Every Day's an Adventure

this is what I saw. Lucky I had the purse cam. They were magnificent and I'm glad I saw them before they stepped into the road and totalled my car. ;-)

So of course, at this time of year, I tend to hum a wonderful song about HomeGrown Tomatoes by Guy Clark. The video I link to is not the best quality, but it gives you an idea. I have listened to Guy Clark's music for many many years, and was lucky enough to see him live about 15 years ago in Edmonton. One of the best Texas singer songwriters in my opinion. :-)

Anyway, the song lyrics inspired a layout that was published in the fall 2009 Canadian Scrapbooker. This layout uses a couple of my favourite stamps - the chicken wire background is from Cornish Heritage Farms, and the alphas are Technique Tuesday. The stitching uses a Bazzill Stitchz template and took a few hours, but it was done late at night when I was at a crop and I wasn't good for much else anyway. Mindless hand activity while socializing. :-)

with tomatoes. After a really crummy start to the summer (which had frost at nights right into the second week of July), September has finished with a bang and record heat, so all my tomatoes have finally had a chance to ripen. (A little rain would have helped, but that's another matter).

Now, there is nothing finer than a fresh tomato sandwich, thick slices of scrumptious home grown tomato on either on toasted or untoasted white, whole grain, or rye bread, with just a quick grind of sea salt over the top, but a girl can only eat so many sandwiches. So for alternate meals, I have eaten bowls and bowls of fresh salsa. Just finely dice a whole bunch of tomatoes, a white onion, a hot pepper or two if you feel like it, and a bunch of cilantro. Grind in a bit of sea salt and mix gently. Paradise on a taco chip. :-)






I don't usually can or process my garden harvest any more - I just don't have the time, and it seems like so much work (and sometimes cost) to do anything for not much return. I especially think this about garden peas. I have spent days and days picking and shelling peas, and all you've got to show for it at the end is a few bags of frozen peas that you could have bought for ten bucks at the supermarket.

Anyway, I took a pail of tomatoes into work, and made my co-workers very happy. Someone there suggested making freezer tomato sauce, and I found a really good recipe on the web. Easy and delicious. My house smelled like a pizza parlour! So if you're drowning in tomatoes, give it a try.

Freezer Tomato Sauce (from Diana's Kitchen)
6 pounds ripe tomatoes; peeled, seeded, chopped (about 12 large tomatoes or 18 medium)
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons Sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cayenne pepper, seeded and finely chopped OR 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 teaspoons dried crushed oregano
1 tablespoon To 2 tbsp. fresh thyme, snipped OR 1 teaspoon To 2 tsp dried crushed thyme


In large pot, cook onions, celery, and garlic in hot oil for about 5 minutes or until tender. Add tomatoes, sugar, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Bring to boil; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, about 45 minutes or until desired consistency is reached, stirring occasionally. Add oregano and thyme.
Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes longer. Cool slightly. In food processor bowl, process sauce, about 1/4 of the mixture at a time, to desired texture. Place sauce in a bowl; set in ice water to cool quickly. Fill freezer containers; seal tightly, label, and freeze. Makes 6 to 8 cups of tomato sauce.
Source: Nancy Byal, AP (Sarasota Herald Tribune, 2/24/94)

In the fall edition of the Canadian Scrapbooker, there are a number of layouts featuring bucket lists, i.e. before you kick the bucket, what would you like to accomplish? At the time of the page call, I couldn't really think of much to put on my bucket list, so I asked my husband Ron what was on his, and scrapbooked him instead. I have had a good life. I have done a lot of things that many people would like to do - I have swum with dolphins, I have been up in a hot air balloon (used to belong to the Edmonton Hot Air balloon club and work on the balloon chase crews), I have a ridiculous amount of post-secondary education and I have travelled a fair bit.


(Piggy Tales patterned paper and rub-ons, American Crafts letter stickers, Technique Tuesday alphabet stamps, a Tim Holtz metal spinner)

But you know, when you start thinking about it a bit more, ideas come to you! Mine are mostly travel - for example, I would love to go to Holland in the spring to see the tulips and spend some time photographing them. I think we should probably all jot down things we would like to do in our lives, and work towards those goals. It would also be fascinating to see how our lists change as we get older! Hopefully our lists get shorter as we get older too............. :-)

Is this not the cutest little guy? My first thought was 'chipmunk', but I think if I looked him up, he'd be identified as a Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel. Chipmunks have stripes on their faces, squirrels do not!




