New ambitions

I still often think about what I'd be doing if I was still in the classroom teaching on "this day."  There are definitely things I miss about teaching - but a lot of things that I do NOT miss.  One of the blessings of being at home is I have time to discover new ambitions that I NEVER imagined myself doing.  One of those is CANNING.  I never thought I would be interested in canning anything.  But, when good friends are involved and with a little prodding - I do like to try new things.  This is my 3rd year of canning - and by far, my best year.  I did peaches, tomatoes (from my own garden!), raspberry jam, and applesauce.  Yesterday Rach and I did the applesauce together.  Since the kids are on Fall break - they actually got in on the fun.  It was sincerely a simple pleasure to see my boys being involved.  There is a great satisfaction in seeing those jars all finished and ready to go into food storage downstairs.

This is the final batch - I've done this a couple times this year and I'm quite depressed about it.  boo broken jars!

My stash for my family - Rach took home the same amount for her home!

The Haunted Garage

Last weekend, our garage was HAUNTED!  We emptied everything out and put up tarps to divide the garage into 4 different rooms.  We decorated, prepared, and scrambled like mad-men the hours before our "opening night" and we officially ran our first Haunted Garage for the neighborhood!  We had a room of touchy-feely creepiness, I was a fortune teller in the next room, the next space was a graveyard with tombstones and a coffin (Shayne's handiwork!), and lastly, a mad-scientist room with all sorts of cool decor thanks to Cherae!  We handed out the fliers only the day before and tried to spread the word in the short time we had - I was surprised how many people did come!  I'm so glad that so many enjoyed it and have been asking about it becoming an annual tradition.  We definitely see this being an annual thing - and we'll just have to make improvements every year - (I hope the first year was the craziest!).  I wish I had photos to show you everything - but they just didn't work out in the dark.  So, let your imagination run wild and make plans to attend next year's Haunted Garage!  PS A huge shout out to Cherae's family and to Brian & Devri - it would not have happened without your time and help those last few hours and during the event.  THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!!

This is what we had in the "touchy-feely" portion...

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