My weekend was a quick research trip, lots of library time, weeding the garden when the rain stopped, and - last night while hanging out with the family - cracking open dried cherry pits so the meat inside the pit could be added to the dark cherry liqueur I am brewing up for Christmas time.



This dog was the funniest thing I saw while researching.

I think his owner was reenacting a soldier from the British 24th Regiment of Foot. Which means the dog belongs to the 24th Regiment of Paw, of course.


WFMAD Day 21

The headshrinkers say it takes 21 days to form a new habit. If you have written every day for the last 21 days, then congratulations. Poof! You made it. You have a new writing habit! Like all habits, this one needs constant watering and attention, so please remember to write tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, etc., etc.

If you haven't been able to write for 21 days in a row, write down the reasons why - what interfered? I know for a lot of you the answer is "vacation." Nothing wrong with that. But if you couldn't make the time to write when your time was truly your own, what's it going to be like when you're back in your work routine?

I'm not scolding here. This is all about helping you reprioritize a little so you can make the time to follow your writing dream. We have ten days left in the Challenge. Imagine that from now until the end of the month, each one of your waking hours represents $1,000. Think of your choices about spending your time as money-spending choices. Be mindful where you spend your everything.


Today's goal: Write for 15 minutes.

Today's mindset: fresh-start

Today's prompt: if you fall off a horse, you have to get back on again or else, what's the point? Start fresh today by choosing a different place to write in. Putting your body in a different space to write can help your mind be open to new ideas and perspectives.

Today I'd like you to write about your writing dream - what are you trying to accomplish? Be specific and detailed. If you are a calender-based person, what do you want to accomplish by January 1st? If you are a season-based person (like me), what do you want to have done by the Winter Solstice (December 21st)?


Scribblescribble...

I am deep in 18th-century research and writing again, but it's summer, which means other things are calling my name.

Like basil.

And cherries.

I've been getting up wicked early (5ish), working in the garden, and then sitting down at my desk by 6:30 am most days. I work until the late afternoon, then turn my attention to things like

basil. This was my experiment with freezing basil. It was very simple; pick basil, trim stems,

chop up with olive oil,

and freeze. In a couple weeks, the late planting of the basil crop should give me enough leaves to make a big batch of pesto.

And now the cherries are ripe, too.

BH and I (that's him on the ladder) picked 15 pounds of cherries late yesterday. There was an Amish family at the farm doing the same thing. They picked waaaaaaay more than we did. I'll make a couple of batches of jam when it cools down tonight. By this time next year, I'd love to have a solar dehydrator - dried cherries are loverly.

On nights I'm not canning or gardening after dinner, I crawl back inside my book until bedtime.

Today's goal: Write for 15 minutes.

Today's mindset: yummy.

Today's prompt: focus on taste; anticipating it, describing it, watching how it affects behavior. Write about a taste that represents love to you. If nothing comes to mind, write about a taste that represents anger. If that doesn't work, freewrite about a breakfast in an exotic location.

Scribblescribble...

Yesterday someone wrote asking me to explain how it is we live without public water. That is a very good question.

According to the EPA, 15% of Americans get their water from private wells, like us. The town of Mexico, a couple miles down the road, has a public water system, but we don't technically live in the town. The very rural town we do live in is beginning to develop a public water system, but we think it will be at least a decade before they get to our neck of the woods, if ever.

Our well, like all of our neighbors' wells, is a hole dug into the ground (by experts!) until it reached an underground aquifer. Pipes were laid from the well to the house and pumps installed. In our basement, we have a fancy-pants German filtration system to make sure nothing nasty is hiding in the water. We have it tested periodically; it's wonderfully clean and pure.

Our environment would be better off if more people used well water. For one thing, you are less inclined to throw chemicals on your lawn and garden when you know that you'll be drinking them. Secondly, knowing that water is a finite resource makes people pay more attention to their consumption. It's not that we walk around unbathed or anything, but we try really hard not to waste a drop. (That's why there are rain barrels to help collect water for the garden.)

