30th birthday and in honor of that momentous occasion, I'm going to list my top 30 favorite things about Matt:



30. His green thumb and love of plants.

29. His willingness to water said plants every night.

28. His handiness with a drill.

27. His ability to play the drums and actually make it sound like music.

26. He took me to my first blues concerts: Buddy Guy and B.B. King. Now what?

25. Playing "drums" in the car on the dashboard.

24. His growing historical and architectural snobbiness. (Wonder where he picked that up??)

23. Cooking supper and often having it on the table when I walk in. Can we say role-reversal?

22. His joy of grocery shopping.

21. His "Uh-Oh" sound. Very funny and a clear sign that something bad happened.

20. Constantly losing his cell phone.

19. His patience with all things kitty and Mer-related.

18. Grilling in an old green apron.

17. Accepting that I'm old fashioned and like to sew, knit, and can food.

16. He lets me take Sunday naps and doesn't complain. ( He learned that no Sunday nap makes for a cranky Mer!!)

15. Dancing in the living room. Alone.

14. He can often only remember places or events through food. He likes food, what's wrong with that?

13. His acceptance and eventual love for indoor cats. Even two cats!

12. The look on his face when he is struggling to wake up in the morning.

11. His hands, very distinguished.

10. His chuckle.

9. His enjoyment of life and acceptance of what he can't change.

8. His desire to live simply and close to nature.

7. His love for his family and mine.

6. His honesty.

5. The fact that he wants to help people, and not just because he thinks he should help.

4. When he smiles, it lights up his entire face.

3. His warm, friendly eyes, the first thing I noticed about him.

2. Matt's open, trusting heart.

1. His love of God and desire to share that love with everyone.