The start to the school year has been a bit rocky…stress levels are up. I’m hoping everything is settling down now. My most recent posts seem to have been mostly about gardening. This one will touch on that as well.

Additionally, I have taken a little time to be creative. Some cards and a few journal pages.

I can safely say that my gardening days this season are numbered. I pulled up the shed garden and amended the soil with the compost from the bin. Yay, free! I’ve also started emptying pots and composting the spent plants for future compost.

I pulled up half of my carrots. They are small but mighty good. I’m just impressed that I successfully grew carrots…they were not looking good all summer.

Marvin is in the display case at school for our “pet show”. I wish I had taken a wide shot…there are over half a dozen photos of named chickens as well…makes me smile and giggle a bit.

Blogging seems to be getting harder for me even though I REALLY love it. The problem seems to be that I am not scheduling time for it. I sit down and before I realize it,  I have squandered hours of time on idle pursuits…down the proverbial rabbit hole on Pinterest or YouTube. Or bingeing a series on Netflix. I know I am not the only person who struggles with this…those platforms would not be as successful as they are without the continual audience. 

I know some of my struggle is learning what my new normal feels like. What I have time for, what I should be doing vs what I want to do vs what actually needs to be done. Look at me, verbally processing with you…. 

I literally have pages of notes and ideas of content for the blog. Some are just rough ideas.  Others are plans for projects not yet started or works in progress.  Additional ideas for reworking of old content…so many things. I feel as if I have analysis paralysis. I can’t decide what to do, so I do nothing.

Does that ever happen to you?

Today was my first day back to work but I’m not here to talk about that…I’m talkin’ tomatoes. I have an abundance between the CSA box and my own plants.

This was one morning’s harvest. Crazy right!?! Especially since I really don’t have that big of space.

I saw a recipe from our CSA farm that was called September soup which as a roasted tomato soup. I decided to do my own take on the soup with the fresh produce I had on hand.

I used several kinds of tomatoes including cherry size, sweet peppers, garlic, onion and one very hot jalapeno. I seasoned with oil, salt and pepper. I roasted the tray for about an hour I think. I actually had to stop and start partway through for some reason I can’t even remember now…

I dumped the tray of veggies into a stock pot and covered with water. I cooked it down for another 45 mins or so. Then I took my immersion blender and pureed the whole works.

I ended up with a quart and a half of some really rich tomato soup. Its a little on the spicy side so I’ll likely mix some milk or cream into it when I heat it for soup. I’m just going to freeze the soup.

Or maybe I’ll sample it as Bloody Mary mix…

That was a yummy taste test this weekend! It needed to be thinned out some but good flavor. Here in the Midwest (at least in Minnesota and Wisconsin) a “snit” or beer chaser is always served with a Bloody Mary. Is that a thing where you live?

Here we are in late August…things changing as they always do this time of year.

The garden and CSA box are providing beautiful produce to eat fresh and preserve for winter. I like to freeze bags of chopped onions, peppers and celery as a start to a few different recipes. Its a quick grab and get cooking after work. And aren’t these so pretty!!

The garden is beginning to look a bit tired…August marks the beginning of the end for the garden. Soon I’ll be pulling up the plants, covering the garden in compost and start the composting process all over again with those spent plants.

This was the beginning of the pile for Mini-me. We moved her to college on Friday. No tears. Lots of sweat… It was over 90°F, nearly 100% humidity (it was thunderstorming on and off), 3rd floor, no elevator and no A/C. We got it done though. She’s been busy with welcome week activities and starts classes tomorrow.

The pile for J starts today…he moves to campus this weekend for his senior year.

Marvin seems a bit confused, a bit needy.

Check out the cool art deco bowl I picked up at an occasional shop on Saturday.

I absolutely love it…the colors and design.  I picked up a few other things but this is my favorite.

It’s raining here this morning which is very welcome. The thunder is rumbling as I write my list for the day. I do love a good thunderstorm as long as its not damaging.