One more water note (I write this watching the sky, hoping the rain gets here soon.) When we lose electricity, we lose water access because the pump doesn't work. This doesn't happen often, but since I married a Boy Scout, we're always prepared for it.

I do think that living out here in the country, heating our home with wood, snowshoeing when the driveway is blocked, getting by without electricity and water occasionally, not having air conditioning, plus growing and preserving our food has given me an insight into 18th century living conditions that I wouldn't have had otherwise. (And I haven't talked about our camp yet.... one word ... outhouse!)

Enough about our plumbing. It's time to write.

Today's goal: Write for 15 minutes. If you have public water, push yourself and write for 16 minutes.

Today's mindset: curious and open-minded

Today's prompt: interview your character. Don't overthink this. Just ask your character questions so you can get to know her/him better.

Hint: don't accept generic answers. Push for details. For example, "pizza" is unacceptable as an answer to question #1. "Thick-crusted pizza with asiago cheese, fresh basil, and prosciutto, served with a glass of Beaujolais nouveau and eaten on the screen porch" is the level of detail you're reaching for.

I'll get you started with a few:
1. Favorite food
2. Secret crush in elementary school
3. Which relative do you loathe and why?
4. Favorite smell
5. What magazine do you buy when no one is watching?
6. What's your best feature?
7. If you were given a paid day off and $500, what would you do with it?
8. What's your biggest regret?
9. Favorite sound
10. What is hidden in the box at the back of your closet?

Scribblescribble

My Beloved Husband tells me I yelled at one of my characters in my sleep last night, really hollered at the guy for being a two-faced SOB. I was relieved to find out it was one of the bad guys in my new book, not my protagonist. While I don't remember the yelling dream, I do remember the dream in which every single person I met was an eighth grade English teacher.

Woke up very early this morning to water the garden because we're going to have a disgustingly hot day. I've been using the rainwater we collected in four big barrels. Dragging pails of water all over the place is a sure-fire way to make your arms strong. We're not connected to public water out here; all of the water we drink and use comes from a well. In the summertime, we try to conserve water whenever we can, hence the rain barrels.

I'm hoping for rain tonight or tomorrow.

A couple of people have written to me asking if they are allowed to link to my blog from their blog. Absolutely! The more, the merrier!

We're now starting Week 2 of the WFMAD Challenge. Thank you for sharing your comments and updates. I'm really enjoying this.

As always: today's goal: Write for 15 minutes (minimum).

Today's mindset: fists clenched, ready to do battle.

Today's prompt: conflict. In the last decade, I've critiqued a lot of manuscripts at writers' conferences. They usually had lovely imagery and interesting characters, but many were lacking a solid core conflict. This is usually an issue in the early drafts of my books, too. My characters wander around the pages thinking deep thoughts, but not doing much. Once I get a clear sense of who they are, I have to throw them to the lions and see what they're made of.

Today I'd like you to brainstorm five situations that pit one character against another. Freewrite about the one that makes your stomach tight. Keep the stakes high, but remember to let the characters' actions convey a lot of meaning; don't let them fill in the backstory in dialog. Hint: use strong verbs today - shy away from adverbs.

Scribblescribble...

Lest you think I'm only going to blog about writing this month, I thought I'd give you a peek in the garden, my other summer passion.

The hollyhocks have started to bloom.

I wish I could crawl inside one.

Here is one of the stone planters, filled with a combination of vegetables and flowers. The broccoli are done for the season, though I might try a late crop this fall. The lettuce hasn't bolted yet, which I appreciate. The tomatoes are insane - no other word for it. (Yes, they are the crazy monster plants in the middle.) I am experimenting with two sweet potato plants and cabbages in these beds, too. So far, so good.

This is what we call the corner garden. It's planted with Roma tomatoes, hot peppers, marigolds, zinnias, and out of range of this camera, green beans.

It is snow pea season; we're eating them every day.

They are so yummy that next year I think I'll plant three times as many.

I also picked a bunch of basil today that I'm about to mush up and freeze. Photos tomorrow maybe.

So here is the The Very Nearly Perfect Thing I was talking about last week.




