Jammin!

The jam I made this morning was perfect. The first batch last night is too runny, but it should be great for pancakes!Now I'm set to make some more.

Canning, etc.

So I did 21 jars of strawberry jam tonight but not a single batch is perfect! The first two I think may be a bit runny. The third batch is thicker but I forgot to put butter in it so the foam is too thick. Good grief! I'm really out of practice. Still, this is one way to get in the groove again. Steve brought home 9 flats of strawberries. We've worked and worked. It tastes great!

I finally made one curtain for the bedroom last night. It's not finished but at least it stretches the length of the window. That's my project for the week - to get the full set of curtains done. They're unbleached muslin and I love the way they look in the windows. Now I just need to paint the bedroom.

But I probably need to work on scraping the old popcorn off the ceilings in the bathroom and living room first. I'll be able to put that weeklong unpaid furlough to good use!

Great Weekend

What a great weekend! Steve and I went to dinner for our anniversary. We wound up at Longhorn mostly by accident. We're still hoping to go to New Smyrna Beach for dinner and take a walk on the beach eventually. It was our 28th wedding anniversary.

Today we rented a pontoon boat on the St. Johns River. It turned out to be a gorgeous day. We had a great time, but ran out of time to do as much swimming as I wanted at Blue Spring because we kept stopping to look at every bird and alligator. But it was really fun and beautiful.

Came home, cooked dinner. Steve grilled ribs and we had mashed potatoes, sauteed vegetables, pineapple and a salad. Then I made chocolate chip cookie bars, with added peanut butter chips. They were great. Jennifer helped clear off the tables. So everything looks reasonably organized. Gary and Steve picked the rest of the lemons. I intended to give Patti and Gary lemons to take home but forgot.

It's totally heartwarming to me that we can get together with old friends from 21 years ago, who we only see occasionally, and still enjoy them just as much as we used to. I absolutely love the connections we form that sort of weave through our lives forever. The friendships seem like strands of colorful, silky embroidery floss ni the tapestry of life.

I think I wrote nine stories this week. I was certainly ready for the weekend.

High drama

From the moment we heard the cop yelling into his radio today we were riveted by the story. Police officers often make things sound dramatic, when they're yelling into their radios while running after a suspect for example.

These words were so stark by comparison. "I'm hit, I'm hit." So simple, yet terrifying, while we could only sit and listen. Immediately several of us in the newsroom started working the computers. Two left running, headed for the hospital and West Volusia. It was quite exciting. And we did great. We had a full story up with the information that the owners of the house co-owned a Deltona bar within about 30 minutes.

For me the funniest weird moment of the day was finding out that not only did Aaron know the cop, who graduated from high school the same year he did, but that Aaron's wife Jennifer had actually dated him at one point. What a small world.

And why do people do these crazy things? It's so sad. I wonder what happened to their dog when the police had to throw in all that tear gas...

I've been up way too many hours today and I didn't make the dentist appointment. I called at 5 minutes to 5 and they were closed!

Essays and stories

Rosie is up to 450 words on her essay regarding an evil character in King Lear and she's out of words. She can't think of a thing to say. But the teacher has asked them to include lines, so I guess she'll try to find a few lines to insert.
I have to rewrite the top of a story that I thought was finished because one of the editors doesn't like it! Tell me why I do this again? It's very frustrating and there are way too many egos at play. Tonight, I'm ready to pull my hair out over the whole thing.
Today the kid finished kayaking the St. Johns River. He was so excited. It's just cool. He kayaked more than 310 miles and wound up on a beach in Jacksonville.
Saturday is the annual worldwide day to get everyone to shut their power off for an hour. I'm going to try to do a little advance in Friday's paper.
I absolutely must make appointments for us to see the dentist tomorrow. It's been over a year since Rosie was there and four years or more since I saw a dentist. Yikes!

March madness

Everywhere I go people are talking about college basketball. While I maintain a peripheral interest in many sports, for some reason I remain completely out of the loop on this one, yet if I had time, it could be one of my favorites.

Mostly I'm interested in 9th grade homework. We're sunk on Rosie's algebra. It might as well be Greek or Martian to me. I don't get it. She explained the way to do part of the "scientific notation" tonight and we looked it up in the book. I didn't believe her but she was right. There has to be a better way. She has a 750 word essay due on an evil character from King Lear for her 9th grade drama class. It's a freaking elective and the kids formed groups and wouldn't let her in the group, according to her. So she's assigned this essay. How unjust is that? This guy is on my top five list of worst teachers ever. Meanwhile, the geography teacher has changed the due date of his project two or three times and I can't get her started because she keeps saying "Oh it's not due yet!" Aarrgh.

Tonight I made a salad with a bag salad mix, oranges, apples and cheddar cheese. When I made it a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd like to try it with honey mustard dressing. So I bought a bottle. It's fantastic, especially with brown sugared pecans.

I started moving desks at work. It's amazing how much stuff we can collect. But my getting rid of so many old files from former reporters inspired me to get rid of more of my own paper piles and inspired my cubby mate to toss a bunch of stuff too. It's contagious!

Heard an interesting discussion today on the state's growth management laws and it seems like I hear a theme in many conversations lately. State government is so big, so complex and so driven by special interests that no one seems quite sure how to fix it anymore.

If you haven't read about the guy who is trying to make the fastest ever run on the St. Johns River in a kayak, you ought to check it out. He's really pushing -- as I suppose only a young person could.

