first week of high school

I've been afraid to say anything to jinx this magical beginning of high school, but I can't wait any longer to tell you. Kyle loves high school so far. Every single day this week he got up by himself, got ready, including brushing his teeth without me reminding him, and walked to school on time. I must admit that I was on pins and needles all day the first day until he got home. He came in smiling and talking. The first words out of his mouth were about his great math teacher and how cool he is and how he teaches math the way I understand. Music to my ears. I've been hoping for this day for a long time. Math's been a struggle and a drudgery for him for so long. He likes most of his teachers and has a nice schedule of classes. The funniest part of the week was about lunch. He has lunch with his best friend and they were sitting over away from most of the crowd to talk about a video game. He said there was a boy and girl there who were intertwined in ways it was embarrassing to talk about to me. His friend's comment was "oh good, lunch and a show". Just cracked me up. I guess they're getting a fast education in many ways. So, we have a reading list for english and are going to the bookstore this weekend to pick up The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Curtis and I are going to read them, too, since we can't really remember if we read them or not. Should make for interesting dinner conversation. Oh, and I only cried once this week when we chopped the onions for salsa.

salsa

Instead of shopping on the first day of school I went to Mom's and we canned salsa. She's growing amazing tomatoes this year and is nearly buried in them. My great aunt Lois was the original salsa maker in the family, only she pronounced it sel-sa. There's something magical about canning. I love all the chopping and measuring and stirring and laughing. It's always hot when we can things, but that's because you have to do it when the produce is ripe. Fortunately, Mom has air conditioning, so that makes it easier. Then there's the sterilizing, dipping into jars, sealing, and steaming. And at the end of the morning, we admire the beautiful filled jars. I took this photo of Mom after we finished canning just the first batch. The second batch was processing in the steamers. We change up our recipe a bit each time and write it down to help us with the next one. Here's how we made it this year:

Shyron & Tami's 2009 Salsa

14 C. chopped tomatoes
4 chopped onions
3 C. chopped roasted red peppers
1 1/2 C. diced ortega chiles
4 T. cider vinegar
2 1/2 T. sugar
4 t. salt
2 t. chopped garlic
2 chopped large yellow banana peppers
1 large and 1 medium chopped jalapeno peppers
1 t. black pepper
1 t. ground dried jalapeno pepper

We use the food processor for all the chopping. It's ok to use canned chiles, peppers, or tomatoes if needed. Cook in a huge soup pot on the stove and boil for 10 minutes. Put into jars and process in hot water bath for 25 minutes. Makes 12-13 pints of salsa.

a little bird

Just a fun little card for you. I fell in love with this little bird stamp by Invoke Arts at a stamp convention and it followed me home. You know how that happens, I'm sure. Things just yell out my name and want to jump in my bag when I go to those conventions. The background is alcohol inks and I masked the image to stamp some other things around it. I colored in some detail with spica glitter pens and used a little rub on paste around the edges.

So, in other news, we had our last hurrah of summer yesterday at Disneyland. We closed the park at midnight and rolled in about 1:30 this morning. Oh my, I can't do late night like I used to. I had to sing loudly and tap my hands on the steering wheel to the beat just to stay focused. I'm still hanging out in my pj's. Kyle starts high school tomorrow. Not sure I'm ready, but I know he is and that's what matters. I can't believe my baby towers over me at well over 6' now. It seems like I was holding him in my arms just yesterday. I plan on hugging on him today when nobody is looking. I'll save those tears that are sure to roll until after he leaves tomorrow morning, then I'm going shopping.

a challenge

I'm hosting a little challenge over at SNR Card Universe based on my embossed pearls tutorial. This is another card I made using the technique. On this one, I didn't paint over the embossed design with perfect pearls. Instead I used a bit of rub on paste over the bird and left the grass as it was. I hope you'll try this technique. If you want to be entered in the challenge drawing, please head over to Card Universe to get all the details.

I'm off to work freshman registration at the high school this morning. Should be an interesting day. Thanks for stopping by today.

ahh, this is my life

Thanks for all the great comments on the lucy post. I'll fill you in on the trip, but first a little background. I've never been much of a camping girl. My dad is a retired fireman and spent his whole working life camping out at a fire line somewhere. So, we never had a camping vacation as a family. I went to girl scout camp and I camp when I white water raft, but that's about it. Both of those include somebody else cooking for me and are a rather cushy camping experience. I've been camping two other times with my dear husband, once before we were married and once when I was pregnant. Neither time went well. Our relationship and then later our marriage survived, but it was a tough call there while I was sleeping in a tent. I was really nervous about our RV adventure.

It was a bit of a rough start. No trees at the campground which means no shade. I need my shade. The brakes on the car don't stop when towing like they do when nothing is attached to the car. I nearly wore out my foot putting on the air brakes on the drive up. The teenager drank two Dr. Peppers and slept all the way up to the campsite. So, when we wanted to sleep he rolled around rocking the whole trailer. As I shivered in the middle of the night, hubby rolled over and I asked him to turn on the heater. "It doesn't work like that, I have to light a pilot light or something. I'll figure it out tomorrow." I'm cold now. In the morning I saw the thermostat right there next to the bed, pushed the lever and voila heat! Ok, so day 2 had to go better.