Be sure to hang around for the credits.

Yesterday was a loooooooong day that stretched into the night, and I still didn't get everything done that I had hoped. So my post about The Very Nearly Perfect Thing will be a little delayed. I think I'll make a video to explain it and hope to put it up late today or tomorrow.

First, sad news: Tasha Tudor has died. I have long admired her work and really appreciate how she chose to live her extraordinary life. The linked article refers to her need to make money from her art to support her children after a divorce. She said "the wolf at the door is very good for people" because she felt she would not have developed her talents without the need to pay bills. That is a very healthy perspective.

Thank you very much to everyone who turned out for last night's Readergirlz chat! Mitali Perkins will be posting excerpts on her blog very soon. I'll link to it as soon as it's up.

We had a little rain yesterday and were given a beautiful gift at the end.

Breathtaking.

Especially because the rainbow ended (or began?) in our garden. (Photo credit: BH aka Scot Larrabee)

Good Solstice, everyone.

Happy is the gardener who gets her plants in the ground and her tools put away before the rain starts.

I couldn't help myself. I jumped the gun this weekend. The broccoli I planted will be fine when the temperatures drop below freezing later this week. It won't bother the pansies either, though the hollyhocks are already trembling. The lettuce and peas I sowed are hardy enough to push through snow.

But I fear for the tomatoes. I put them out several weeks too early in a fit of blind optimism and while hallucinating about fresh tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwiches. Maybe I could build them little bonfires or quick knit them all a blanket. Stay tuned....

Besides gardening (in a cloud of punkies so thick I had to work with a shawl wrapped around my head), the other fun thing this weekend was our nine-mile run around Cazenovia Lake with our Team in Training teammates. I've reached my fund raising goal and my Beloved Husband is 80% of the way there -- he only needs another $485. Our bribery offer of free books and other goodies still stands if you donate (scroll down the linked post for the details.)

Several important dates are sprinting towards us:
48 days until the Lake Placid Half-Marathon
60 days until ALA
146 days until the Philadelphia Distance Run
176 days until the release of CHAINS and my book tour (I got a preview of the tour plans last week, but I can't talk about it until the details are finalized.)

Looking backwards now:
2008 Resolution Tracker
Week 16 - Miles Run: 14.5, YTD: 329.25 (gone through another pair of sneakers!)
Week 16 - Days Written: 7, YTD: 118

This is Day 119 of 2008. We're just about one-third of the way through the year. Does that seems possible?

I dashed outside the Cave of Revision this morning and it's true: it is almost Spring up here on the tundra. In fact, I think it will happen today, while I am deeply buried in my story.

I won't be able to haunt the Forest with my camera to pounce on the Absolute Moment, so here is the closest I can come to proving this to you.

Here the Creature With Fangs poses next to one of the last piles of snow we have.

Next: daffodils on the brink of blooming. (Yes, those daffodils, mentioned in '06!) I tried to get the CWF to pose here, too, but she was more interested in crushing the plants with her paws. I threw a stick in the other direction and snapped this shot.

Thank you to everyone who donated to my husband's Race for Cancer. There is still time to help our cause and get some of the free LHA goodies mentioned earlier this week (scroll to bottom of post).

Attention New England SCBWI Conference attenders! Today is Day 5 of my 21-Day Writing Challenge. How's it going for you? I'd love to hear what you're doing - leave a note in the Comments section and pass the word along to the other folks who were there.

OK, back into the Cave I go.

Mary Pearson posted gorgeous spring photos yesterday.

Since it was, officially, Spring, i.e. the Vernal Equinox, i.e. Ostara, and I was well enough to get off the couch, I went in search of proof of the event in my own backyard.

I didn't find much. Down south in Syracuse, they have grass and mud. Up here on the tundra?


Not so much. This is the end of my driveway. The driveway itself is slushy mud, which is a good sign, but there is still snow on the roof of the house.

::stares at Mary's pictures again::


Here are my daffodils.

My Beloved Husband noticed my pout and scanned the horizon for signs of Spring. "Look!" he shouted, pointing to a small building on the farm down the hill.


