urbanhomesteader

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 - Day after the big snow!!!

Uffda, I awoke to 8 inches of heavy wet snow yesterday morning. Some april fool's from Mother Nature. Taffy enjoyed playing in it tho. The sun remained out most all day but it was only 18 degrees out. My poor little snowblower really spit and sputtered working so hard to get rid of that heavy stuff. Took me an hour and a half to clean out - mind you, I'm not complaining at all. At least I have a blower. The end of the drive I had to do most by hand. There were huge chunks of ice plowed into my drive and had to chuck them out before using the blower.

I had planned to accomplish so much this past weekend and low and behold, Saturday I woke up all stuffed up, chest congestion and a fever. Sunday was the same add a nasty cough. Monday found all that with a sore throat from coughing. Needless to say, I stayed home from work Monday night. Wouldn't have done anyone any good as sick as I was. Sigh.... what do you do? Go with it I guess. I've tabled those projects on my to do list from the weekend until my next weekend off. Yesterday I caught a chill when I was out "playing" in the snow and was freezing cold all morning and into the early afternoon. After that went away, I slept most of the afternoon/early evening away. I watched The Biggest Loser then slept until I had to come in to work.

So, my question for any of you who happen to trip over my little blog here and read today's post is...... How do you store your empty cannnig jars?? I'm trying so hard to organize my basement and storage areas but my canning jars are a mess. At least I have them all on one side of the basement. I need to sort them out according to size and mouth size. I've literally hundreds of jars as I do so much canning of EVERYTHING. I love to can. Meat, fruits, veggies, salsa's, bread -n- butter pickles (my dill never turn out), jams, jellies, apple and peach butter, meats, soups, stews, beans (navy, black and northern), juice, whew, it could go on and on.  Do you put the clean empty jar back in the section you took it from, put them in boxes, on shelves, someone I know cans water in hers but I think it's a waste of seals - well, today anyway LOL.  Thanks for any input.

My tomato plants are looking great. The alyssum that I started is SLOW! I'm wondering if I planted them too deep. Hmmmmmm. I'll be starting the squash, brocolli, cukes, pumpkins and peppers soon. Mmmmm, I can smell that fresh turned dirt already. My father usually doesn't till until mid-June but I want to get everything in before then.

I made the most interesting Mac -n- Cheese Friday night. I was tired and didn't feel like cooking much but took a box (yes, I'm embarrassed to say it), cooked up the noodles. While the noodles were draining, I melted the butter, was short milk so added some ranch dressing and a little water to it, stirred it in with the butter, tossed in the noodles, stirred in the "cheese" powder, added some brocolli I had steamed and some turkey sausage I chopped up. My, It was very tasty. The leftovers were even better!

Well, I'd better go do some chores and take some ibuprofen. Hope all have a great day - Sending lots of love and fuzzies!!!!

Michele