Summer's Bounty, and Back to Reality.

So maybe you all have been wondering where the Wench got to after the Great Laundry Debacle of 2012? Here is my chronicle...what did you do with your summer?

The washer & dryer on our new, home-made pedestal. I recommend this plan, which we modified slightly to fit our room and laundry baskets:  http://ana-white.com/2011/01/sausha%E2%80%99s-washerdryer-pedestals

Some other projects I located on Pinterest and made my own. How much do I love Pinterest?  Words could never describe.

Main crop were some very robust cucumbers, with a few handsful a week of string beans.

Apparently your soil needs to be REALLY SOFT for carrots. Our soil was soft by my standards but not soft enough for these babies to get bigger. This is the pathetic extent of my entire carrot crop!

Made some handmade soap (onegoodthingbyjillee.com) and decorated some jars to give as gifts when we went to visit the relations on Long Island in July.

On the left side, my first batch of pickles...a version of bread-and-butter that I slapped together. On the right, I found this recipe for vanilla brandy-flavored pears on Putsup.com, which I modified because I had no brandy. These are Cake Vodka flavored and we will try them out soon.

Peach picking was awesome with the kids, then I spent the rest of the day putting them up. These are cinnamon flavored freezer peaches...hopefully they will be awesome on top of some ice cream!

These are your standard peaches in heavy syrup. It's my first time as a canner and I went with some straightforward recipes with a few exceptions.

These are Habanero Sweet Pickles. Basically sweet pickles with 6 habanero peppers in each jar. Pack a nice little wallop!

Peach Jam! Popped 8 on the shelf and 1 in the fridge and we tried it last night on pancakes. Heaven!

This is Thing 2 with our pumpkin harvest. The vines are dying and that's as big as they are going to get but I love the shapes!

So this is what I have been up to. However, school is back in session and I am gonna get back on the wagon! Due to the beauty and taste of summer fresh food we have been eating fairly healthy around here and since I can now preserve some things, we hope to keep it going year-round. I checked in on the scale at work this week and I am happy to report that in spite of the water I seem to be hanging on to right now, I am at 211.4 lb.

And today was another accomplishment: I got on the exercise bike and I didn't hate it. And the kids let me go at it hard for 5 minutes. I am hoping to get them used to it so I can get a total of 20 minutes each day while they hang out in the playroom. Will re-measure next week to get back on schedule and hopefully the healthful eating will commence immediately. (Let's be real, I am sitting down with a bowl of chips right now to watch Hunger Games--I am only human!)  Here goes nothing!!!