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Friday, October 28

I dislike alarm clocks.


I think I've said before on this blog (somewhere, sometime) that I hate alarm clocks. The screeching sound of an alarm clock is the worst sound ever, ever, ever.

Before I started my sick leave, the alarm clock wouldn't even wake me up, probably because Tyler and I worked at the same place and I knew he was going to jump out of bed and shut it off. Honestly, I didn't even hear it. Now that I'm done work, for some reason the alarm wakes me up, and since I'm hugely pregnant I have major problems getting back to sleep. Mostly because I have to wee wee when I wake up, and that involves getting out of a nice warm bed and walking to the bathroom, sitting on a cold toilet seat (darn you cold fall temperatures!) and then climbing back into a slightly less warm bed, alone, because the husband is downstairs getting his coffee made and going to work. Poopy.

That's what happened to me this morning, and to make it worse, I was hungry when I woke up. I can usually warm up after getting back into bed, because we have nice snuggly blankets, but I can't eat my pillow or the tissues beside my bed. I probably could eat the tissues, because they are small and fragile, but it would be gross and thinking about it is making me want to gag. 


So, I came downstairs, got the fire going again and got some cereal, and now I'm going to go tidy up my kitchen and living room and wait for Deklan to wake up. Yes, he's still sleeping peacefully.... he's going to wake up full of energy, and I'll be a half asleep zombie mommy... at least I can still get him some breakfast (pouring yogurt into a bowl doesn't require me to have both eyes open at the same time) and turn the TV on for him.  Ugh, I hate TV. But I love it too. Stupid electronic babysitter of wonderfulness with a side of evil.



Saturday, October 22

Apple Butter!

I rarely eat apple butter. By rarely, I mean once every 6 years. It's just not something that I pick up and put in the grocery cart when I'm shopping. This year, however, I had a big bushel (read: laundry basket... someday I'd like to get a real bushel to put apples in) full of apples from our tree to either do something with or let rot, and I hate seeing food go to waste.... I had to do something.  

I didn't think I had enough apples to get a decent amount of applesauce, so I wanted to try my hand at apple butter.  I canned applesauce with my Mom when I was younger, so I knew (generally) how to do that, but making apple butter was new to me. 

Since I am so very pregnant, my very lovely sister Linda came to help me make it! Due to an unforeseen alarm clock malfunction, she didn't get to my house until basically lunchtime, so we didn't start making the apple butter until 2:00-ish (girls gotta eat!!) so it wasn't actually finished the day she was there.... because, as it turns out, apple butter takes a heckahecka long time to make! 

It didn't help that I kept on boobing everything up, leaving lids on the pots (FYI, you're supposed to cook the apple butter with the lids OFF the pots so the steam can escape... who knew? Not me! Deena did, and props to her for sharing her apple-butter-making secrets with me!) and being all pregnant and having to sit and put my feet up and take snack breaks and tea breaks and supper breaks. 

Anyway, we started the process by washing the apples and cutting out their hairy butts and stems. Apple butter is actually way easier than applesauce to prepare, because you just cut up the apples, peels & cores & all, and throw the pieces in a pot with an itty bitty amount of water, cook them until they're soft and then grind them through the masher thingy to get the appley goodness separated from the pulpy crap. Then, you add spices (I added cinnamon and nutmeg, but not cloves because cloves are gross) and put it on the stove and cook it and cook it and cook it and cook it forever and ever and ever amen.

And since I knew I was starting my blog back up, and knew that I would want to blog about making apple butter, I very dutifully took pictures that day of Linda in the kitchen helping me make it. 

Yeah, Linda is so totally awesome. Look at her go! Make that apple butter! Shake what your Momma gave ya!

My laundry basket full of apples made a lot more apple butter than I thought it would! All three of my big pots were full to the brim. Of course, by the time the apple butter was ready to can, all three pots were half full because it has to cook down so much.
It was three days later before I actually canned anything... Adeena, Jeff & the kids came over to our place for dinner and a movie, and Adeena helped me can my first batch! I was so happy. It was a momentous occasion for sure!

These have been sitting on my countertop for a week, and they may just stay there all Winter, because I love looking at them and knowing that all the work I put into making apple butter paid off! :D




Deklan likes it, Tyler likes it, I like it, and we get to enjoy it for hopefully the next few months before it's all gone! 

Next year I'd like to can a lot more! Not just apple butter, many different things! I enjoyed it. :)

Thursday, October 20

Beginning



It's been a long time since I last wrote a blog... long enough that I'm second guessing myself, typing and backspacing, typing and backspacing in a frenzy of indecision. I've started and stopped writing this post easily a dozen times. 

The problem is, I'm not a planner. I like to think that I am, I strive to be one actually, but the truth is I'm best when I'm spontaneous, writing from my heart rather than from my head.  It doesn't help that I'm out of practice, the last blog I wrote was in May... and we're almost through October now. Eeek.

