Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

I may come out of this stomach bug 10 pounds lighter at this rate. Just saying.

I used the power of free child labor to deal with 15 pounds of tomatoes today (yes, somehow ten grew to fifteen as tomatoes are wont to do at this time of year). Because I am too sick to touch other people's food, but not too sick to be bossy, I can make a twelve-year-old and a sixteen-year-old perform magic, only not without whining.

I was going to just process diced ones, but no one had the patience to deal with that much dicing, so core, cut, and blenderize it was. I'll save dicing for when DH is home again in two weeks. I have both an eight quart and a six quart crockpot filled to near their tops with tomato puree cooking down overnight. I'll probably end up with about 7 quarts for canning. When I did it last week I cooked it down closer to paste and only got 7 pints, but I won't do that this time. It does take some time to cook it down this way, but I don't have to pay attention to it much while it does it's own thing.

My green bean plants are providing enough for fresh eating this year, but not for canning because I didn't plant enough, so I will likely put an order in at the new neighborhood produce stand that carries some local, organic stuff, green beans being one of those things for 25 pounds. I love this place. I walked away from them recently with three totes full of fruits and vegetables and spent just under $25. I cannot do that in a grocery store anymore. Everything is from my state, and over half of it is from my county. And they are walking distance (even for me), but they are also only two blocks over from several other places I go when combining errands.

I have tried two new melons grown in Eastern WA lately, a Galia and a Piel de Sapo (toad skin) or Santa Claus Melon. They are so darn good. They taste like both cantaloupe and honeydew, but not in the same way. I discovered today that melon will stay down for a whole 20 minutes at which point it's mostly liquid. I hate to eat so much fruit for many reasons but at this point I have to get some nutrition into me, even if it's only visiting for a few minutes. And the birds are loving the rinds and the seeds.

I don't think I mentioned that we almost lost Queen. She's doing a lot better, and we think she will live, but boy we thought she'd go the way of Kyri, eggbound and miserable. Giving a chicken a warm bath and a massage or two where you never want to touch a chicken did a world of good for the poor critter. She's laying eggs normally again and being the first to the treats dish so that's good.

( Duck Egg Photo Cut for Size )

One of the problems with having a productive garden in the summer is that it can be hard to keep up with it, especially when it is hot. Today I picked 1 gallon of raspberries and 2 gallons of blueberries, probably 3 if you count what I fed to the super demanding chicken flock. They are not shy at all about asking for blueberries. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, considering the newbies are starting to lay eggs. Finally earning their keep! I have barely made a dent in the blueberries, either. I could probably pick another 5 gallons tomorrow and the next day and still have some left to do. Plus there are tons of red and green ones still. The raspberries won't be ready again to pick for 3 or 4 days. I picked the blackberries yesterday and I think I've got a week before I need to pick those again.

( A lot to do )

...one batch of cornbread blueberry muffins, peanut butter cookies, hotdog and hamburger buns and two loaves of bread. I am a machine. I also put a full Sunday dinner on the table (beef chuck pot roast, corn on the cob, broccoli and cauliflower. Everything was organic except the corn, but at least it was from California.

I have been doing a lot of reading about sustainable farming this month and about the way the food industry works in America. Books I've read lately besides The Omnivore's Dilemma, are In Defense of Food, An Everlasting Meal, To Buy or Not to Buy Organic, The Cook's Illustrated Poultry Cookbook (which has a lot of non-cooking information in it, really), and I am about to start American Wasteland. We joined the local food co-op as well. I am having far more fun than a person should wandering the aisles there and reading labels. And grinding my own peanut butter was a blast. Yes, I am easily amused. But you have not lived until you've made peanut butter cookies with freshly ground peanut butter, a pasture-raised organic duck egg, and pure organic raw cane sugar. Superb!

I am starting to think about writing again. It's been almost a full month and it's been a good break. Not quite sure if I am totally ready to get back into it, but thinking about it without dread or apathy is kind of nice. Maybe I will take a shot at it soon. Not going to put pressure on myself though. It'll happen when it happens and the words decide it's time to flow again.

( Cut for Bigness )

Yummy.

azriona, this made me think of you.

( Perception versus Reality )

( Photos )

Mostly I am just posting pictures to see if LJ is capable of posting pictures, and to give myself something to do while I wait for Torchwood, but this was my dinner tonight.  Okay, and LJ is still wibbling because it put all my photos in the opposite order of how I arranged them and also the text was supposed to be on top.  Good to know.  Anyway, the blueberries and blackberries are from the backyard and the pizza (before and after cooking photos) was made from scratch and fully loaded.  I only ate one slice.  I have very little appetite anymore and have lost 15 pounds since surgery.  Hmm...I wonder if LJ can do an LJ-cut?

