This weekend I decided to ignore two looming writing deadlines and just live life like a normal person.
Saturday morning, I went to E and Z's soccer game. This year was the first year ever that I didn't attend every single game––in the past C and I divided the labor so that he took the practices and I took the games, but this year he got roped (with my collusion) into assistant coaching, so he's had to go to all the games––and I've taken advantage of a few quiet Saturday mornings at home.
Later, M's friend came over for "band practice" down in the basement and E and Z's friend joined them for Legos, running around, and watching Scooby Doo.
E decided to carve one of the tiny pumpkins we bought at a farm stand a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty amazing that these boys can just think of some project and do it.
In the meantime, I made apple butter out of most of the remaining apples from our 59 pound harvest at the apple orchard a few weeks ago, which was kind of ridiculous, because our wild apple trees have millions of apples on them right now, which would be perfect for apple butter (since they're not very good for eating). Next year I'll do better. I used a vinegar recipe (some recipes call for cider, others vinegar) and at first I wasn't pleased with the result, but the taste has grown on me, and it's perfect with toast and eggs.
Later, when we took E and Z's friend home, I forgot to bring a jar of apple butter to give to his mom, and when I turned around to go back home I saw this sun dog over our driveway.
I happened to have my camera with me because I was hoping to catch some photos of the gorgeous October evening light on the way home.
But we stayed and chatted too long, and I missed the prime light window.
What a lovely weekend. It's important to live like normal people sometimes, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteLove your sky photos! I like the little pumpkin carvings. I should pick some up for the boys. Were they ok using a knife? Are they softer to cut than just standard jack-o-lanterns?
ReplyDeleteLovely. Apple butter - um. I'd try it if I was not scared I'd kill people from canning wrong.(I did try it one year in college when I did not know you had to can and nobody died but I am pretty sure they all had the sense to refrigerate it even if I did not.)
ReplyDeleteWool Fairy--the boys have had pocket knives for about a year now (they came last christmas from my husband's cousin...so I didn't have much say in it), and they've been using them with whittling sticks and various things like that, so he was fine with it. He had actually pretty much finished the carving before I even knew he was doing it (so much for supervision), so I'm not sure how tough it was.
ReplyDeleteLone Star Ma--Don't be scared--I only can things with lots of sugar (jam) or vinegar (pickles) so it would be pretty hard to kill anyone. Sterilize everything and boil the finished jars 5 minutes and you should be all set (I know people who do jam w/o the hot water bath at the end, and they're not dead yet, either, but I like the mental assurance of the boiling water).
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