I squinted. Put on my glasses. Squinted some more.

"No," I shook my head. "You can't fool me. We are going to be trapped in winter for months. And I'll get the flu again. And we'll lose power. And... and... and..."

He stuffed me into my (winter) coat and drove me down the road for a closer look.

He was right. Spring really is here.


Because that's not smoke. That is the sweetest steam in the world pouring out of the sugar shack. The maple sap is running in the Forest. The farmers are collecting the sap and boiling - right inside that wonderful building - into maple syrup.

The Trees are wise. They know. It is Spring.

I feel much, much better now.

Saturday night's storm knocked out our electricity and there was so much snow, we couldn't get out the driveway. Normally this wouldn't have been a big deal, but I promised an editor a bunch of stuff would be delivered this morning and the battery on my laptop was drained dry. Big problem, frantic author.

Beloved Husband to the rescue! Scot is an old school Yankee tinkerer, a slightly-aged Boy Scout who loves improvising, and he saved the day.

He turned my little red car into an office.

First he cracked open the doors of the garage so I wouldn't asphyxiate. Turned on my lovely car (it often gets 40 miles per gallon, btw) and cranked the heat. Plugged the inverter into the 12-volt jack (the thing we used to call a cigarette lighter). Plugged my laptop into the inverter. Carried down all of my research books and stacked them on the passenger seat. Fired up the laptop.

I worked out there all morning, enjoyed the tea that Scot brought out at 10:30am. When the power came back on at lunchtime, I moved into the house and kept working without missing a beat. Wrote until dinner and a little bit after that and accomplished my goal.

As promised, this week I'll answer some of the writing process questions. that you guys have sent in. Today's questions come from skg who writes: Do you ever have to adjust the overall pacing of the story, and if so how do you approach that?

Once the stinky first draft is done, I do a lot of tinkering with the pacing. It takes a little time to get the perspective that allows me to see the entire story, but once I can, I examine each thread of the story to make sure the events that pull it forward unfold in a way that makes sense, both for that thread and for the larger story. I make a time line of events on a huge sheet of paper. Once I see things on the time line, I usually make changes; speeding up some sections, slowing down others.

How do you think through making a character change over the course of a novel?

To be honest, I don't give that part much thought. I focus on creating situations that force the character out of her/his comfort zone, raising the emotional stakes as I go along. If I've developed conflicts that are organic and in keeping with the character's world, her/his response to the conflicts will naturally lead to internal growth.

More tomorrow. Right now I have more writing to do, and a long run later if I'm a very good girl. It's ten degrees outside... I'll be running on a treadmill.

::dances around office::

Taxes are done! Taxes are done! Taxes are done! Now they go to the accountant and (::crosses fingers::) he'll review everything and tell me my estimated quarterly payments were enough.

I promise that this week I will answer the extremely good questions about the writing process sent in by a bunch of you guys. The rest of the weekend is devoted to some work for Editor #1 and a phone call with Editor #2 to discuss the draft I sent her last week.

Before I dive back into my source notes and scribble madly, a few concluding pics from Chattanooga, TN, plus a gorgeous picture from the hinterlands.

The morning I left, I stopped at Hixson High School....

( and did Laurie put all of the students to sleep? )

I'm sitting in the sunroom (yes, wearing sunscreen) so I can enjoy the view.

What do you think?





The Creature With Fangs loves snow. She gallops across the yard, maw hanging open so she can scoop up snow and eat it. Reminds me of a whale inhaling crill.




What's the weather where you are?

So I am sitting in the Detroit airport right now, catching up on my email and looking forward to sushi for lunch. I'll take pictures, I promise. The flight here was on time and uneventful; loverly. Fingers crossed for the next leg of the trip.

Theo theoblackhas been working away at his forge, crafting a new look for my website. It is still very much a work-in-progress, but here is a sneak peek at the Novels page.

And here's the new look for the homepage.

What do you think? (Not all of the buttons work yet, so don't worry about that. Just tell us what you like and what you don't like.)

