Two Little Finishes

Good morning, my friends. There's another busy day ahead. Last night, as I was considering it, I had to talk myself down from the ledge as my anxiety built. I'm not generally an anxious person. I put myself more on the worrier spectrum, which is a complete waste of time. Neverthless, someone has to do it, right? What if no one worries and something bad happens. And what if worrying could have prevented it? I rest my case. As for my worries of last night, I'll say more about it as I write.

First off, when I finished my post yesterday, I left my office to find this:

No worries here. He has food, water, another cat to beat up on. If only he could perfect that Burt Reynolds pose. He's working on getting the "splay" right.

My slow stitching of yesterday morning consisted of finishing off the binding for the Books and Roses quilt. And that makes a finish. It ends up at 30 x 37 inches, and it has taken its place as a wall-hanging in my sewing room.

This was one of the quilts I made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year, and so I'll link up there when the party starts on Saturday.

Here's a little look at the back:

We had grocery shopping to do. Amazingly, we found everything on our list yesterday. When we got home and had everything put away, I went to work canning the beets I picked up at the farmer's market last Saturday. I bought three bunches, and my yield was three pints. It gives me a rule of thumb for future canning: one bunch per pint.

That brings my total of pickled beets to eight pints. I gave some to Erik and Mae, and I still want to do some more. Probably I won't be doing any canning next summer, and so I'd like to get another four pints before I quit on them. I've already put Erik and Mae on notice that I want to tag along next time they go to the farmer's market.

While those were processing, I headed out to water the annuals. I'm happy to report that the first of the poppies has bloomed. We planted these in the new replacement whiskey barrel along with the gaillardia. This is supposed to be a mix of colors, but this one is a California poppy. I planted California poppies in the previous whiskey barrel, and so this might be a leftover from then.

As I walked by I noticed the Red Cardinal clematis is still blooming away. It's flowers were huge when it started earlier in the spring. For a while, it seemed as if it was finished blooming. Now, it seems to be getting a second wind, although these flowers are smaller.

And one of the giant sunflowers has bloomed. This is not one that I planted. 

Initially, I thought these were some the squirrels had planted. When we planted the garden early on, and I was out weeding, there were two sections where I recognized volunteer sunflowers. I assumed they were from the black oil sunflower seeds we use in our birdfeeders. They weren't in the way, and so I just left them. But then they grew so tall...taller than our eight-foot fence. Now, I think they must be from some giants in a previous garden. Possibly, they just dipped their heads as they died and reseeded themselves. In any case, I'm happy for all the giants I can get. The ones I planted along the fence-line...twice...are only about waist-high so far.

Okay, so annuals watered, I went back inside and went to work on Tiny House #28. No timers on this day. I was determined to finish it.

I was kind of tired of sewing by then. I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. We had leftovers for dinner. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been harvesting tomatoes from the greenhouse. I'm getting just a handful at a time. If they're completely ripe, I've been keeping them in the refrigerator. Those that need more time have been hanging out on the kitchen counter. Day-by-day, I've been weighing them trying to get to a number that I could do something with. Finally, it happened. Two pounds! That's exactly how much I need to make my favorite Tomato Jalapeno Jam.

I have four different recipes for tomato jam, but the Tomato Jalapeno is my favorite. I take the seeds and ribs out of the jalapenos so that I get the nice tangy flavor of the peppers, but not the heat. And this can be used any way you might use ketchup, except that it's the most delicious ketchup you're ever going to taste. I love it on eggs. If I were a less, um, refined person, I'd probably eat it with a spoon straight from the jar. So anyway...all of that to say that I'm making some today. 

It's also a pedicure day. It's early for my pedicure, but I had to time it right so that I could fit in one more before we take off on our September trip. After I finish that, I need to make a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some jalapenos. For good measure, I'll pick up a couple more tomatoes too. I figure once I cut the stem-ends off mine, I'll need just a couple more to make up the difference in weight. I expect to be home around 1:00, but for some reason I had myself stressing over this last night. Like I said, I'm a worrier. If I don't have something to worry about, then I really start to worry. Surely I've forgotten something. In any case, I talked myself down. It's all fine. No one has to die today.

So on that happy note, I'll leave you. I'm worrying about getting breakfast before anyone starves to death downstairs. It could be a close call, my friends. Stay safe. Worry if you must.