Summer Tastes

One day a week, usually on the weekend, I take a big chunk of time to do some project. Since it’s mid July and there was no late freeze, there was but one thing I could do last weekend. Drive to Stonewall, Texas, and get freestone peaches and fresh tomatoes. Day trip! So my project started this way:

There were 40 peaches.40 tomatoes. 8 jalapenos. 10 onions (none of which made me cry – I have epic powers of resisting onion). Some other stuff. All in all, I canned 11 quarts of peach salsa (and Jeff and I have already eaten one). I used the recipe I used last time. It was the only type of peach stuff I canned this time. I didn’t really think my tiny kitchen could handle more than one recipe – although it’s amazing what I can fit in there. Besides, the peach salsa was inarguably the best stuff I made two years ago.

I nearly ran out of jars. I think I only have three left, and they’re quart jars. I think I might make pickled okra in those, since I just got a heaping large bunch of okra from my mother-in-law’s garden. Honestly, after getting over the initial fear of OMG CANNING NO ONE DOES THAT I  discovered I really kind of like preserving food. It’s not that hard (unless you go the pressure canning route), and it’s sorta fun to make a huge batch of something. Still, though. When I tell people I actually make jam and can stuff, I often get a remarkably shocked response. Not many people do this, it seems.

Yeah. Me. In a kitchen. In my Slow Food apron my aunt Miriam gave me. With sterile equipment. And a gallon+ of hot salsa. And a hot stove. In July. In Texas. In a kitchen without air conditioning. That’s why my whole face is red. It’s not why I need a haircut, however. That’s because my hairdressers keep disappearing or quitting the profession, and I really can’t stand finding new ones.

You like how I made my sink into a counter with a baking sheet and a towel. Necessity IS the mother of invention!

Food is wonderful. And one of the best things about peach salsa – it’s really pretty when it’s done! The taste of summer.

Part 4 of 4: Weird Houses I Live In

At any given time, I have an awesome (and I mean that in the original sense of the word) list of things that I intend or would like to do. I’m not talking about the Sisyphus-like round of weekly and daily tasks that keep life running. No, I refer to the things I would do should I not have to wash dishes, make dinner, walk the dog, do laundry, clean the ______, etc.

Ssometimes I get to some extra thing. One task on the Extra Time List was to do some fabric prettifying of the bathroom. I have a shower stall (no bathtub) so my pretty shower curtain was way too wide. So I cut off the extra fabric from the curtain and made a little decorative curtain, trim for the rug, and a tissue box cover.

You may remember that the walls in my bathroom are concrete, so I couldn’t use a curtain rod. Instead I made buttonholes and used micro Command hooks. The tissue box cover I saw on Kirin Notebook and again on My Paper Crane (it would have worked better if I’d remembered to add a seam allowance). Just simple little things, but definitely a good impact.

While I’m on the subject, I’d like to make a note about this “house” I live in. I can’t remember if I told you guys, but this place was built around 1932 and was a garage that was added onto. As nearly as I can figure, whoever owned the house did all the work himself. He had pretty good intentions, but (a) no discernible sense of style or aesthetics, (b) no professional skills, just amateur ingenuity and a hardware store, (c) a whole lot of time on his hands.

You may note the “privacy glaze” on the bathroom window. That stuff is just weird and old. And you can see a bit of the tile there under the rug, but that’s the most normal tile in the house. I’m not kidding when I tell you we have a yellow brick road in the kitchen, a sun in front of the bathroom sink and a triangle in front of the toilet. It was clearly a custom tile job. It makes Jeff crazy to look at it.  And there is that spot in between the old garage and the addition that’s not quite sealed, where occasionally a vine from outdoors starts growing inside.  Not to mention the kitchen that still makes me think I’m camping half the time.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is more odd, one-off, inexplicable, uneven, painted over, hacked together, jerry-rigged, not-quite-functional crazy shit in this apartment than I can begin to tell you. I mean honestly, who else among you has a bedroom that’s like an underground bunker but with a vaulted ceiling? I have no idea what this guy was thinking while he did some of these things.

Ah well. I have a 10 minute walk to work, and I share no walls, and it’s not permanent. I keep telling myself that.

Part 3 of 4: Trying Again or Stubbornness

*AHEM* Never make plans. Plans never work out. I planned to post twice last week, but unfortunately evil shapeshifting soldiers from an alternate universe appeared and … wait. That was Fringe.

I ended up watching TV because I was hijacked by illness and despair last week. A nasty combination of migraine and stomach flu convinced me by late Wednesday that I must surely be dying. This was not true. I was, however, sicker than I’ve been since I was a teenager, and the only thing that interested me about the computer was reruns of Simon & Simon on Hulu.

Crafting did not interest me. For three days I lay prone, trying to pretend I was hot or cold because I was in the Bahamas or Iceland. Finally yesterday I picked up my crochet hook (it seemed like a low energy task) and started working again on the red sweater I started a year ago. I WILL FINISH IT THIS TIME. I just tried it on again this evening and the sleeves now fit and the decreases I forgot last time are going well. All these sweater struggles had better make my next crochet sweater much easier.

It seems I am in a mood to pick up tasks which previously frustrated me, all of them having to do with making clothing. If I am nothing else, I am persistent in getting things done which I feel must be done. I may get frustrated, but I don’t give up until I’ve figured things out.

Before the minions of hell loosed their plague upon me, I was working on my wardrobe sewing skills. I’ve been using my mending pile to figure how fitting clothing works. You may remember I was slightly miffed when trying to alter a dress pattern to fit me (we won’t go into that rant again) and gave it up as a bad job for a while. I’ve managed to alter several shirts and two skirts to fit me now, figuring out where the darts and whatever are supposed to go for things to fit me.

This is my example of my fitting work, complete with bad camera work and piles of mending. On the left is a shirt with an acre of extra room, and on the right the end product. I was excited that it worked. The project wasn’t all that spectacular, except for the fact that all the fitting was new to me …  I have to start somewhere, right?

In summation, I am determined that (a) I will feel like a human again, not a dishrag and (b) that I will make myself clothing that fits. Surely these are not too much to ask for.