Liza's bad day

Dear Lizzie,

Sunday I had a no good, very bad, awful day.

First, I woke up too early. Your mom told me it was time to get up but I didn't want to.

So I got up and got dressed. But we were out of milk so I couldn't have any cereal for breakfast! I was mad.

Then I realized I couldn't see because I had lost my glasses!

I tried to make the best of a bad situation and so I went to go play like your mom told me.


I got in trouble for playing in her jewelry.

Then I got in trouble for jumping on the bed.

And then I got yelled at for trying to play cowboys! (Tasha was supposed to be my pony)

I had to go to time out which made me VERY sad and I cried.

I really really miss you Lizzie. I can't wait until you get home!



Love,

Liza


*Mom's note: After her timeout Liza calmed down and we talked about her day and why everything seemed to be going wrong. We both decided she had stayed up too late the night before playing in her bed and we both resolved to help her to go to sleep much earlier. Which she did and she was in good spirits the next day.

Liza helps out

Dear Lizzie,

I didn't get to play outside today because I was busy trying to be a big helper while you are gone. You're mom is still sick and I think that she really needed my help today because of it.

Today was laundry day! We did a TON of laundry like always but this time I was able to help! I sorta folded some shirts and pants!

Your mom said something about re-folding stuff or hanging it up, I'm not sure. I was just glad I was able to help!

After laundry everyone went to have quiet time and your mom went to lay down. She had told me about that last time she was sick and you came in to help her to I wanted to be a helper too!

I gave her some tissues for her nose! It's been so stuffy that it's starting to turn red so I tried to make sure these were the soft ones.

Then I helped take her temperature and gave her some water.

She said she was already feeling better but I wasn't certain. Her nose still sounded REALLY stuffed up so I looked around and I found this snot sucker. I tried to give it to her but she didn't want it! I can't imagine why not, it would make her feel better I'm sure!

Her loss I guess.

I miss you a bunch. I can't wait to see you again! I'll try to be the big helper in your place but it's pretty hard to do.

Love,
Liza

PS - Wilbur says he misses you too. And that he likes candy.

Liza's Update

Dear Lizzie,

I'm sorry I didn't write yesterday. You're mom's been sick with a cough and I don't know how to log onto the computer. It's been a pretty busy week with your mom going back to work after the holidays and your sister hanging around the house.

Wednesday I played in the Christmas stuff since Micah said he was going to take everything down this week.

It was neat being up that high but a little scary too. I wasn't sure the stocking was going to hold me!

Thursday I helped take down the Christmas Lights with Micah. It was sad taking them down because they were so beautiful and Wilbur was angry. He kept saying "I want Christmas!" I think he thinks the decorations are Christmas and doesn't realize that Christmas is a day yet.

Friday your mom stayed home from work sick. I felt bad for her so I tried to help out as much as possible by doing some chores.

I fed the cat who kept meowing at me really loud. But he didn't say thank you at all, he just ate VERY nosily.Your mom said he likes the purple cans the best but he ate the green one for me just fine.

Frankly, I think he's a little rude. I was surprised that your sister didn't feed him but your mom reminded me that it's one of the chores that you get to do around here so maybe Kylie just thought I was supposed to do it while you were gone.

I also helped with dishes. Kylie did put these away when your mom asked but I thought it would be nice to give her a hand.

It's been really cold here since you left but no more snow. I kinda wish it would snow so I could play outside again.

I miss you and I can't wait to see you. I hope you are having fun in Las Vegas!

Love,

Liza

Liza's winter vacation

At our house we celebrated Christmas early, on Sunday, December 23rd, since Kylie came into town Saturday and Lizzie had to fly to Las Vegas on Sunday.

Sadly for Lizzie she received a doll that I would not allow her to take with her to Las Vegas. I was afraid she would lose her on the flight and she will have lots of other amazing toys for Christmas at her dad's house.

I did, however, promise that I would let her know what Liza (the doll) was doing while she was away. So I will now open up the Blog to Liza (the doll). Take it away Liza!


Dear Lizzie,

I'm sad that we didn't get to play very long on Christmas. I'm looking forward to seeing you when you come back in January. Sunday, after the excitement of being opened and finding out that we looked like each other I was just so excited that I napped pretty much the rest of the day.

Monday though I got to play a lot. Monday I helped your step -dad Micah play the video game you got him. I don't think I'm very good though but he was a good sport to let me play.

I also drank one of your small waters. I hope you don't mind.

On Tuesday which was real Christmas for most people it snowed. I went outside with the dogs and played outside since William is still sick. It was colder than I thought and I couldn't stay outside very long.

I'm sorry the pictures are all sideways. I cant really figure out how to turn them the right way in this blog thing.

I miss you Lizzie, I hope you are having fun in Las Vegas and I will see you soon. Your family says to tell you that they love you and miss you.

Sincerely,

Liza

Peachy Keen

Two years ago, when I was first learning how to can, I experimented and made Peach Butter. For those who don't know, Peach Butter is not actually butter but just really reduced and condensed fruit puree, like jam but thicker.

I made several other things that year too but the Peach Butter was what I got the most feedback on  and it was all very positive.

I decided to make it again this year since it was so well received. The best part of making peach butter, I think, is how amazing the house smells while it's being made.

If you want to make this yourself I will tell you it's incredibly easy but also amazingly time consuming. I used a crock pot and it took about 15 hours for my peach butter to be even CLOSE to the consistency I was looking for.

First you start with amazing peaches. These are Palisade Peaches which are grown in Palisade Colorado and which I purchased yesterday at a farmers market. Now, it's true, these were probably expensive compared to what I could have bought at the grocery store but they are from Colorado, which I love, and their carbon footprint is so much smaller than the ones from Georgia or wherever else peaches are grown.

