A Week, in Review

Honestly, I thought when I retired I'd have more time to blog but the opposite is true. Now my days are so filled I never finish all the things I want to do. This week has been another busy one at our house--from dealing with garden produce, having visitors, cooking, getting the foundation finished, working on storytelling and keeping up with eBay, the days just zoom past. Yet when I try to look back to see what I did, I'm stumped! What did I do all week? Thank goodness for photos--they remind me.

First, the peppers finished drying. This is what's left of a half-bushel of sweet peppers--red, yellow, purple and green. I loved it that they kept their color when they dried. I did these in the dehydrator.

The herb garden took until August to take off, and now it's overflowing with good-smelling and good-tasting herbs. I harvested parsley this week, and dried it in the oven with the pilot light. I prefer not to use the dehydrator for herbs because it almost cooks them, I think. The oven temp is perfect.

Two trays full of parsley = one pint.

eBay has kept me hopping too. I keep adding to the things listed for sale and ship packages almost daily. Amazon book sales are not nearly so brisk! This week's challenge was a child's hanging horse swing. It sold to a lady in Nevada and I had a time figuring out how to pack it. We finally custom-crafted a box for it so the shipping was within reason and I sent it out today. Typically I have 3-5 packages going out and I have learned how to schedule a pick up by the mailman so we don't need to run to town to ship them. I do all postage online but a lot of packages are too big for the mailbox. Jack the Mailman doesn't mind coming down our driveway to pick them up and it save us time and money.

My storytelling friend Donna came to visit on Tuesday. We had a grand time! We talked storytelling and anything else that came up. I made corn chowder and sweet tea for lunch and we strung my hot peppers and shucked the Indian corn as we talked.

The table was so pretty by the time we were finished:

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Meanwhile I've been working at adding things lie this neat made-in-Yugoslavia enamel kettle to my eBay listings and working on getting contracts and RFP's mailed out. I also picked a couple bushels of pears for the cellar, and Larry worked on this:

He finished up today--so the foundation for our new log room is done. Now to find the money for the subfloor so we can start stacking logs.

Today was paperwork: contracts and so forth. Then this weekend I'll be away at a meeting.

So that's how it goes: garden, eBay, storytelling, log room, cooking. Not a bad way to live, when I think about it.