October is a Great Month to Celebrate Birthdays!

      First we celebrated April's. Today is Oma's; tomorrow is Skylar's! Amber's is the 30th. Wow! So hard to believe my baby is 18! These years have passed by way to quick! And most of the years, I've been home! I am keeping Win and Riley for a few days since April is in the hospital. She has some kind of bacteria in her stomach and inflammation. She is very sick and we thought it was her pancreatitis. I don't know who would keep the kids if I worked! Send up prayers for her if you would!

      We had a great time this past Saturday! We went to a craft festival called Homestead Hollow in Springville, AL. You would not believe the traffic! The festival is about five miles from the interstate where we got off and it took us an hour to get there! Maybe longer; I tried not to watch the clock. But it was fun once we got there! Lots of food vendors and LOTS of crafts! Mostly monogrammed things for kids and Fall decorations. Lots of jewelry booths! I got Amber a blank for her birthday! I can't tell you what it is cause she reads this blog!

      I just pulled some homemade bread out of the oven! It's the Trim Healthy Mama one but it's way too salty! I wondered about that when I put in the three tablespoons of salt it called for. I'll stick to my Jim Lahey's bread, thank you! They were selling those yummy cinnamon nuts at the festival, but they are very costly! So, you know me, I came home and found a recipe and made some! They are not exactly like those, but delicious anyway! I love when recipes turn out as well as something you'd buy or taste even better! I also made brownies this weekend for Skylar's lunch, and they are the best yet! Hershey's recipe! See what I mean, me stick to a diet? I don't think so! But I haven't told you about all the good stuff I ate. Beans and greens, green juice, no rice at the Mexican restaurant we took Skylar to Saturday. Moderation! And exercise! I hope to walk and workout today, but I'm not sure how I'll pull that off since I don't have a double stroller! I can work out, but I won't be able to walk unless my Mom comes over! Would you like to stop by and watch them for me?

      The weather is supposed to start cooling down a few degrees this week and rain by the weekend! It may only be in the sixties by then! Wow! That will feel so good! I'm ready for weather changes, are you? I'm also hoping to get that garden cleared out soon! Randy said he'd weed eat it for me, but he's been busy working on the house and it gets dark out soon after he gets home. That's what I don't like about Fall and winter! Short days! Oh well, learn to live with it and do the best we can. Ya'll have a great week! Who knows? I may be back with another post soon! Blessings from Bama!

The entrance to the festival.

Love this old buggy, just glad I don't have to ride in it!

Aren't these mums gorgeous?

Skylar won't look at the camera so I can get his picture.

My Mom and Dad.

Me and Randy.

Lots of folks here.

I'm glad it was shady in most of the park!

I love the bridge that crosses over to the cabin! And I love the cabin!

Guess what these guys have set up!

My Dad asked him to take a drink.

He said he had to keep things on the up and up. I smelled it and it smells like vinegar. It's moonshine!

We left before I go to see them dance! Reminds me of Linda!

Traffic on the way in as we were leaving!

Skylar at Superior Grill, a Mexican restaurant.

Randy waiting patiently on me to take a photo of this sign I got at the Almanac Store in Leeds.

She had a bad virus Thursday and Friday! She still looks pekid under her eyes.

She's doing a good job on the pumpkin!

Riley is so cute reaching up! Like my five-year-old cell phone? It's older than the girls!

I love the concept of this bread, just not the way it tastes!

Well, I did it again!

      Since I started blogging, I've had two cameras! Can you guess what I've done with them? Left them out in the rain! I'm so sad! At least I had a lot of pictures on the SD card that I can share with you! I'm actually using the first camera that I left out in the rain, and it's doing a fairly good job! I just can't see the photo I've just taken until I download it onto the computer. It's quite different than the Fuji I was using, but I like the size a lot better; and the fact that it only uses two batteries instead of four! Ran was wondering what to get me for our twenty-second anniversary this Friday, and you guessed it! A WATERPROOF camera! He actually found one on Amazon for under a $100! I can hardly wait to use it!

      As you can imagine, it's been raining here lately, A LOT! The girls came Thursday, the day I thought I would write a post, and I had the camera outside taking pictures of them in the pool. I placed it on the table outside to do something else. The next day, when I wanted to take pictures of the girls again, I couldn't find my camera! It occurred to me that I had left it outside on the table. And it had rained ALL NIGHT AND ALL DAY! Remember Tropical Storm Andrea last week? Well, it came through here and dumped a lot of rain on us. Now we are experiencing sun and high temps with extreme humidity! Have you ever felt like you just had a hot shower after walking around outside doing hardly anything, and when you went inside, you got cold? That's the way it feels here! Anyway, the camera will not work, so I found my old camera and now I can take photos until the new one gets here! Yay for Amazon! Walmart had waterproof cameras but they were over $200! Now why would I pay that much for a camera? I can buy several of these for that price! And they do the same thing! 