You peel them which means blanching them and then cooking them down. What you see here is the ring of how far they've cooked down in the crock pot and also that I've used an immersion blender to make them smooth. You could have just as easily mashed them with a fork but they would be a little chunkier.

 I take my jars out of the hot water bath canner where they were sanitizing.

 They are now prepped with the funnel for a cleaner pour.

 Pouring the amazing peach butter into the sterilized jar.

 Placing them back in the boiling water. They then sat there, with the lid on for 20 minutes until they were sealed. I will take pictures of the completed butter later.

Now I'm going to allow them to rest and seal. The great thing about jams and butters is that as they sit the flavors just meld and get deeper and richer.

Now you may be asking, what do you do with peach butter or any fruit butter for that matter? Well you can use it just like jam and put it on toast or in sandwiches. You can also use it for a marinade for meat, particularly pork or chicken, you can spread it on pancakes, you can add it to crepes. It works well as a topper for ice cream or even as a cake filling. Basically it's versatile and delicious.

Bilbur

You may recall, I have three children.

My oldest child is named Kylie and I tend to call her Ky or Kytito. Kytito is not a real word but rather a poor attempt to make her name sound Spanish. And my mother I believe was the first person to call her that.

My middle child is named Elizabeth. We call her Lizzie. Or LizzieLou. Or Lou. Or PooPoo. When we knew she was a girl I wanted to name her Beth after the character in Little Women. My mother referred to her once, when I was pregnant, as Lizzie. It stuck.

My youngest child's name is William. I fought against that name when I was pregnant because I don't like the name Bill. It sounds too old to me. We have tried numerous nicknames on him but none ever really seemed right. Billy. Will.Willy.Dolichan. Nothing.

Until his daycare provider called him Wilbur. William was just too big a name for such a small boy and so she took to calling him Wilbur. The other kids called him Wilbur. Then we did. Now he does. He responds better to Wilbur or the nickname Bilbur than he does to his own name.

Both grandmothers, Leslie and Linda, hate the name Wilbur. It sounds too old.

But I wish we would have named him Wilbur instead of William.

Bilbur is just perfect.

Sometimes you don't really know a child's name when they are born. You have to learn it over time and experience.

Aurora

I haven't posted this because frankly I didn't know where to start.

You may have heard, my sweet little town, the town without even a downtown, had a shooting.

If you hadn't heard then, well, we did. On July 20th a man, James Holmes, went to a midnight showing of the new Batman movie and opened fire. He killed 12 people and injured many more.

Friday morning I went to work early. I was pulling into the parking lot at 15 minutes to 6am when I started to get text messages from friends on the East Coast. I didn't understand at first why they were asking me about going to the movies and if I was alright.

I'm 33 but live life at the breakneck speed of 60. Of course I didn't go to a midnight showing of a movie. Are you out of your mind? Some of us have jobs to do. At 6am on a Friday.

But. I've been to that theater. I have taken my children to movies there. Kylie asked if they were hiring earlier in the summer.

My town is small. Most people in Denver make fun of it because we are essentially just a suburb. They talk about it like it's full of gangsters and drug dealers. Lots of people call it Saudi Aurora. (I have no idea why, by the way. It's not as if we are an oil rich city in the desert.)

But Friday morning the people of Aurora and the people of Colorado felt the sting of violence. For all the joking we don't have a high crime rate. We are middle class, working folks. Almost everyone I know works in other cities within Colorado but we live in Aurora. We shop here. We play here. We go to movies here. We live here.

Here it is now, a few weeks later, and for most of the country Aurora is forgotten. A sad situation in a little town in Colorado.

But for us here, we are still healing. And reeling.

Seedlings

I'm not a naturally patient person. I try. I put forth the effort. Sometimes it involves clenching my teeth, putting on a far too large smile and faking it. But I tend to get impatient.


So when the seeds I had planted and set in the window hadn't come up after two weeks I was, shall we say, concerned. I checked out my trusty friend Google and confirmed that I had somehow screwed something up and all my seeds were dead.


And it was possible. I had kept all my seeds together in a single envelope and during a cleaning frenzy they had been placed in my large kitchen window. While perfect for seed starting the window can get very hot and given the strangely warm weather it was completely conceivable that I had fried my seeds.


I grieved. I wept. I moped.


You see, I'm a seed snob. Sure, I could buy the plants from the store but in terms of saving money there is no cheaper way to do it than by planting seeds. PLUS I have the luxury of having heirloom, non-GMO seeds growing things I just can't buy at the nursery. The nursery doesn't carry carrot plants at all but if they did they wouldn't be the sweet Chantenay Red Core kind. And while they have plenty of pepper and tomato plants they don't carry my Sweet Yellow Stuff Peppers or my Fox Cherry Tomatoes.


Too late to place another seed order, I stopped by the nursery on my way home from work one night and picked up another round of green bean and cucumber seeds and resigned myself to buying tomatoes plants in a few weeks when the weather was right.


Imagine then my surprise when I came home to find 2 possible squash/pumpkin plants growing in my front yard. And then in the raised beds I spied 3 sugar snap peas finally poking their heads out.


I could have cried.


Until that point I was pretty sure the only thing I was going to manage for the year was garlic and weeds.


Now, a few weeks later I have 5 -6 squash or pumpkin plants in my front yard (they look the same and I possibly planted both close together), 12 pea plants coming up and at least 3 cucumber plants poking their heads out of the ground. Additionally I have a melon seedling of some kind hanging out with the garlic (thanks 2 year old son) and my potatoes are finally starting to poke their eyes above the dirt.


I suppose it just goes to show. I needed only the faith in the mustard seed. Or was that faith as small as the mustard seed?