And holeee, was there ever a lot of Rocky Mountain sheep in Radium! The first night we went back to the condo after a swim, there were a whole herd sleeping in the grass next to the building. They didn't move when we got out of the car, with door slamming and kids shouting, but when we tried to peek at them from above on our second floor balcony, they got skittish and moved away. I'm guessing that most of their predators must come at them from above. I think we saw some of these sheep grazing next to the road almost every day we were there. Just beautiful.

I had a lot of fun with the article I wrote for the fall 2009 Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. As a former cross-stitcher and consistent junk collector, I have drawers full of all sorts of threads, fibers and other stringy odds and ends. (I would love to have the time to cross stitch again - I found it a very soothing hobby. Maybe some day).



This is a card I did for the article using the idea of string art (remember this from many decades ago, where you would pound nails into a board and wind string around them?) but we ran out of room in the magazine, so it wasn't included. So here it is, love the way it turned out. Simple and fairly quick to do, and if you don't have enough brads, just punch holes and wind the string through those.



I found this on the internet when I googled string art - very useful animation in case you can't figure out what string to put where! Just put some brads at regular intervals, and string some metallic thread as shown in the animation. To get a card to look like the thank you card above, you would do this in all four corners.



Another thread art layout from the article. For step by step instructions on how to make the little flowers (which are very simple) and other string ideas, be sure to check out the magazine in case you have not already! By the way, these alphabet stamps are from Banana Frog. I was lucky enough to win a blog contest earlier this year and received these stamps. Those of you that know me also know that I am an alphabet stamp junkie. I totally love these ones - a great font and size in a very useful plastic storage case!

Marty has been slow to lose his baby teeth, but there has been a flood of front teeth falling out in the last few weeks, not to mention a back tooth that had to be extracted by the dentist. Poor kid can't even eat a creamsicle; not enough front chompers to bite a piece off. A cheeseburger is virtually impossible unless cut into itty bitty pieces. One doesn't realize how handy front teeth are until they go missing!

This was an alternate selection for our book club last month. What 'alternate' means is that I got a book club kit from the local library with 8 copies of the book, and any of my friends that had the time or inclination took a copy to read. I love the library book club here in Strathcona County - the book bag is not only filled with enough copies of the books for a good size book club, but it generally also has discussion questions, related recipes and music cd's, the audiobook if available, pretty much anything you could wish for. And it can be signed out for 8 weeks, giving enough time for even the slowest reader in your group!

Anyway, the description of Into the Forest on the book jacket intrigued me, so I signed it out. I really enjoyed reading it, although I don't know if I liked the ending very much. But the premise of the book really captures the imagination, and it is frighteningly plausible.

Here's the description from Amazon:

Into the Forest is as breathtaking as one of the musty, ancient redwoods that share the woodland with Nell and Eva, two sisters who must learn to live in harmony with the northern California forest when the electricity shuts off, the phones go out, their parents die, and all civilization beyond them seems to grind to a halt. At first, the girls rely on stores of food left in their parents' pantry, but when those supplies begin to dwindle, their only option is to turn to each other and the forest's plants and animals for friendship, courage, and sustenance.

new online photography course that Sue Sykes is doing at the Canadian Scrapbooker website. Be sure to read the article and play along......... assignments, prizes, an online gallery to post your photos in. Looks like a lot of fun!

Also, when you are on the Canadian Scrapbooker website, be sure to enter the Coredinations Cardstock contest. Just click their banner (slightly down and on the right hand side) and enter to win $500 US worth of their fabulous cardstock. Somebody's going to win, it may as well be you, right? :-)

I have so much to put on my blog, everything from unpublished string art to vacation photos, but it has been so busy here, with the return to school, work and finishing up a variety of assignments for Canadian Scrapbooker Basics #5. Hopefully I will be all caught up this weekend! Hope you all have had a great week!