Red Fish, Blue Fish

Have I mentioned that I love reading? Always have and hopefully always will. Historical fiction is my favorite, but I do enjoy reading a variety of different genres.

So...apparently my niece loves to read as well. I found this out when I went down for a few days last month to help watch the kid while the rest of the family worked on my sister & bro-in-law's new house.

She was constantly asking to be read to. Thankfully she is not into chapter books yet and has a good collection of board books to keep the reader entertained. As you can see from the photo above, size doesn't matter.


Rumor has it my sister has taken to hiding certain books. Considering she is a teacher and most teachers encourage reading, the situation must be pretty desperate. But I enjoyed it while I was there!

Great Garden Gatherings

As summer is winding down, my food processor and I are gearing up. My teeny, tiny garden has been producing amazing amounts of tomatoes, along with awesome eggplant and new this year: beans! I am so excited. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of watching tiny plants grow into something that is able to be put on the table as food. It takes work (even in a small garden), but fun because of the visible progress it makes.

I've been freezing stuff from my garden as well as zucchini from my mom's garden. Not only have I had enough to freeze, but also enough to give away. Part of the joy in having a garden is in being able to bless others with the bounty.

Someday, after my garage falls down and I have to rebuild it, I'll move it forward so I can have a bigger garden behind it. My brother suggested building raised beds...so now I'm drooling over it.

So yesterday I made tomato sauce for the first time. Considering my Italian background, it is probably a disgrace to only be making sauce for the first time at my age. But it was sooo easy and tasted so good, I'm sure I'll be making for a long time to come. The fun part is that you can make it different every time, depending on what you have in your fridge. It was pretty exciting.