And it did. We had a lovely trip. Lots of family bonding time, meteor showers, campfires, smores, fresh trout cooked over the fire, hiking, rummy, laughter, relaxation, reflection, reading, knitting for me and fishing for the guys. I love that the guys fished right there next to the campsite, so I didn't have to join in, but could watch. Oh, and cows. We were in a grazing area and there were cows everywhere. It was pretty comical. They don't just moo, they make all sorts of crazy noises. So, mostly I didn't have the is this really my life moments on the trip. I surprised myself. I had the ahhh, this is my life moments. Love that.

just call me Lucy

There are moments in my life when I have to laugh and wonder if this is really my life. Last night I was presented with one of those moments. My adorable husband has dreamt of owning some sort of RV for many years. My son and I laugh about the movie RV and just go on. Well, after all this time he was presented with an opportunity to make his dream a reality. Since we aren't earning any interest to talk about on our cash reserves, we used some of it for his dream trailer. Let's just call it our part of helping stimulate the economy.

So, it's been sitting in the driveway or garage for just over a week now. I knew the clock was ticking. It was like a little time bomb out there counting down my carefree days of sleeping in a normal bed and taking a hot shower in the privacy of my own bathroom. I started in the afternoon making trips out to the camper to load it up with essentials like kleenex, tinfoil, playing cards, paper plates, sheets, towels, etc. I must have made 50 trips out to the driveway. Adorable hubby comes home and starts flitting around like a mad man adding to the camper. I have no idea what he's putting in there, but it seemed like everything in the house to me.

Just before dark he starts hooking it up to his car. That goes ok, but the car is now half way out in the road. I said you can't leave it like that all night. He argues with me and then the next thing I know he's moving it just as I'm about to step into the trailer to put something else in it. I jump out of the way. He pulls out and then backs in and out and in and out for about 5 times until he gets it just right running along in front of the driveway in the wrong direction. He's working this morning and we leave early this afternoon. Kyle informed me last night that they packed an extra fishing pole for me. I'm going to yoga to find my peaceful zen place before we embark on this adventure. I can only imagine how many is this really my life moments I'll experience this weekend. I hope we don't end up like Lucy and Ricky.

yoga

I took a yoga class today. It was like coming home. I forgot how wonderful I feel when I practice yoga. Why the heck did I wait so long? I had to take a journey back a few years to find the answer. Back when I was a crazy full time working driving up and down the mountain every day person I started taking yoga. I was a mess from all the work stress that we don't need to go into here. Yoga was my oasis. It was the one thing I did for me and I felt so good there. In fact it helped me change my life. I finally stepped off the merry go round and quit working full time and all the commuting. For some crazy reason I stopped doing yoga. I was thinking that the stress was over, I needed to save money, and I didn't need it anymore. I went to Curves then for quite a few years for my exercise. It was fine and I stayed fit, but honestly I got bored with it. I've been pretty much without exercise other than walking the dogs for a few months now. I'm feeling lazy, feeling heavy, feeling tired. So, I really sat down with myself and asked what feels like play to me. Three things came to mind- yoga, swimming, cycling. I looked into where there were yoga classes near me. I decided to start in the one at the library for free. What a lovely experience. It was before the library opened and the yogi was so warm and welcoming. She calls it restorative yoga. Just what I needed. I'm so glad I got back to this good place. I can't wait for the next class. Namaste.

bike with passion

Toys is the theme this week for the gothic arch challenge. The two things that came to my mind first were my bike and board games. So, here they are together. Nearly everything I used in this arch has a history and a story. The base is a vintage bingo board and the scrabble tiles are vintage, too. I picked them both up in games in my treasure hunting. I'm lucky that there are many old vacation cabins here where I live that periodically get sold and cleared out. I'm always amazed at the great games I can find to scavenge parts from. The heavy piece of wire is from a huge bag of wire and beads I bought at the LSS yard sale yesterday. The little word charm was a part of a bracelet that I tore apart after I picked it up at the thrift shop. The stamp is by Club Scrap, and I bought it from somebody at 2peas for sale board. There's a tiny little watch part up at the top from my jar of metal things. I used a bit of distress ink and some masks to dress up the background. Using things I've scavenged and treasure hunted in my creations makes me happy. I hope you're having a creative day. Thanks for stopping by.

ATC Attack

Sharing a few of my ATC's that have been in SNR recently. I'm excited to tell you that I'm now heading up the ATC section of the magazine. That means I'm looking for ATC's from readers to include in upcoming issues. Here's the call for the next three issues with all the particulars. I'm looking for some specific colors: black and white; orange; and heavy metal. I'm also looking for these themes: Things that go bump in the night; Falling Leaves; and A Jolly Old Elf. I'd love to include some blogging friends in the articles. You'll receive two free months of the magazine for each published ATC. You even get to keep the ATC. I just need a great photo of it. Please share this call with your creative friends, too. They can be painted, stamped, digital, or any other medium you like to work in. Thanks for stopping by today.