I swam 40 laps tonight in 55 minutes.  That's 3/4 of a mile plus one lap.  Go me! *laughs*  It feels really good.  I didn't take any long breaks and the longest pause I had at the end of a length was six breaths long.  Mostly I didn't need those, maybe every six laps or so I'd do that.  I am getting stronger and stronger and it is so nice not having to defog my goggles anymore.  The first 20 laps are still the hardest.  After that it's almost like I go somewhere else in my mind.  My focus is on my breathing and how smoothly I cut through the water, and of course, keeping the number in my head so I don't lose count.  But it's like it's no longer exercise.  It's just Being in this watery otherworld.  I really like the feeling of it.  Those first 20 though are definitely exercise, definitely something I am pushing through.  So worth it though.  This was the first time I felt simply tired instead of utterly exhausted after a workout.  I think my body is finally starting to believe this is something that I can do.

( Read more... )

I'm procrastinating so I thought I may as well offer up some drabbles, ladychi style.  But I'll put a number limit on it.  First ten people to leave a pairing and a one word prompt will get a drabble.  I might do more if I happen to get more, but I only promise the first ten.  Because I am being brave (or possibly crazy) I will write in fandoms in addition to DW.

For DW fandom, Doctor/Rose (any version), Mickey/Martha, Donna Noble, or Jackie/Pete.

For Fringe fandom, Peter/Olivia, Astrid, Walter.

For The Vampire Diaries fandom, Damon/Elena or Caroline/Matt.

For Eureka fandom, Zane/Jo or Fargo/Jo or Jack Carter/Allison Blake.

For Castle fandom, Richard Castle/Kate Beckett or a Castle and Alexis father daughter prompt.

Also, does anyone know where I can buy maltose (malt sugar)?  Like does a regular grocery store have it?  I want to make homemade char sui sauce because all the store bought stuff has red food coloring (and other crap) in it and we can't have that with T's allergies.  I found a fabulous looking recipe, but if I need to go to an Asian food market I'd like to be pointed in that direction.

25 freaking laps today!  I so rock the pool. *glees*  At ten laps I was like, I don't want to even get to 20 right now, I want to quit and sit in the hot tub, but I pushed past it and right around fifteen got some real power going.  Now I need to decide whether I am going to go for 50 laps next or simply try to do 25 laps faster.  Today it took me 45 minutes to do 25 laps.  Fortunately no one else wanted to use the lap lane during family swim.  It's probably better for me to stick with 25 and work on speed until school starts because they have a three hour daily lap swim during the day and I could be in there long enough to hit 50 if I wanted to then without worrying about inconveniencing other people.  It's pretty dead during the day the staff tells me, usually just one die hard swimmer in there at a time.

My crawl stroke is improving and smoothing out again.  I wear goggles, but have decided if I close my eyes when I turn my head to breathe it for some reason makes the whole process go smoother.  It sounds weird but it works and getting the timing down on the breathing again is what will help me go even faster and smoother through the water.  So far crawl stroke and frog stroke are the only strokes I can do in a straight line. *laughs*  Everything else is a bit crooked. 

I added in the back stroke today, just on two lengths of the pool.  Got to add that in carefully and build up those particular shoulder muscles.  I do not need to screw up my rotator cuff just when I'm starting out.  The frog stroke is my strongest stroke and I tend to do it the most.  I can swim half the length of the pool before surfacing on that one.  I also do the side stroke a lot, the buttefly a little, and something on my back that I'm not even sure has a name.  It's sort of like doing the butterfly but on your back and your arms don't go above the surface of the water but they go around like the butterfly stroke underneath and your legs flutter kick.  My goal is to at least do half crawl stroke because it is the best for overall body movement and exercise and then the side strokes for at least 1/4 of them.

I feel good.  The endorphin high is awesome.  I really feel like I'm making some progress on building up the strength in my knee and starting to improve my fitness.  Now that the exericise is moving along again, I should probably start poking at my food.  I've been...lazy lately about cooking and eating out too much and having too much in the way of convenience foods.  I need to go back to my healthier way of eating and cooking.  I've got all the ingredients.  Maybe I can ride this energy high and make up some easy meals for the next few days tonight.