So we're finishing up Rosie's project tonight, with me mostly sitting there telling her to rewrite sentences and measure to make sure the pieces are straight and she tells me she got assigned a project in drama today. Will it never END?? What are these teachers thinking. Next up is her Picasso project.

Tomoka State Park was fabulous. I spent nearly five hours in the woods. It was really great, and the weather was beautiful. I only brought two ticks home with me tonight -- at least as far as I know!

St. Patrick's Day

What a fun day. So many people wore green, it was just sort of fun to be united in a fun, common cause with so many people. We had a great activity at church tonight -- with corned beef and cabbage and pistachio cake. We had a great turnout and fun socializing and learning useful skills.
Still my lack of patience rears its ugly head. But I suppose Mormon women have been arguing with rude guys carring basketballs as long as there have been ward buildings.
Tomorrow I get to spend the day at Tomoka State Park. Yippee. Tomorrow afternoon Rosie has yet another school project due.

Mostly ups

I held in my hand an original edition of the complete works of Longellow today, circa 1884. It was totally and completely cool. Then I held another little book printed right after World War I. It had the cutest rhymes. I read a couple of stanzas aloud and could have read more. I love to hear words spoken aloud, especially when they're written well. Sometimes I just love the feeling of holding an old book in my hand, to feel it and wonder how many were entertained by its words.
Tonight I canned 14 glass jars of chicken. They look great. I've been trying to do this for 11 months. It took me long enough but the results are well worth it. Steve helped and waited up to see the first batch lined up on the counter.

He fixed the refrigerator hose today. Yeah! Thank goodness he's so talented. He's saved us thousands over the years because he can fix almost anything. As a bonus, he cleaned up the floor while the fridge was in the middle of the kitchen so now we know it's clean back there.
Rosie's teacher apparently loved her English project, so it made it seem worthwhile to stand over her for four hours last night helping to keep her on task. When Rosie tries her best at writing, she winds up with some of the coolest things. She wrote a beautiful poem last night, after first crying and wailing that she couldn't do it. Gee, she sort of sounds like me!

Just what I needed?

It was just what I needed to cap off a stressful, frustrating, tiring weekend. I'm trying to get to bed after falling asleep on the couch earlier, then helping Rosie finish her scrapbook project for school and getting her to sleep at midnight. I walk into the kitchen and wonder why there's a little puddle there in front of the fridge. I wipe it up. Get on the computer for a few minutes, turn the lights off to go to bed and this time there's a huge puddle, over half my kitchen floor!

I realize it must be coming from the fridge so I slide the fridge out of its cove and pick up the ice machine line to check it. I see a little leak spewing water I put my thumb over it and the pressure is too much for the cracking hose. Suddenly I have Niagara Falls (or at least Bridal Veil falls) gushing from the hose. I try electrical tape. Doesn't even put a dent in the water. So I grab my new $150 stock pot and shove it under the hose and try my last resort -- waking up Steve to ask him where in the world the shut off valve is for the hose.

He looks under the sink once and doesn't find it. By this time the pot is nearly full and I've dirtied almost every single towel in the house trying to mop up the flood. I encourage him to look again and this time he finds the elusive copper valve on the back of the kitchen cupboard under the sink. Victory! Tomorrow I'll deal with the mountain of towels.

Grandparenting

We kept William last night so that Jennifer and Aaron could head to the hospital with her mother early this morning. Everything went well with her mother's surgery and we had a ball with our little boy. He's just so sweet. Almost always happy. Wakes up smiling every time. It's so much fun just to lay there and watch them stretch when they're still half asleep.

Cooked dinner for a friend tonight and delivered with Rosie. I was going to make chicken enchiladas and looked everywhere for the Mexican cookbook I had out the other night and couldn't find it. As soon as the enchiladas were finished (put together from reading several other recipes) I found the cookbook. AARGH!! Made a cantaloupe basket for fruit salad. It turned out so cute. I hadn't done that in a long time but realized the other night that I own three melon ballers for some reason, so figured I should put one to good use and Steve brought home fabulous fruit today.

Had a brutal teacher conference at the high school today. In my idea of a perfect world, children would be grouped by learning styles and busy work would be banned. So would pop culture movies be banned in the classroom. Drives me nuts. I'm strongly considering home school/virtual school for next year.

We had all the windows open today. The weather is divine.

Ups and downs

It's been a very busy week in the environment news business. Gas tanker spill on Friday, snapper ban on Monday, right whale sedation on Tuesday. Here's a link to all the whale photos. It's wild but great. And at least I have a job. The news coming from the industry gets more depressing every day. More layoffs. More rolling furloughs where journalists are told to take a week off without pay. Now they're cutting salaries 3 to 5 percent at the Miami Herald and the Knoxville paper and others. It's hard to know what's next.

It's funny how reconnecting with an old friend can really brighten your day. I talked to an old friend this week and was able to replace a couple of pictures she lost, much to her surprise. So that was cool.

It's not so funny how one simple building project at home can generate so much animosity. Steve has built a shed in the backyard. It's quite large 12 by 20 and ten feet tall. But each day I get more and more angry at the debates over how quickly we have to have it built and how much of whose stuff is going to go in it. I don't even have enough stuff to fill up one corner yet you'd think I was trying to move in half of a craft store. I'm really really annoyed, hurt and angry. I never understood why so many people get divorced while building new homes -- now I'm getting a glimpse.

Speaking of hard to get along with: The video footage here taken of grizzly bears on a rubbing tree is absolutely phenomenal, totaly cool.