Still kickin'

I just realized I haven't written here in a while, oops!

We've been canning a lot lately, it's keeping us busy for sure. Last week we canned 5qts and 6pts tomato juice, 5pts hot wax peppers, 4pts jalepenos, 1qt mixed hot peppers, 8qts sauerkraut,3qts meatloaf, and 9 qts potatos. Today Lisa canned 4qts spaghetti sauce from the roma's we've been cooking down, and I got up another 9qts kraut from the 28lbs of cabbage I picked this morning. I may do more tomorrow since I have 4 heads left. (we're using an older KERR recipe that makes the kraut in jars rather than in a crock) Now that the tomato's are finally producing, I picked a ****load this morning, 68lbs worth! Tomorrow I'll start canning them whole in quart jars so we can make whatever we want with them later. There will be more to pick in a few days, so we'll be getting to those as well. We're down to 19 empty regular quart jars, and around 25 wide mouth quarts. We'll have to get more pints soon, since we always use the last good week's picking to make salsa. I'd like to make up another big batch of chili soon, and can that in quarts as well. Lisa doesn't like chili, so this will be just for me, usually eaten for lunches. We're definitly going to need more jars!!!!!

We did take 2 days off of everything this week though. Wednsday was our 9th wedding anniversary, and luckily Lisa's half-day at work. We went out to dinner thanks to some gift cards from her work, of course after a quick Home Depot start. The pressure switch on the well pump went out, grrrrr. I managed to rig it with a stick just to fill a few jugs, buckets, and pots so I didnt have to worry about it that night, LOL. All was fine, we had a great dinner and survived the waterless evening when we got home. It was an easy 10 minute job the next morning, so there's one more thing conquered, yayyy. Of course, I had to call Lisa at work just so she could hear the kitchen faucet running, lol.

We have friends who have a big Halloween party every year, and they have passed it onto us this year. It's going to be tough to pull off, but we'll manage. Both of us LOVE Halloween, and love the challenge of out-doing Mike & Kris on their decorations. They always do a wonderful job, so we have our work cut out for us! We have pretty good ideas on themes for each room, so that's handled. We've been to 3 or 4 shops looking at costumes, and most of them are just plain stupid. Plus....not many are made for someone who's 6'3", so I left each one pretty disgruntled. I was sitting here at the computer, looking at costumes online when I saw something that triggered my warped sense of humor. I was kicking around the idea of being the Grim Reaper, and was even planning to make 6" platform boots, (cause ya know I'm not tall enough already lol) and Lisa told me that it would be awfully hot in a black robe all night....so that idea got shot down. I kicked around the idea of being some kind of barbarian or viking, but wasn't thrilled with the whole idea. Well........then I saw it......and it hit me like a brick. I saw a fake amish beard. My warped mind said "Yodarr"..................."Yodarr the Barbarian". Thats it!!!!!!!! Yodarr, the amish barbarian!!! Twisted and funny, just how I like it!!! I'll be dressed in simple clothes with suspenders, but with fur shoulderpads and leg wraps. I'll be wearing the black amish hat....with viking horns attached to the sides. I'll be carrying a chrome/silver painted pitchfork rather than a sword. I'll even have a shield!! The shield will have it's own custom Yodarr coat of arms, designed by myself, lol. The crest has a milk jug, bonnet, horse & buggy, and butter churn on a red cross and silver background, surrounded by a single round buggy wheel. Oh yea, it's all drawn on paper to the tiniest detail, hahahaha. I know.....I'm warped.