My Future Is Bleak

I have seen my future and it is bleak.

Holy cow. I thought I was busy. Try having four kids who do four different sports. Which will be me, I am certain.

One of Scott and Kathleen's kids is a football player. He has weightlifting class at 6:45am every other day. Then he's in football camp every SINGLE DAY.

Their next boy is the baseball player. He had two games that went from 4:30pm until Who Knows. I am going to bed. Kathleen worked the concession stand for the second game.

"I'll pray for you.", I told her.

The third child, a daughter, is a competitive gymnast. She has to be at the gym three days a week.

The fourth child is a volleyball player. She has to be at volleyball camp every day this week.

Kathleen has a spreadsheet on the side of her refrigerator to keep track of it all.

I am exhausted just thinking of my future life and how I will juggle all of it. And, OMG, how do you afford all that? And here is a secret about me. I don't even LIKE sports.

Wake me up when mine go to college.

Everything Important In History Happened At A Rest Stop

On our trek through Nebraska, we stopped at an original Pony Express outpost.

It was so exciting, you wouldn't believe it.



Greg said, "I didn't know they had window a/c units back then!"

Did you guys know the Pony Express only last for 19 months? It's hard to believe that something that only lasted for such a short period of time is so much a part of our history.



The exact location of the Pony Express outpost also happened to be a stop on a 1642 mile auto tour tracing the path the Mormons took while in flight from religious persecution. There were several Mormon families there when we were, re-tracing the original journey. Only 1642 miles? Amateurs!

As we were leaving, Greg told the kids, "When you grow-up, it's completely unnecessary for you to ever come back to this state. You've already seen it."

We were completely unimpressed by Nebraska. We stayed in Lincoln, Nebraska and we couldn't even let the kids play at a park because we were eaten alive by black flies and mosquitoes. You guys can have that. I'll take my 110 degrees any day without something biting the shit out of me.

So we woke up on yesterday and drove across Iowa.



We like Iowa much better than Nebraska.



The kids ate boatloads of mulberries and had every square inch of their clothing covered in mulberry stains and Greg brought them back with black mud up to their knees in the 20 minutes it took me to put together a picnic. I think this is no match for my homemade Mexican laundry soap.



Every rest stop we stopped in Iowa proclaimed itself to be a historical location. This particular rest stop was on the Underground Railroad. We learned that slaves from Missouri and Kansas were shuffled up through Iowa.

We just appreciate that the state of Iowa built bathrooms for us every 20 miles because that is how often we stopped.



And now we are in Ottawa, Illinois, staying with Greg's bestfriend Scott. Scott and Kathleen have four kids too. Two boys and two girls. When my kids are here, I rarely see them. They run the neighborhood with a giant pack of kids and only come in to eat.

Finally, I am on vacation.

I Shot The Clerk?

During our 23 hour drive from Las Vegas to Lincoln, Nebraska, Greg realized he had gotten gas in Grand Junction, Colorado and we were almost to Nebraska. So he calculated that we had gone almost 500 miles on one tank, which would probably be okay if you weren't driving a gas pig like our minivan.

Our gas gauge was saying we still had a quarter tank, but Greg thought perhaps it was broken and decided to take the first exit he saw and pulled into a little two pump gas station in a little farming town right before you get to Nebraska.

I handed him the credit card and he tried in vain to get the pump to work. The clerk was standing outside smoking right next to the gas pumps, yet she could offer no advice. She was busy smoking and all.



After several minutes, I noticed the clerk had gone back inside, so I told Greg to give me the credit card and I'd go inside and just pay for the gas. We were going to just put $20 in because they were charging 30 cents a gallon more than everyone else.

When I got inside, I told the Smoking Lady I wanted $20 on the pump and she told me to go outside and use my credit card. I told her the pump wasn't working, which she would know because she saw us out there. This got her all flustered.




Now I will tell you this, because I didn't realize it at the time, but her modem was turned off, which is why the pump wasn't working and why she also couldn't run my card inside when she tried. When she turned the modem on, I didn't know the card swipe outside would go through seconds before the card swipe inside, meaning I was now being charged twice.

I walked outside and Greg bellowed at me, "You didn't pay did you? It went through!", and he handed me the receipt from the gas pump.

So I went back in with both receipts and said, "We have a problem. The card went through on the pump and in here, so I either need another $20 in gas or I need a refund."

That's reasonable, right?




Smoking Lady reached out and grabbed the receipt out of my hand and CRUMPLED IT UP, saying, "That's not your receipt. That's the person's receipt that pumped gas before you."

I was SHOCKED.

I asked her, "What's the time on the receipt?"

"6:31am."

"It's 6:34am right now!"

And then suddenly, Joe Pesci appeared in the gas station and I could hear him saying, "Isn't it plausible that there were TWO maroon, late model minivans with Nevada plates, with the same style and model of tires, same set of triplets, who came only moments beforehand and pumped exactly $20 in gas and then shot the clerk?"

So I freaked out. I mean I had a meltdown of epic proportions, which validates that Amanda IS MINE. She's just an uncontrolled version OF ME.

"Give me the receipt! Give me the receipt RIGHT NOW!!!!", I screeched at her in my super shrill shriek voice.

I uncrumpled it and there was MY NAME ON IT. Funny how those credit cards work.

