You Say Tomato. . .I Say Tomoto. . .

It's harvest season ya'll!! And i've turned into a true blue suzy home maker for sure!! My sweet mother in law taught me how to can after Doug and I got hitched. It definately gives me a sense of accomplishment to look at all my hard work and then to enjoy it a few months later! I've canned various things before, like apple pie filling, jams & salsa. Well this year, Grammy Geri hooked a girl up with some serious maters! This is a pic of 1/3 of them! I had to get them done this week because they were ripe and ready!

This is what I started with:
After coring them, blanching them and peeling them, they look like this:

Then I shove them all into these jars. . . & I give them a nice hot 45 minute bath. . .
Then walaah. . . my masterpiece. . . I was able to do 33 jars by the time I was all done! It's definately time consuming and a lot harder with a toddler. We will be making concord grape juice pretty soon. So yummy!

While we were out watering the other night, I looked above D's head and saw something large and black. I'd like to introduce "Big Mamma", she's our lovely large Cat Face Spider that lives in the pine tree out front. As you can see, she's quite large and very creepy. I looked online and she's harmless and likes to live in the trees so I don't have to worry about her making a home visit!

I'm boycotting Kanye West!!!

Corky the slacker, back again with my monthly Johnson update! I will be posting pics a little later with our fun Labor day festivities. Dad is doing great. He's been on family restriction though, so we haven't actually seen him since we dropped him off at the ol' rancherooney. But from what we've heard, he is doing really good! We have found some good support groups to join. The church has been amazing to help pay for the rehab.

Our little family is doing great! Finally caught up on the housework! I'm pretty sure that DCFS could have come in there and classified it as a disaster area! But rest assured, it is clean now. Well except for the gazillion tomatoes that I'm going to can this week! Miss Pretty is growing like you wouldn't believe! She makes me laugh every single day! We've been over at my sistas a lot and the cuzzins have been so hilarious!! My lil' nephew "Spidey" is really having a hard time sharing with everyone. If you haven't read my sista's blog, check it out, it's under "Superhero family".

Many of you may be wondering about my post title. Last night was the MTV Music Awards. I DVR'd it, but heard this morning about the Kanye West controversy. I actually really like Kanye West's older music, but love Taylor Swift more. I will now be deleting all of Kanye West from my IPOD and throwing my cd's away. Total and utter disrespect!!

Friday, marked the 8 year anniversary of 9/11. As I drove to work that morning, I thought about that day and went over the events in my mind. It's funny how we remember so many details about that day, like what I was wearing and what I was doing when I heard the sad news. I was getting ready for work and heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. They were thinking it was a joke or an accident, and I turned on the news right when the 2nd plane hit. When the 3rd and 4th planes crashed, I remember thinking "Why can't they stop them? We're in America!" I'll never forget the images displayed throughout the media and the reactions of the news reporters who aren't supposed to show raw emotion like that. At work on Friday, our ROTC class had a flag raising ceremony in the front of the school. I lost it, once the flag was raised and then dropped back to half staff. My heart goes out to those amazing family members that lost fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters, grandmas, grandpas and friends that day!!