Move 2008 and the County Fair

Posted: August 26, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: canning & freezing, Emma, family, festivals, Firsts, food, goals, grandparenthood, Harvest, health, home, Move2008, strength training, Summer, Walking, weather, yoga | Tags: | 3 Comments

(Morning ablutions at the county fair.)

Time for another look at how the mileage and Move 2008 are going.

Could be better, but all things considered, I’m doing ok. I had some pain last week (back, hips, and shoulder) from an almost-fall, and that slowed me down a little.

Here are the stats:

  • Mileage for the week: 12.535 miles
  • Total for the year: 717.825 miles
  • Strength training: x2
  • Yoga: x3

I’m feeling better so I should be able to pick up the mileage this week.

You may (or may not) have noticed that Body For Life is on the list of what I’m currently reading. I intend to start the 12-week program on September 22nd. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll have to tweak things a little to suit my lifestyle and my fitness level, but nothing major.

The Exquisite Emma and her parents came for a visit this weekend. As always, I enjoyed seeing them. I can’t believe how big Emma is getting! She’s lost that toddler look and is beginning to look very much like a girl instead of a baby.

Sunday morning Emma and I went out to my garden where she got to look at the empty robin’s nest, pick some tomatoes and flowers, and rub her hands across the asparagus ferns (she said they’re soft). She brought her camera with her and took some photos of the Queen Anne’s Lace and the Black-Eyed Susans. We walked down to the sunflowers so she could take a few photos of those, too. Then she helped me fill the birdbath and water the flowers out front.

That may not sound like everyone’s idea of a good time, but I certainly enjoyed every moment of it. It was nice to have her there for company, and to spend a little time in the garden showing her the vegetables and flowers.

After Emma and I finished our trip around the yard, we all hopped into the car and headed to the Randolph Fair. It’s a good thing we went early as the day heated up quickly and by the time we left (near 2:00pm, I believe) we had all just about melted.

I have lots of photos from the fair, but little space for the month left in my Flickr account so the photos may have to wait until next month (or maybe I’ll figure out how to resize them on my own so I can get them posted before that). As you can see from the above photo, they were celebrating 150 years of fairdom.

I entered a jar of my pickled hot cherry peppers. I didn’t get so much as an honorable mention, but I was expecting that since this was my first entry. It gave me a chance to look over the other peppers, especially the winning jars, and now I know what the judges are looking for and will alter my methods accordingly. The jar of peppers I entered wasn’t what I really wanted to enter because the peppers were sliced rather than whole or cut in halves. But we’d already eaten or given away the peppers that were halved before I thought about entering so I went with what I had available. The judges seem to prefer whole peppers. That’s cool. I have admit: They are prettier that way.

I forgot to post this yesterday.  And forgot where I was headed after the pickled peppers.  That’s ok.  It’s tomato season now and I have plenty to keep me busy for at least today.

All sorts of stuff

Posted: August 18, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Art, canning & freezing, food, friends, full moon, Fun!, goals, Harvest, health, home, Move2008, Photographers and Other Photography-related People & Websites, strength training, Summer, Walking, yoga | Tags: | 3 Comments

We had a fun weekend.

Friday evening we went to Akron where we met up with some friends at 69 Taps and hung out for a while. We had an excellent dinner at Crave and then watched some of the fireworks that were shot off after the Aeros baseball game.

(Kathy’s fruit salad. YUM!)

I spent Saturday in the kitchen, prepping and freezing beans and peppers, then making a salad or two to take for our picnic dinner at Blossom. We went with friends and had a good time, enjoying the Empire Brass as well as the fireworks afterwards. Blossom’s fireworks were much better than the Aeros’.

(Sourdough bread and some of Mary’s cheese. Also YUM!)

(Fireworks. Oooooh!)

In addition to the fireworks, we watched the full moon come up over the pavilion at Blossom on Saturday night. Beautiful. Unfortunately, my photographs are not so beautiful. It’s been a while since I took photos of the moon. I need to practice. I haven’t done this poorly with moon shots since I first got my digital camera.

(Full moon coming up over the pavilion at Blossom.)

Today I have to get to work on a bushel of peppers that I got from Hilgert’s farm on Saturday. They are big, beautiful, gorgeous green bell peppers.

(Green bell peppers. More YUM!)

Once those are finished it will be time to get ready for canning tomatoes. The Romas are in and I hope to can at least as many as I did last year. More, if I have the time and energy.