I also asked Theo to put together pages for playlists for all my books. This is where I'd love your ideas: What songs would you put on the playlist for: SPEAK, CATALYST, PROM, TWISTED, & FEVER 1793 (I am looking at you, handworn for that one!)?

edited to add I forgot to mention our early morning adventure in the Forest. We woke up at 4am as scheduled. Minor complication: no power. I got dressed and put on my make-up by candlelight, while Beloved Husband valiantly made coffee by boiling water and handpouring it through the coffee-filled filter. He let the dog out to do her business just as we were preparing to leave. One nanosecond later, he bellowed for her to come back in. I had caught a whiff of skunk and assumed the worse.

Yes, it was a critter, but it was a raccoon raiding the dog's food bowl in her pen. Nothing was left of the skunk but the stink. Crisis averted. Packed the car, grabbed the coffee and hit the road at 4:30am. As we headed for town, BH said, "You blew out all the candles, right?" Me: "..... ah, I think so?"

We drove back. Yep, I had blown out all candles. House and dog were safe. The raccoon was full. And the skunk was probably watching all of this from the cover of a hollowed-out log, laughing his fool stripe off.

I have figured out why our computer system, cable, Internet and phone have been messed up for two weeks. My Muse has transformed herself into the Ghost in the Machine and is haunting all of the electronic communication devices in our house so I have more time to write. I love her. We have had guys with trucks from the cable company out nearly every day, with more coming on Monday.

::musecackles::

But email waits for no Muse, which is why I am typing this at the Oswego Tea Company in Oswego, NY. (They are working on the redesign of their page. Anybody from SUNY Oswego want to lend a hand? Maybe they could pay you in cookies or coffee.) Seriously, this is one of my favorite places around and they have free Wifi. Thank you, Lisa who own the Tea Company.

I have recently had many requests to speak at schools. I am still turning all of these down and will be doing so for the foreseeable future, though I do hope to get back to school visits eventually. Teachers, I have name for you, for professional development purposes you want to invite Dr. Joan Kaywell to speak to you. Trust me on this.

We went to the hometown homecoming football game last night: our Mexico Tigers vs. the Fulton Red Raiders. I swear EVERYBODY in our community was there, from new babies to great-grandparents. Mexico lost, but it was a hard fought game and lots of fun to watch. And we beat ESM at their homecoming last week, so the karma is balanced now.

This morning BH and I got up early and headed for the Syracuse Regional Market in search of the season's last tomatoes (yes, I am roasting them again), fresh cauliflower, enough garlic braids to get us through the winter, fresh bread, and other goodies. One of my favorite local blogs told us about Wake Robin Farm, so we bought heavenly yogurt from them. We also picked up pasture-fed, traditionally raised beef, pork, chicken, eggs and butter from Wendy at Sweet Grass Farm. I swear I will never eat corporate-farmed butter again.

I have been wrestling Chapter Eight of my revision of the historical novel for two and a half days. The dang thing almost had me in a choke-hold, but I finally figure out how to take it down. Kevin, if you are reading this, Chapter Eight just split into two chapters. So yeah, the book is a little longer. Sorry about that.

My alma mater is the coolest.

Great quote heard on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me today: "Blackwater is Enron, but with sub-machine guns." If you don't know what that means, please do some investigating into the affairs of Blackwater.

That's enough now. Back to work.

This is going to be a quick entry to start the week. I feel like I have one hundred bazillion things to do and not enough hours in which to do them. That's the bad news. The good news is I had a fantastic, energizing weekend and I am chomping at the bit.

The Mexico Cider Run 5K was a blast; perfect weather and BH and I had a great time. And, drum roll please, I won my age group. Yes! That's right! Me - the one who has never won anything sports-related. I was so happy with my time (which was a personal best) it never occurred to me that I might have won. And they gave me a little plaque which is now sitting on the mantel. Suddenly all those soccer trophies my kids lugged home made sense.

Here we are, the happy, sweaty runners. (BH is wearing the shirt we had made up for last Thanksgiving, when all of our kids ran in a 5K with us.)

