Today I had spaghetti and waffles for lunch – I love being home by myself 
31-Jul-2007
29-Jul-2007
Yesterday we went sailing with a friend from Church. He’s sailed a lot in the past 3 years but has only owned this sailboat for the last 6 weeks. It’s a catamaran, meaning it has two pontoons instead of one keel. We helped him rig it up and then took off onto lake Palestine.
The wind was pretty minimal at first but we eventually caught enough
to go at a good clip. We spent a couple of hours out there then Brian
and I finished the day with dinner at Texas Roadhouse and a visit to
one of his childhood friends.
We also dug up our potato plant today and found it had produced one little potato! It was just an experiment with a store potato that had sprouted so I didn’t know what we’d find. We did have a good laugh over it and I told Brian I’d make him hash browns for breakfast tomorrow. 
27-Jul-2007
Okay, a little explanation on my sudden trip! I went to Mt. Hermon, CA to visit my sister-in-law, Kim.
Kim works as a kitchen manager at Mt. Hermon, a Christian conference center settled on the side of a mountain in the middle of towering redwoods – gorgeous!
We walked every day (sometimes twice a day!) and I was awed by the scenery and wildlife. I saw a deer and her two fawns on one of our walks.
One day we enjoyed the California sunshine in Santa Cruz (about ten minutes from Mt. Hermon). We walked along the beach and admired the natural bridge. I liked watching the Pelicans too. It was cold on the beach so we found a spot out of the wind and sat for a while – unfortunately, we didn’t realize just how hot the sun was until examining our sunburns that evening! 
The next day we took a hike along the railroad tracks – again, stunning scenery. It really calms and soothes me to be out in the beautiful woods and weather. You could hear a stream in a gorge below for about half the walk.
And finally, here’s Kim and I just hanging out and eating good food. 
We had a good time and I’m glad Brian was able to give me up for that long. 
*edit* I came back home to a clean house – I have such a wonderful, thoughtful husband! *end edit*
22-Jul-2007
Hey folks, I’m headed to California! I’ll be there until Thursday.
Please pray for me while I’m there and for Brian as he holds down the fort.
19-Jul-2007
Guess it’s time for another update on life:
About two weeks ago I picked a bunch of wild pears off of a tree I had been watching since spring. I had two Wal-Mart sacks full of them! You are supposed to pick them while they are still hard and then let them ripen.
Well, they were ripe now, so I decided to put them up as pear butter (kinda like apple butter).
Here are about half of them as I washed them in the sink. Then I cut them in quarters, peeled and de-seeded them. My hand was worn out after peeling so many – it took almost two hours!
This is the biggest bowl I have, but the picture hardly does it justice. They were very good and I kept snacking as I worked I froze a ziplock bag of them, made two loaves of pear bread and cooked the rest in a big pot until they were soft. Then I mashed them and put the in the crock-pot over night with a few spices and some sugar.
Here is the finished product, or at least half of it, I’d already dished half of it out into a applesauce jar before I remembered to take a picture. It was a nice sloppy mess 
. It tastes pretty good though – we had it on our pancakes this morning. So there you go, homemaking 101!
