Have you been wondering...

...WHERE IN THE WORLD I HAVE BEEN???

I noticed last night that I have only posted four times this month!?! That is absolutely unheard of for me.  While I won't deny my creative projects have slowed significantly this summer, I do have a good reason (or two).  Check out these photos.

We always plant a garden but NEVER, EVER have we had such a fruitful one as we've had this year.  We give it the odd watering and weeding but really that is about it.  This summer, it rained for the entire month of July.  Well, let me tell you what that can do for string beans (and the weeds LOL).  I canned four pails of beans this year.  Yes, FOUR. The fifth pail we gave away. I was sick of beans at that point.

My parents also have a monster garden every year and they gave me two crates of green tomatoes.  I made a huge batch of salsa (recipe courtersy of Amber) and pizza sauce is cooking as I type (recipe courtesy of Ali).  There is still one more crate still to ripen!?!

I almost always do a few batches of jam. I love to put it in gift baskets at Christmas time.  This year I did rhubarb, strawberry rhubarb and blueberry. I also thought I'd give apple butter a try.  I found a super, simple crock pot recipe from Southern Plate.

Last but certainly not least are the Lady Ashburnam pickles (otherwise known as the BEST mustard pickles around) my Grandmother is famous for.  This year I actually had cucumbers of my own to make this batch.

So there it is.  My adventures in gardening and home canning this summer.  I'm thinking it's a good thing to stock up this year because I doubt I'll be doing this next summer with a young baby in the house. 

On the creative side of things, I'm working on my October work for myStamp BOX already and I also have a page almost complete with this photo.  Look for it sometime next week.

Thanks so much to all of you who faithfully check in on me. 

Cheers!