When I started getting back in shape 15 months ago, I could barely shuffle two miles on the treadmill. In running, as in writing, persistence is everything.

Yesterday was a writing and canning day. I used a bushel and half of Roma tomatoes to make chili base. Thanks to a well-timed email from my friend Hope Vestergaard (who is a great writer and a lover of all things Danish, like me, and who I will get to see at the SCBWI Michigan conference next month) I roasted half a bushel and froze them. Thank you, Hope - they turned out great!

It was a packed day, so I woke up at 4am and hopped right to it. My reward was a gorgeous sunrise. The photos I took don't come close to capturing the glory, but I thought I'd share a couple with you.

The colors peeked out just after the hoot owls went to sleep (they sang to me when I first got up).

See why I live out here?

I have insane writing goals this week. I would like to add 40 pages to the rough draft by Friday afternoon, if possible. That's a lot, but I figure you never accomplish much if you don't aim high. Plus I have speeches to write and piles of mail to get through. Wish me luck and focus... I am going to need it!

How was your weekend?

I am finally beginning to feel the burn-out that dogged me all summer begin to fade away. This is officially a Good Thing. That balanced life of awareness, intention, hard work, and fun is on the horizon!

I am almost through the brainstorming draft of my new YA. This is the fast and dirty draft: very fast, very dirty. It's about 35 pages long, with another 40 pages of notes in a different file. The actual writing of the first draft begins tomorrow morning. And that's all I want to say about that.

I have now tagged all of my 2007 entries in my LiveJournal. I hope to get to 2006 and 2005 very soon. This will be useful for people who are looking for specific information (writing process, Twisted, Speak) or who just want to see all my pictures of Poland or snow. Do you use tags when looking for info?

BH and I ran in the Salmon River 5K last Saturday, despite the heat and humidity. Much to our surprise, we ran a decently fast race. (He could have run much faster, but he was a gentleman and ran with me the whole way.) Even more to our surprise, we each placed third in our age-groups and won a medal. That was very cool. Our knee trouble over the summer has prevented us from entering the half-marathon in Philly later this month, but we'll be running in our hometown Mexico 5K Cider Run this Saturday. Come join us! You'll support our local library and have a blast.

I had an Animal, Vegetable, Miracle moment (you must read that book) in the grocery store yesterday. I had this fancy-pants fish recipe I wanted to make that called for a salsa made for fresh oranges. The problem? Not only were the oranges four for three dollars, they had been imported from Peru. We have been making a real effort to reduce our carbon footprint and support local farmers. Oranges from Peru do not meet those goals. So I drove past an orchard on the way home, bought near ten pounds of peaches for nine dollars, and made peach salsa. And yes, I am feeling rather smug about this, thank you.

I have speeches to work on this afternoon, and thirty pounds of fresh green beans to blanche and freeze. And you don't even want to know how many tomatoes are waiting in my kitchen. They snicker as I walk by. We'll see who has the last laugh....

Happy Birthday, Penni! Happy Birthday, Alex!!!

Note to Danielle I'll be emailing you within the next couple of days. Thank you so much for what you sent!

So yesterday was the worst allergy day of the year, hands down. I sneezed and sneezed and sneezed (terrifying the dog) and then my asthma flared up and I coughed and coughed and coughed (alarming my Beloved Husband). I sneezed and coughed so much that I messed up my back, and started walking around the house like a mummy whose bandages were coming loose. Not fun.

Somehow I made it to bedtime. I felt so crappy, I didn't even care that the Colts were playing the Saints. I took enough medication to knock out an elephant and fell very deeply asleep.

Which explains why BH had a hard time waking me up at 3:30am.

Apparently, he spent at least five minutes doing the gentle-nudge-sweetie?sweetie? thing. Then he said, "Honey, you need to wake up, but don't be afraid."

My eyes snapped open. Adrenaline surged.

BH explained that we had another critter in the house. (Critters adore us so much, they are always trying to move in. But they never pay the rent on time and they hold loud parties and let their friends smoke, so we've had to adopt a firm "No Critter" rule.)