Move 2008 stats: Not great. Here’s my total mileage for the year:

  • 703.29 miles

A little less than 300 miles away from my goal with 4 months to finish. That’s really not so bad.

However, the past 2 weeks or so have not been so good. My weekly mileage is down to about 15 miles/week and I usually don’t manage more than one yoga or strength workout.

Last week a lot of that was due to sleep deprivation attributed to watching the Olympics. The Olympics will have to continue on without my late-night viewing (perhaps I can catch up during the day) as I plan to get back on the Move 2008 track early tomorrow morning. That means going to bed at a decent hour tonight.

Words and food

Posted: August 15, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: canning & freezing, food, Harvest, home, Move2008 | 5 Comments

Click for a larger view.  (Clicking will take you to another website.  Hit the back button to come back.  I know most of you know how to do that, but I also know that one or two of my readers might not because they’re not yet internet savvy.)

I was visiting Bookbabie and she had a link to Wordle so I thought I’d go over and play. Above is the word cloud generated from Life in the Bogs. Pretty cool.

I always enjoy new toys. 🙂

I’m once again way behind on my Move 2008 stats. That’s because there isn’t much to report lately. The beginning of harvest season is here and I’m spending most of my time in the kitchen prepping vegetables for canning and freezing.

The harvest count so far:

  • 17 lbs. of broccoli, blanched and frozen
  • 1/2 bushel yellow wax beans, blanched and frozen
  • 1 gallon of salsa made from a large portion of the peck of tomatoes I bought, almost gone because we’ve been enjoying/eating it
  • 1 peck of Hungarian sweet peppers chopped and frozen in quart-size bags

Tomorrow I’ll be picking up another peck of green bell peppers for freezing. I’m not sure if I’ll be getting tomatoes or not. Depends on how they look.

I’ll leave you for now with a photo of the yellow wax beans. They sure are pretty.

Too bad the camera didn’t quite capture all their yummy goodness and color. (As usual, click on the photo for a larger view.)

Have a good weekend! 8)

Time For Three

Posted: August 11, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Art, food, home, music, Photographers and Other Photography-related People & Websites, Summer, weather | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

(Looking at the pond from the garden. August 2008.)

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Yesterday, sort of on the spur of the moment, M and I decided to go to Blossom to see/hear the Cleveland Pops Orchestra perform with special guests Time For Three. We buy a book of lawn tickets every season and we had six tickets remaining, along with two upgrades for the pavilion for the 2008 season.

We weren’t sure we’d go, mostly because we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do. At the time we decided to go, it appeared there would be one more band of rain moving through and that would be it for the evening.

Appearances can be deceiving.

The band of rain we were expecting materialized on the drive to Blossom (it takes about 30-40 minutes to drive there from where we live). By the time we arrived the rain had stopped and it looked like it might clear up. We had a seat at a picnic table to eat our picnic dinner. Shortly after we had all of the food out and we started eating, it began to rain. No problem. We covered ourselves and the food with one of the rain ponchos we brought along and continued to eat our dinner.

We did upgrade to pavilion seats, lucky us. It rained a couple more times throughout the concert. The worst of it hit after the concert as we were climbing the big hill back up to the bridge and parking area. It poured! And I mean POURED. With the temperature in the 50’s, it was a little chilly, to say the least. But great fun. I can’t remember the last time I got a good soaking in the rain. It reminded me that, as a child, I used to love to play in the rain. I don’t do that much anymore, mostly because the rain is usually accompanied by lightning, but partly because it’s just one of those pleasures in life that has fallen by the wayside as I got older. I’ll have to do something about that.

The concert was quite good. I really enjoyed Time For Three. They’re very talented musicians who put on a great show. And one of ’em is from south Jersey. Gotta root for the hometown people.

If you have time, go have a listen at their website.

The concert started early (7:00pm) so we did manage to get home in time to see the men’s U.S. swim team win the relay.  Was that exciting or what?

We continue to have gorgeous weather here in the Bogs, even with the occasional rain, something the garden needed so I’m not complaining. The garden is doing quite well, and I harvested my first handful of tomatoes yesterday. Yum!

I’ve been busy learning Photoshop, and now that I’ve finally gotten a grasp on how it works, I’ve been having fun playing around with it. Most of the time I don’t think my photos need much tweaking, but sometimes the tweaking brings out what I saw when I took the photo (in light or colors or both). The camera doesn’t always capture what my eye sees. Photoshop comes in handy for helping that along.

