August 1-23

Ok, folks, here is August up 'til now. Out of 23 days, I have 8 pictures. Epic fail, but for my excuse, read my previous post. Add to that, school started one week ago today, and we've been shopping every other day for needed school supplies, clothes, shoes. Trying to set up some systems of organization for the new school year, and everybody is adjusting to a new sleep schedule and a more structured day. I want to say I'll do better in September, but at this point I'm so overwhelmed I'd like to crawl into bed and not come back out until April. I love Fall, but I hate Winter. I want to skip it. I'm happy about cooler nights and sunny breezy days, but I'm dreading the falling temps and shorter days. Anyway, here are my pics for this month:

I found this light on sale at Menards, and thought it would work for indoor portraits. Here's me trying it out on my boys. We'll see.

We took one last trip to the beach before school started, and the weather could not have been more perfect. The waves were big, and these two were having a blast letting the water crash over their heads.

Updating some of my "letters." Some of my pics were taken with an "old" camera, so I thought I'd re-do them with my "better" camera, hoping the quality will be a bit better. (This is the letter "T" incase you couldn't tell).

First day of school, most of you saw this on facebook.

 

Oh, this is cool - all of these veggeis came from the Farm, and I used them to make my famous homemade salsa. Famous only to me, because I love it. I also add black beans and corn, but the Farm doesn't give me those.

Oh, yeah, Karaoke! This picture is horrible because it was taken from my phone and it was pretty dark. But this is Derrick doing Karaoke. We went out with a bunch of his work friends to celebrate a birthday, and after dinner went to Rulli's. Derrick sang Fight For Your Right To Party (Beastie Boys), which is a GREAT karaoke song, especially late in the night when everyone has had plenty to drink. He's my hero.

My little posers. I did some family pics that day, and was practicing with my new flash outside. Not the big light. I also got a new flash. Yeah, look at me getting big fancy equipment! Now I just need a new fancy (er) camera.

And, this is yesterday, my first try at canning. I bought this crappy $9 plastic canning kit at Kroger, mainly because I really wanted to give it a try, but all the canning equipment is quite expensive, and with this fun recession we've been having, everyone and their grandma is trying to do their own canning (a positive result of a rough situation, in my opinion). The down side to that is, there is no used canning equipment to be found. A handful of people are getting rid of jars, but that's all I've been able to find. So what's the first thing I do? Turn on the wrong burner and melt my plastic *thing* - sorry, I don't know what this is called. A rack? I can't say that word without thinking about boobs, thanks to my wonderful husband who's mind is still stuck in 7th grade sometimes. Anyway, regardless of the melted hole in the bottom of my rack (don't laugh - ok, laugh, but you know what I mean), I was able to successfully can two jars of salsa, and now that I've done it once I'm itching to do it some more. It's like a high. I did see some canning stuff on sale at Lowe's so I might have to head over there soon.

Cheers, friends, and thanks for reading. Happy canning. :)