3 more days and I will be home

From the sounds of the weather at home it would have drove me crazy , warm, cold, snow, rain etc...Hubby even said "you won't be able to get in the garden because it will be too muddy when you get home" which I came back with "that's why we have square foot gardens also." At least this year I won't be making him add more square foot gardens.

I have enjoyed work, enjoyed seeing old friends, enjoyed the warmer weather even though it's cooler than normal in this area, enjoyed paying off a couple bills...but I am so ready to get back home and get to work there.

I did use my down time here for catching up on some reading and starting the inventory for my pantry and reworking our budget. I was able to visualize in my head the shelves in the pantry (now I think just how huge our pantry is) and write out what items was there, should be easier to count them when I get home. I know I missed some things... condiments and spices/herbs...I have over 100 spices and herbs.

Got to get started on the spring cleaning, (warm weather for using clothes line YES!!!) and repairing and redoing the outside furniture.

Planting flowers,herbs and hundreds of veggies. Yes hundreds because I will have over 100 of various tomato plants besides the other plants. I can my own red sauce,bolognese sauce,red sauce with veggies,and pizza sauce. I might do salsa this year also since we do eat enough of it.Not touching diced tomatoes, diced tomatoes with seasonings, stewed tomatoes. I don't make tomato juice until I have enough of the other tomatoes needed done.

I need to really "clean" the pantry while inventorying it so I can see how much room and empty jars I have for this year's produce. I most likely will need more jars, I usually do.

I am going back to baking, I had stopped after Christmas except for cookies for Operation Thank You but since we decided to rework the budget to get a couple more large debts paid off in the next year. The grocery budget(food, non food, personal items, pets, and office supplies) took the hit.

Going to try drying greens this year. Haven't really heard of doing it before last winter, something new. But then I have had a  lot of people that have never heard of leather britches (greasy cut short green bean dried on a string. Will do a post later on it.)including my parents that were upset that they were tossing food they could have been eating,they made shelly beans (like dried beans) out of them and tossed the rest in the compost pile.I reminded them at least they composted it but it's hard to think of that when you know there was times you went hungry. Mother was sad that she had never learned to make broth from meat let alone from vegetable peels like I do.

Dad taught me the basics of cooking, the rest I picked up from others as I became an adult. Still learning each day something new in the culinary world which is probably why I enjoy my career as a Personal Chef even after all these years of working in the food industry.

Going to go "play" with my garden designs...even though I know I will change them when I plant them.

Blessed Be