hearbeats and other less important things

No, not two babies. My heart was delighted to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time last week. I'm 12 weeks, but it took a while to find out about local midwives, interview, and set up an appointment. I'm really pleased with our new midwife, and after having the last three children all with the same Chattanooga midwife, I feel like she has big shoes to fill. This pregnancy has been better than any of the others, and I hope to have a whole week of posts about what has helped thus far. But that will have to wait until my garden dies, which may not be too far off by the looks of the blight on my tomatoes. I would like to say that I'm sad about that, but I've canned spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes, and made lots of fresh salsa, so I fee like we've had a good run with the tomatoes. Plus, I need to start school with the kids after Labor Day, which means the garden needs to produce less or I need to clone myself.

 Lots O' Leeks and green onions

 Tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, peaches, peppers of all kinds;
and our garden is small compared to many friends in our area!

In other news, we finally saved up enough Amazon bucks to buy a new SLR digital camera- and let me tell you, I had to work REALLY hard to buy enough stuff to earn all those points...just kidding- we've been saving for a long time. The ever talented and camera-wise Lea recommended I just purchase a body and not get the standard kit lens that comes with it, and then purchase a 50mm f/1.8 lens as well as a zoom lens. So that's the plan, but you can imagine my excitement when I realized that my old Canon SLR film camera lenses work on my new digital camera. I haven't had time to read the book yet, so I haven't used it all that much (aren't you proud, Dad?).

On an unrelated note, there's nothing like a fresh, new IKEA catalog to motivate a person to actually go through that box of stuff sitting in the basement, waiting to be sold on Craigslist and eBay. I'm just saying...listing those items will be high on my to-do list today. We're going to Charlotte for Labor Day, and we *might* get to swing by IKEA, and it would be so nice to have a list and some $$$ to go along with it. Plus, I have strong suspicions my white loveseat slipcover has sharpie down the back of it, so I'll have to dish out the $12 and buy a new one.

Today we have peaches to can and jam to make. Friends keep giving us peaches, and free fruit is always a good thing (I guess technically tomatoes are a fruit, too...). I go back and forth between thinking, "Wow, putting up food is a lot of work," and "What a blessing that we have all this food, and with the economy the way it is who knows if we will always be in a season of plenty." So the latter thought has kept me freezing and canning. I'll have to write a garden post another time, too. I've made LOTS of mistakes, e.g., thinking a radish seed would give me more than one radish, and a butternut squash seed would only give me a couple butternut squashes. Um, how about 15-20? Lord-willing, I will have a baby in late February and be back on my feet in time to plant a great garden next year, with all these lessons learned, and mistakes not to be repeated. I say, "There's always next year" a lot when it comes to the garden.

Lastly, I got on the computer to find my old favorite grocery list, of which I forgot to save a master copy so I've been without for a few months. Find the downloadable template here, at Design Sponge. I like it because it has room for a week of menus at the top, with a grocery list underneath PLUS a place for things you forgot to buy that week but need to add to next week's list. Must be a universal problem.

Happy Monday!