      With all the rain, everything is growing and getting greener by the day! The garden seems to be doing good, if the squash bugs will leave the squash plants alone! That happens every year! Something eats the summer squash! I even plant them in different beds, but with the same result! The beans are outgrowing their stakes and are blooming! They have pretty purple flowers on them! Speaking of purple, the wisteria is blooming again! I just adore wisteria! Day lilies are in full bloom as well! Looks like the nectarine tree has produced lots of nectarines again this year! And, I've been getting red plums from the plum tree! They are delicious! The raspberries are producing a handful at a time and are delicious, too! Before long, the blackberries will be producing! 

      I hope everything is going good for you in your gardens! From what little I read now-a-days, from ya'll's blogs, it sounds like ya'll are doing pretty good! I'm trying not to sit at the computer too much now! From all the sitting over the last few months, I seemed to have gained weight! It doesn't take much for me to gain weight; that's why I exercise so much! I don't even over-eat! Maybe it's my thyroid? Anyway, I'm trying to take authority over it now before it gets worse! It crept up on me, so I'll keep ya'll informed as to how I do over the next few months. With vacation coming up, it will probably not be easy to work it off! We eat way too much when we go on vacation! Oh well, I'll get back on it when we return home! 

      Enjoy your week and thanks for stopping by! Blessings from Bama!

This photo of the beans doesn't show how tall they've gotten or the purple flowers.

Rutgers tomato from Whole Foods.

Zucchini plant.

Straight neck squash.

Two crook neck squash. I need to separate them.

Another tomato plant from Whole Foods.

Aren't these lilies lovely?

I can't believe how dark this day lily is!

Oak leaf hydrangeas.

This yellow rose has grown all over the place!

Raspberries!

Blackberries!

Blackberry brambles.

The fennel has grown so tall!

Lovely little gardenia flowers! They smell fantastic!

Yasmine opening her birthday present.

Just what I need, a camera!

Lulu in the pool. She doesn't get far from the steps.

They had a fun time cleaning and swimming!

Win and Yas feeding the goat boys.

Randy and five little girls having fun in the pool!

One of the new roses I received for Mother's Day. Taken with the Kodak easy share.

Rubi in her pool!

Randy took the camera apart and it's now in the garbage!

There were three plums! The other was delicious!

Loving this "fall-ish" weather!

      The sun is still plenty hot, however! The angle of the sun is very different, too! It's rays are shining in rooms it usually doesn't. I just love this time of year! It's quite cooler this September than it was last year! Last year, the month of September saw 100 degree days almost every day! So, this is more like it! The highs have been in the low to mid eighties and the lows have been in the fifties. The temps don't stay in the fifties for long, though. (I just hope it's not a windy, blustery kind of winter! I can't stand to be out in the cold wind!) The high school homecoming is tonight, so I hope we win! Great weather for a football game!

      I've been in the kitchen a lot this week, peeling, cutting, and chopping pears. It seems like a lot of work, but when I take the jars out of the canner, they look so pretty! I might even can more pears, but I'll have to get more pears first. Last year at this time, I was more in the crafty and yard sale stuff. I made a fall banner and had fall decorations everywhere! This year, my mind is more about canning and filling the pantry. Funny how time changes things! I still like to craft, and will, if I ever get through with canning. Amber and the girls will be home from Morocco Sunday and I can hardly wait to see them again! I hope they will come here next week! We may be getting a baby next week, if UAB decides to take April's baby! We'll see! If all of these things happen, don't be surprised if you don't see any posts from me! I'll get back with ya'll as soon as I can and let you know. Of course there will be photos! Ya'll have a nice weekend! Blessings from Bama!

Win was here and spent the night. She loves to slide and play outside!

Win loves to go in the 'forest' behind our house. She found these acorns.

Here is what the pears were supposed to look like! They taste delicious! Use like applesauce.

Daisey and Delilah in their favorite spot!

With all of those pear peelings and cores, I made more vinegar!

The dark one is red wine vinegar and the other one is the first pear vinegar I made. See the 'mother'?

I ran across a recipe for Italian dressing and gave it a try. I used it in the pasta salad, and it tastes delicious!

I just took these lightly sweetened canned pears out of the canner. Aren't they pretty?