At first I thought he was saying the critter was somehow poised above my head, preparing to drop on me. Second adrenaline surge. But, no. This one was wedged between a window and the window screen. There was a hole in the screen, and BH couldn't tell if the critter made the hole in order to escape out of the house, or in an attempt to break in.

In any event, BH couldn't find the camera.

I was so grateful that nothing with claws was about to drop on my face, I staggered out of bed and found the camera. And then I fell back into my coma. BH took pictures of the critter.

It was a flying squirrel.

A flying squirrel is basically a small rat with a hot cape, a fear of owls, and a banzai attitude.

But as far as rats go, flying squirrels are cuter than most. And I will forever love this one because it did not jump on my head. After taking the pictures, BH opened the window and the little guy sprung off into the darkness.

Now I am going to lay flat on the couch and moan about my back, all the while I try not to sneeze or cough. The snow cannot get here fast enough, I swear. Ragweed is the devil's handmaiden.

So far, so good. My break from writing ended at 7am this morning as I went back to my story. A secondary character has grown significantly since I went on vacation so I spent all morning reconsidering the opening chapters in light of her changed position. It was not the kind of writing day you can measure in page production, but I think the story has more depth now, which is every bit as important.

I kept canning through the weekend.... and have more pantry adventures lined up for the weeks ahead.

If you can stand to see more pictures of preserved food, here they are.

I wound up making another batch of pickles. This is what pickles look like when they are called "cucumbers."

You chop them into messes and boil yourself a batch of pickle water.

The day's production - pickles and homemade salsa (red stuff in the back)

Ummmmm... pickle love.

I also froze a bunch more peaches and green beans (not together in the same container, though) and I made plum jam and dilled green beans (in the back)

And today I made another batch of spaghetti. For those of you who care, one-half a bushel of Roma tomatoes with a bunch of garlic, onion and herbs thrown into it cooks down to six pint jars of sauce.

I'll post about the TWISTED teacher contest tomorrow. Be sure to drop by Sarah Dessen's blog and congratulate her on the birth of her baby girl, Sasha!!

Bliss. Bliss. Bliss.

We've been taking a "home" vacation the last week and a half. (Well, I have. BH has been working.) That means avoiding the computer, reading for fun, not research, and doing all the little projects around the house I've been wanting to do, but haven't made the time for.

Like becoming a domestic goddess.

I went through this phase before, when I was a stay-at-home mom with a toddler and an infant. I had a garden, fruit trees, and a woodpile. I baked and canned and sewed. And then life got complicated for about twenty years. BH and I have taken vows to simplify, simplify, simplify our lives, and spend our energies doing the things that have meaning for us; trying our very best to avoid the rat-race that life often seems to becomes.

So... my vacation! (so far, I am still taking this weekend off, too.)

It has mostly been spent in the kitchen, playing pioneer. I turned a bushel of peaches into...

... a dozen quarts of canned peaches, a dozen tiny jars of peach chutney and a whole bunch of peach preserves.

Then I turned a pot of tomatoes and boxes of blackberries into

spaghetti sauce base and blackberry jam.

Once I got started, I couldn't stop.

I made deviled eggs and froze massive amounts of blueberries.

I knit a warm vest that will go to a child who could really use it, thanks to the amazing people at Warm Woolies. (Thanks to my friend Martha, and our friend Elvira, for telling me about Warm Woolies.)

I went back to the farmer's market for more tomatoes and brought home fresh dill and cucumbers.

The tomatoes are in the process of becoming chili base.

And the cucumbers are being fermented into old-school fermented dill pickles. They went in this crock with a bunch of spices and garlic and dill and vinegar. For the next three weeks, I am supposed to scoop off the foam from the top of the crock and make sure the dog doesn't stick her nose in it. If the crock doesn't explode or catch fire, in three weeks, I'll be canning the pickles.

Our wood arrived!!! (Winter is never far from our thoughts up here.)

BH ran the splitter for a day until all the hunks were of manageable size. (We received nearly nine cord.) If it cools down a little this weekend, we'll stack it.

That's all for now. My stuff on the stove is getting ready to bubble over. What have you been up to?