Crazy Couple of Weeks

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Jason got called to the Bull Fire in Kernville, CA on August 4th so I was a fire widow for 12 days. Some of the fire workers bring their significant others with them to the fire, so we decided that I would drive up to Kernville and see him for the weekend August 6-8. It would be nice to get out of the city and into the mountains and then we wouldn't be separated for so long.

In the meantime I was busy working both jobs-leaving the house at 7:30 am and getting home at 10:30 pm. On Tuesday August 3, I got a phone call from the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District asking me to come in for an interview on the 4th for a 60% Spanish position. I went to the interview the next day and honestly didn't think that it went so well. The principal and vice-principal seemed nice but not very enthusiastic. On Thursday I got a phone call as I was leaving my morning job offering me the position which would start the following Monday August 9th. So I quit my morning job, telling them that Friday morning would be my last day and later that afternoon quit my evening job, telling them that Thursday would be my last day. I felt bad about giving them NO notice, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity for a real job.

On Friday after my morning job, I met with my new vice-principal so that I could get keys, get a tour, see my classroom, get my text books, etc. The school is in Spring Valley, which is about 45 minutes Southeast from where I live. Then I left to go see Jason in Kernville. Because I went to my new school first, I didn't leave San Diego until 4:45, this is a BAD time to drive north through Los Angeles. I didn't get to Kernville until 10:30pm. But I got to meet Jason at the local Brewery where I had delicious pear cider and got to meet the rest of the "fire guys."

On Saturday instead of hiking around the river and mountains, I sat at the Blue Bear Coffee Shop and read my new text book. I got lots of ideas and took a lot of notes. I decided to go for a walk and check out the river when I saw a sign for a garage sale. You know how I LOVE garage sales, so I started following the signs. About 2 miles later I came upon a whole street filled with garage sales. It was a bit more of a hike than I had planned on, but one house had boxes of vintage patters. I limited myself to 5 because she had cut out the smallest size so I will need to figure out how to alter them, but it was a great find all the same. As I was walking back towards the hotel, Jason called to ask if I wanted to go to lunch, so he picked me up and we went back to the brewery.

On Sunday I left Kernville early so that I could get back home and get ready to start work on Monday. It was a much quicker drive and I got home with plenty of time. I had oodles of tomatoes from the week so I made a tomato sauce for pasta and froze it. I didn't have time to can it. I did some laundry and started exploring Spanish language podcasts, websites, and books.

This week was all about getting ready for school. On Monday I spent the morning with Human Resources filling out all the paper work. Then I went to my school to work on my classroom and getting things ready. I had to get a pre-work physical so I left school at 2. The clinic was really busy, I didn't even get into the exam room until 4pm. I had planned on going back to school so I left all of my things there. When I got there at 6pm there were only 2 cars in the parking lot and all of the gates and doors were locked. I yelled until Johnny (one of the custodians) came out and let me into my room. I got my things and went home. It was tough having Jason gone because I still needed to water the home garden and take care of the community garden while freaking out about the new job.

Tuesday we had meetings in the morning. I got to meet many of the other teachers in the school. Everyone seems really nice so far. My administrators have been really nice and supportive, always asking if I have any questions or need anything. On Wednesday we had kids!! Since I am just 60%, I only teach 2 periods and an advisory (kind of like homeroom) every day. They school is on a block schedule, so there are just 4 periods of 80 minutes every day but there are alternating A days and B days so the students see me every other day. On each day my 3rd period consists of 7th and 8th graders and my 4th period has only 6th graders. My third periods are big (42 and 39 students). I am not used to having such big classes! They are also a weird mix. About half of my students speak Spanish at home but don't know how to read or write it. The other half are native English speakers who only know the Spanish they learned from Dora. I am hoping to work with the counselors this week to see if I can have 2 different classes, a Spanish-literacy class for the native speakers and a Spanish 1 class for my native English speakers. Hopefully it will work out in the schedule.

Finally this weekend came. Jason got back into town on Thursday. It was nice to see him, but the poor guy didn't get his usual welcome home because I was stressing about the first week of school. On Saturday I needed to do something with the cucumbers and tomatoes that I had picked all week so I made 2-day dill pickles and spicy tomato salsa which I canned. I did some laundry and relaxed around the house. Jason unpacked and worked in the garage and in our home garden. We then compromised lazy internet TV watching. He likes Whale Wars while I am getting through season 1 of Vampire Diaries. It was a fun, relaxing evening.

I will be back to being more crafty and posting more regularly.

Jason cooks Dinner

I am very lucky to have a partner who enjoys cooking. He also really likes to make the plate look fabulous. I don't have that flare when I am cooking. The other day Jason made pork chops with onions and peppers and jelly bean tomatoes. It must be love!

TMI Post

If talking about menstruation freaks you out, read no further.


I have been trying to find ways to live more simply, reuse more, have a more sustainable life...at our local natural foods store, Jimbo's (great name, eh? I miss Mississippi Market), they sell reusable pads for women for something like $20 a pad. I took a look at them and thought, "Hey, I think that I could make them from cloth scraps." I had some old fabric that originally were bedsheets. I used them to make workout pants in a previous post. I cut them in pad-like shape and added velcro for the "wings." They worked nicely for last month's visit with Aunt Flo and washed easily for next month's visit. Each pad took about 15 minutes to make and because I used fabric scraps cost mere pennies.

