Meanwhile. . . .

. . . in the rose bed

I'm still weeding it.  It looks small in that photo, but it's the entire length of the kitchen wall. 

 I managed to spend an hour and pull out the 7 foot thistle though.  We are enamored in sweat bees this year, and I can only stand being out there so long, especially in the heat.  Nothing works to keep the bees off me - not homemade bug spray, nor water with peppermint essential oil.  They are horrible, and I cannot even enjoy the front porch now.  They are driving us all insane.  I will try setting a citronella candle out there later if I remember to do it. So far the winning numbers are, flyswatter-4,000, spider webs - 4.  

As for the vegetable garden.  I give up.  The weeds will come out when the plants come out and that's all the time I'm putting into it. I put out a plea for anyone's extra zucchini, yellow squash (we got zero from those plants that looked so good weeks and weeks ago), and hot banana peppers.  I'll be posting about what happened to our potatoes soon too.  Yeah, a really, really stinky, unsuccessful garden year.  

I still have flower beds to weed, pull giant weeds by my barns, mailbox and other various places.  You should see my chicken run, ha ha!  It must appear to the chickens as a jungle.  At least they have shade, ha ha!

It rained, so Thursday I woke up confused.  I had zero produce or fruit laying around my kitchen awaiting work.  I had my kitchen spotless.  Front room spotless.  Front porch unbearable.  So I decided to start back in my utility room/new craft storage area.  I have narrowed the extreme clean list down to: utility room, bedroom, bedroom closet and garage. I actually got a little done in each room too.  I have a few touch ups to do in the kitchen bathroom.  

I mended a hole in one of my favorite shirts, un-buried a bunch of empty 1/2 pint and 4 oz. canning jars, discovered more small balls of yarn....I am starting to see the floor of my closet.  Almost.

I refilled my homemade dry taco mix.  I use my homegrown, minced and dehydrated garlic for this recipe, as well as others.

My car still has a flat tire.  Hubby has had one excuse after another (or it's raining) to remove it and plug it, and it's driving me mad not having a vehicle to get things done.  I asked him to finally make a library pick up for me.  He told everyone that the library was "closed until" I bring them all back, ha ha ha!  

Random-ness

A big thank you to those leaving me comments.  They brighten my day.  Thank you to all who even visit my blog as well.

Wednesday was a strange day for me.  It was our daughter's (youngest) first day to school.  We were all up at 5:30am, and sitting on the porch awaiting the school bus.  The bus picks her up at 6:17am.  It felt very weird to be home alone.  Too quiet for me, so the music came on.

Before cleaning the kitchen, I had the washing machine going, and multi-tasked.

A handful of hot peppers were sliced and frozen, while I baked up a large breakfast egg/sausage/potato/sweet potato/hot pepper scramble.  It'll last the next few days, so we won't have to cook at 5:30am.

We needed tortillas for that scramble (needed more eggs, but I have slackers right now and needed two more eggs), so I whipped up some einkorn homemade tortillas.  I shared this a while back, but now the recipe is also online:  Einkorn Tortillas.

I also baked some Einkorn Snickerdoodles.  I knew our daughter would need some comfort food after her first nervous day at school, and my hard working husband would love a healthy treat.

I took down all the kitchen curtains, washed the windows and wood work, and put new curtains up.  They sort of look like bandannas and have a white back.  They will be perfect for keeping the kitchen warmer this winter, and blocking out the heat of the sun when necessary too.  I have odd shaped windows, so the valances will not fit, and are in storage for now.  I may use lighter curtains for spring and summer and just use these in the fall/winter.

Washed, dried and put away all my dirty dishes.  Counters were scrubbed clean and sanitized.  Stove top scrubbed.