There's so much to tell you, so much has happened these past months that I've been absent from the blogosphere... too much for just one post. So I'm going to start with the obvious, the easy, the adorable...


Deklan, of course. 

He's 26 months old, we celebrated his 2nd Birthday at the beginning of September (because August was so RIDICULOUSLY busy, like srsly, so busy) with a pony party! Yes, ponies. Actually, technically they're miniature horses, but ponies is easier and more fun to say.

His new favourite word is "No", which really doesn't surprise me. I wish he didn't say it when I ask him "Do you love me?", it's not really an ego boost when he answers "NO NO no no no no NO NO NO!" with a mischievous grin on his face. I know he does love me, but really, it'd be nice if he would say it every once in a while!! Throw me a bone here, Deklan. 

He still loves tractors, trucks, cars, basically anything with a motor and wheels, actually just wheels as he also loves bikes... He does like to play with a baby dolly occasionally, since we've told him we're going to have a baby, and the dolly at Grandma's house is realistic with eyes that open and close (one of those "tilt to blink" baby dollies). He's actually pretty good with the dolly, he doesn't slam it on the ground or swing it around by it's legs or try to poke it's eyes out... it gives me a small measure of hope that he won't attempt any gymnastics with our newborn when the baby arrives sometime in November.

That leads me nicely to my next topic, my pregnancy! I'm 35 weeks pregnant, almost done cookin'. It's been a long pregnancy for me, I've had fatigue and morning sickness (that lasts all day, so all day sickness) and leg cramps and varicose veins and backache and fatigue and nausea and fatigue, all those lovely symptoms that I didn't have with my first pregnancy. So far, no sign of pre-eclampsia, so I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that I don't have to deal with that noise again.

We didn't find out the sex of the baby this time, so we're going to have a surprise! I wanted to find out, but Ty really really didn't, and I knew I couldn't keep it a secret if I found out and he didn't (I'd let it slip somehow...) so as a kindness to him, I didn't ask (even though my Mom said she would have if she were me! *Gasp* so evil....) I do have a feeling, we'll see if I'm right or not when the baby comes.... 

What's next... hmm... Oh yeah! We moved! We sold our house on the terrible no good very bad crazy busy dangerous highway, and moved to the middle of nowhere! Really! Google maps doesn't even know where we are. It tells people to drive through a swamp to get to our house. There's no road where google maps tells them to go. It's a little bit hilarious, actually..

That's actually why I re-named my blog, because our new property is the Hobbley Hilltop. We're in the middle of nowhere, on top of a hill, not the highest hill but the second highest hill. It's okay that we're not the highest, the big hill hides our house so we're more secluded and have more privacy than if we were king of the castle. So it's aight.

We have 4 and a quarter acres of land now, which is at once exciting and sobering, exciting because someday we're going to get cows and a horse and chickens and have a big garden and be all homesteady, and sobering because of all the reasons I just listed. Responsibility! Stewardship! It's going to be fun, and hard, and hopefully rewarding.  

I'm so excited about it, because since I was a little girl I've always wanted to have a bit of land to live off of, raising animals and growing food in a garden, it's probably got something to do with my childhood obsession with Little House on the Prairie and the book about Pioneers that my Mom read to us... I love the romance of the agrarian lifestyle, well except for the part about having no indoor plumbing and using corn husks to wipe your butt.... I can't live without indoor plumbing. Just can't. Won't. And I have a sensitive hiney, so corn husks? No thanks. I'll stick with Charmin.

Other than that, working with my hands? Digging and shovelling and sweating and back-breaking, all that kind of stuff? Me likey. And animals???? I love animals, I've missed having animals around, in fact I'm giddy because my Father-in-law asked us to board his chickens this winter because he's going to be away a lot for work, and he doesn't want to leave too much for his wife to do (considering she's having knee surgery this Winter, and although she'd put up a heck of an effort, it's probably best if she doesn't have to worry about hobbling out to the barn to feed and water chickens twice a day). 

I'm looking forward to having a garden next year, and canning and preserving my own home-grown veggies! We have an apple tree now, and I just made apple butter (my very own apple butter!), something I'll blog about soon to tell you all about it. Why? Because I'm psyched about it, that's why. 

Today is my fourth Wedding Anniversary, so although I'd like to stay here all day and blather on and on and on at you, I really should get something done. I've got steaks marinating for Supper, I want to tidy up the house a bit then I have to get Deklan's diaper bag ready to go because he's going to have a sleepover at Grandma's tonight, to give Tyler and I some alone time! We're going to go to town to choose paint colours for Deklan's big boy room (right now he's in the nursery, because his room was PINK, and we're re-painting it and making it into a cool boy's room for him!) and probably buy a movie to watch, because we're hip like that. 

So, have a good day, 

TTYL!