A Surprising Find-Peas!

At the beginning of the summer, I planted peas along the fence that separates our yard from the front yard of our town home complex. That area doesn't get much sun, but I thought that I would try it. At first they seemed to grow all right, but they never got very tall and started turning yellow and I just assumed that they were fated to die. Imagine my surprise then when I was watering the raspberry vines planted along the wall and I saw this:


All told there were 10 pea pods on about 12 plants. Not a huge crop but a nice, sweet, surprise.

Worm Composting Bin

One way that Jason and I try to be more sustainable is by composting. We have a tiny yard (made even smaller by our 4 garden beds) and no good space for a regular compost bin. Plus we brought with us when we moved my worm bin that I had in my apartment in MN. We can feed all of our food waste to the worms and our yard waste gets picked up by the city.

I got my worm bin from one of my favorite authors, Ellen Sandbeck, from her company LaVerme's Worms.

Ellen has written many books but two of my favorites are Organic Housekeeping and Green Barbarians. After reading Organic Housekeeping and sending it to a few friends, I happened to see the book at a stand at the Minneapolis Green Expo. I told my friend Tanya how much I loved the book and crazily enough, Ellen, the author, overheard me. I had never met an author that I loved before. Anyways, buy her books and check out her worm bins. Back to the blog post...

It was nice because it came fully equipped with bedding and worms so I didn't need to figure out how to get the right pH and all of that stuff for the worms. We mentally split the worm bin into 6 quadrants and each week we feed a different quadrant. By the time that we get back to the original quadrant, all the food has been eaten by the worms. The liquid left over from the food gets filtered to the bottom and out a spigot. "Worm Juice" is a great fertilizing tea for our garden.

I use unbleached paper and sewing scraps as dry bedding since San Diego doesn't get many fall leaves

The worm bin after moving the dry bedding

pouring in the food for my worms

Lately I have been blending all of our food scraps. Since in the summer we eat a ton more vegetables, we have lots more food scraps for the bin. By blending them, I can get more food food in each quadrant and the worms can eat it quicker. Jason says that I am coddling the worms, but I am just making it work. It's a little gross, but worth the effort.

Putting the scraps in the blender

Although it looks gross to us, the worms say, "YUMMY!"

First Tomatoes of the Season!

Summer is here! Today was the first day that I got more than one or two little currant tomatoes. I got about 10 yellow tomatoes (the sharpie had worn off the label so I am not sure what kind of tomato), one orange banana tomato, and 6 of the red currant tomatoes. The yellow ones are really sweet. Although I could have eaten them all, I brought them home to an excited Jason. I can't wait for more tomatoes!

There are the tomatoes that lasted long enough we could photograph them, they were so yummy they kept disappearing into out mouths!

Jason was excited for our 1st tomatoes!

Canning Happens

Happy 4th of July! Today I slept in, finished a book that I was reading, fed my worms (the compost was getting a little stinky), and planned for my new class that starts on Monday. Then with the rest of the afternoon ahead of me, I decided that it was time to do some canning.

I know that the experts say that you should only can produce that was picked the same day, but since I am canning the produce that I have grown, I need to wait until I have enough to can. So my produce has been picked all week and may be up to 7 days old. I figure that if I went to the grocery store to buy produce, it would be at least that old. I guess we'll see how it tastes. I had 1 lb. 10 oz. of pickling cucumbers and 2 lbs 6 oz of green and purple beans. Not enough for a full batch of anything, so I decided to make a half batch of dilly beans and a half batch of dill pickles. To make the dill pickles, the cucumbers needed to sit in a brine for 2 hours, so I set that up first. My in-laws got me a pasta put with a colander that fits in the pot. It was perfect for keeping the cucumbers under water.

Next I had to get the water in the boiling water canner boiling. That can take 45 minutes if it is full of water. I put 7 pint jars inside the canner to sterilize them. Then I started the pickling liquid for the dilly beans. My dilly bean recipe comes from my aunt Cindy, but I add more crushed red pepper because Jason and I like spicy pickles. While the pickling liquid heated up, I sliced the ends off of the beans and cut them so that they would fit into a wide-mouthed pint jar. My recipe calls for fresh dill, but I only had dried dill. I hope that it works all right.

All of my ingredients ready to go

Once the water in the canner started boiling, I could fill the jars. I packed them full of beans, with a piece of garlic and jalapeño in each one (they both are from our garden as well) and then filled the jar up with the pickling liquid. I had a minor set back with the dilly beans. One jar broke when I put it back in the canner. I couldn't fish out all of the beans so I did the rest of my canning with beans floating through the water. Oops! Once the jars were filled and the lids were on, I put them in the boiling canner for 15 minutes.

Filling the jars with beans

The boiling canner with sterilized jars

Oops, one jar broke!

Filling the jars with pickling liquid

As the dilly beans were finishing, the 2 hours that the cucumbers needed to sit in the brine was up. I quickly prepared the pickling liquid for the dill pickles. I needed to sterilize more jars and add some more water to the boiling canner. After filling the jars, and processing them for 15 minutes, I had 4 pints of dill pickles.

Jason and I get to spend the rest of the 4th together, watching movies and hanging out! He get's the day off tomorrow, and I only work in the morning. I hope that everyone has a fun time with friends and family!

Letting the jars cool