Quick update

Haven't blogged much in the past 2 weeks as things here have been very busy. Haven't worked out much due to my heavy homework demands and (yay) actually starting on the demolition of our kitchen! We haven't done a whole lot, but have taken out a large cabinet and, after several unsuccessful attempts, have also starting ripping out the tile floor. We met with our contractor and the cabinet guy within the past week, and things are a-go! While demolition continues, we'll be waiting about 5 weeks for the cabinets to be completed and delivered. So if all goes well (I'm not holding my breath), I should have a new kitchen by Thanksgiving. I'm thinking it will be more like Christmas, but that's ok.

In the meantime, I did harvest the rest of my okra and pickled/canned those. Also, got some raspberries delivered from Utah and canned a bunch of that as well. Here are my treasures! These will taste great come wintertime.I think I have a total of 14 pints of okra pickles and 3 quarts plus 2 pints of canned raspberries in a light syrup. Yummy!

Okra heaven

One of my other interests that I've yet to mention on this blog is gardening. This year, I finally expanded beyond our citrus trees to a real garden. Of course, finding something that will grow here in the summer was a challenge.. but then I found okra! What a great vegetable to grow: loves the heat, has no pests, and grows like a weed. I'm picking about 3lbs per week of the stuff I've fried them up, but we can't eat them faster than they're growing, so today I pickled a couple of pounds worth of okra, yummy!