Now that I am beginning to feel a little confident in my use of Photoshop, I’ve started to revamp my photography website: MaidinSun Photography. I still have a long way to go in terms of getting the galleries set up the way I’d like. There are some technical aspects giving me trouble at the moment. I’ll have to wait for M the Younger to get back online (I think he’ll be getting hooked up to the internet this week) and help me out since he set up the website for me. (It should be noted that I’m not entirely without talent in regards to html and setting up websites, but M the Younger seemed to think that was the case and, so, locked me out of certain aspects of the website. I suspect that will change when he gets tired of making the changes I want and he’ll gladly hand it all over to me.)

That’s about it from the Bogs for today. I’m off to do some laundry and then spend time in the garden. It’s too nice outside to be indoors.

Briefly

Posted: August 8, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: thinking out loud | Tags: | Leave a comment

The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics have been, so far, amazing. Spectacular. Dazzling.

And a little bit… Orwellian.

But there’s been a lot of that Orwellian feel going on during the past eight years in the country where I live so it’s possible that’s influencing me more than a little.

Beautiful day

Posted: August 8, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Empty Nest, fall, family, home, NaBloPoMo, Summer | 2 Comments

(Today’s view of the pond.)

I normally upload my photos to Flickr or Photobucket and link to them, but I thought I’d give uploading to WordPress a try. You can click on the photo for a larger view.

We’ve had an unusual August cool down. Storms moved through last night. Once the rain moved past we were left with cooler and drier air. Summer may not be over yet, but it sure feels as though autumn is on its way. Even the birds are feeling it. They’re beginning to flock and chow down on everything in sight, getting ready for their migrations.

As you can tell, I gave up on NaBloPoMo for the month of August. I think I’ll save myself for November. It’s easier to keep up with that sort of thing in the winter (or verging on winter) months.

I spent a week home alone while M the Elder and M the Younger headed west to get M the Younger settled into his new apartment and new job. It sounds as though M the Younger will enjoy Colorado (is enjoying, I should say, as he’s been there over a week now). M the Elder returned home on Tuesday. After a grand reunion, life is now settling back into normal mode.

The house has these empty spots now that M the Younger has left. It doesn’t feel as full as it used to. I went through this a few years ago when we had a practice run at empty-nesting. MTY had moved into the dorm at college and even though he wasn’t far away, we thought that might be it, that the final bird had left the nest. But life took us on another path and, a couple years later, we asked MTY to move back home to take care of the house and property while we were off on our sabbatical adventures. (The commute to the university is only about 20 minutes from here.)  He stayed after our return as we all thought he might as well save up some money during his final year in college rather than spend it on rent.

The first time MTY left we were faced with what all empty-nesters must face: Who are we now? You spend all these years — 18 at least for each child, and we had our children 10 years apart — being somebody’s parent. A lot of your life is wrapped up in this endeavor. When they leave, you are still their parents, but when they all leave you find that parenthood as you knew it has come to an end and it’s now time to be a parent on a new and different level as well as be a person in your own right, no longer wrapped up in that role of Mother or Father. It’s an exhilarating feeling — Freedom! Scary, too, because it’s a beginning as well as an ending.

I suppose this is the point where some marriages fail. I can see how that might happen, especially if the only commonality in the marriage is the children and holding it together for their sake.

When M the Elder and I married, my father gave me a piece of advice that I believe helped with this phase of life. He said that I should love my children, but put my marriage and my husband first because children grow up and leave, and then you’re left with just each other. It’s advice that makes much more sense to me now that my children have grown up and left the nest.

I don’t know where I’m going with this post. Probably nowhere at the moment. Writing this did remind me of a post I wrote after MTY moved out the first time about the abandoned teddy bear. Perhaps I’ll dig it out and post it here.

In the meantime, I have some weeding to do and should probably get to it.  The weather here is gorgeous, and the garden awaits.

8)

Move 2008 — Week 31

Posted: August 4, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: goals, health, home, Move2008, strength training, Summer, Walking, yoga | Leave a comment

I’m still moving, but have not been doing a good job of keeping track (or updating, obviously). To top things off, I’m been feeling pretty run down for the past few weeks, something I only noticed when I began to get my energy back over the weekend. I’m assuming the anemia has been playing a role, and the iron supplements kicked in on Saturday, thus making me feel better.

Anyhow.

Here’s the stats for last week:

  • Total for the week: 18.00 miles
  • Total for 2008: 668.22 miles
  • Strength training: x1
  • Yoga: x3

Now that my energy is back, I should be able to improve on that this week.

🙂

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