"It has my NAME ON IT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Then in Smoke Lady's logic that was just the same receipt she gave me inside. And it went on and ON AND ON AND ON AND ON until I asked her if she was BRAINDEAD?

All the old men in overalls enjoying their morning coffee in the adjacent diner GASPED.

Finally, she stormed outside with me to discover she had applied MY twenty dollars to Pump 3 and some OTHER lady had pumped MY gas. I was on Pump 10.

Paging Captain Obvious, but why would you have a PUMP TEN if you only have two pumps.?

So you think it's over? Oh, no. It's just starting. Then she told the lady at Pump 3 to give me twenty dollars.

And the lady was like, "I used MY credit card. I'm not giving anyone anything."

Then I told Smoking Lady if she didn't give me my GODDAMNED MONEY, I was calling the cops.

More gasps from the peanut gallery. I'm sure those farmers hadn't seen such excitement in YEARS.

Then she finally, FINALLY reached into her drawer and gave me a twenty dollar bill.

When I got out to the car, Greg was mortified. MORTIFIED. He accused me of yelling at an old lady. I told him I'd scratch her eyeballs out if she tried to steal my twenty bucks and maybe she could pull that over on some old farmer who'd been sniffing too much pesticide in his corn and soybean fields for too many years, but she couldn't pull a fast one on ME.

"Wow. If I don't let you sleep or eat, you really DO go insane."

Yes. Yes, I do. It only took him 20 years to GET IT.

The Hippie Adventure

Over the desert and through the mountains to Grammy's house we go. Greg knows the way to drive night and day, till Mommy wants to blow.....

Did I ever mention we decided to rent the house instead of the condo? The owners put window air units in the bedrooms, so we figured it would be safe.

But did I mention Greg found this house on Craigslist? Uh, yeah. I was convinced a month ago that Greg got scammed out of our deposit. When he drove his mom's car back, he tracked the lady down at her place of business after driving by the house and noting it was for sale.


Turns out they are hippies and it's a hippie house. They own a hippie shoe store.

All I can say about that is it better be a CLEAN hippie house.

This should be quite an adventure.

Going Home

We are leaving today and driving 24 hours to Lincoln, Nebraska, where we expect to arrive tomorrow afternoon and spend the night.

I was unable to sleep last night due to the overwhelming anguish I am feeling for Leslie and Macario. It was only a matter of time, and I emailed with Leslie as she held his hand and waited for the end to come. It is the saddest thing ever to lose your husband and partner, the father of your child.

Yesterday, Emma Rose's 4 year old twin cousins came to their house. The three of them spent some time together outside. When they went in, Emma Rose lined up three chairs and the three of them stood on the chairs and gently and lovingly stroked Macario's arm.



I am so glad Emma Rose has her cousins. This nearly shattered my heart.

Before Macario got sick, he was a professional photographer.



This is a picture from his blog and the valley he grew up in. You can see some of his work on that link.

I picture him going home to that place. It looks like it could be in Heaven.

We Line Em Up Like Convicts

Sarah spent the morning reading Runaway Ralph yesterday. I do not believe she can read half the words in that book, but even so, she read what she could for a couple hours. WOW! Is this the turning point? Where all that hard work of teaching them to read pays off and they entertain themselves with books for hours and hours?

Tell me it is! Tell me it is!



The kids finished up their two week swim lessons. Austin has graduated from Level 2 and is ready to go to Level 3 in August when we get back. Can you believe how dark he's gotten? I swear I put suntan lotion on them! He loved swim lessons. He is really good at it. I am SO GLAD I didn't push him into them before this because he used to be really timid around the water. He actually ran down the diving board and JUMPED with no hesitation.

I had the displeasure of sitting next to the mom who was torturing her son because he was cold yesterday. He's in Austin's class.

She said to me, "I saw your son at Regal theatres with his daycare class. He was lined up against the wall in the ladies' room with a bunch of kids."

Yes. Misti and I have a DAYCARE CLASS. We line them up against the wall like convicts to keep track of them in the rush of humanity coming out of the theatres. It works too. We haven't lost one yet.

Amanda was scared to death to jump off the diving board. She had a hissy fit when she heard that Austin is going to be in the Level 3 class with her next time.

"How can he be on our team? He's a BABY!, she erupted.

"He wasn't even afraid to jump off the diving board, Amanda. Who's the baby?"

Amazingly, Gregory The Athlete was the poorest swimmer out of the three. I am not sure if that was a true measure of his ability or if he was just too cold to execute the moves. The swim instructor even wrote on his final assessment that he would do much better in a warmer pool.

All the skinny ones had a hard time.

Sarah was our super star at swimming. The instructor said she is a born natural at swimming and really, really enjoys it.

All three need to stay in Level 3 as they were unable to demonstrate a front crawl for 15 yards, do an elementary backstroke for 15 yards, and demonstrate a scissors kick for 10 yards. I wouldn't know what any of those are if someone kicked me with a scissor's kick, but she said those are skills that will be attained with age and coordination. And more swim lessons, undoubtedly.

All three had this circled and underlined.

VERY WATER SAFE.

On the way home, we saw this guy riding a horse and texting on his iPhone.

He didn't even have his hands on the reins. He had the phone in both hands and was just texting away.

So I ran him over after I took his picture.

The Long Journey Ahead

We are gearing up for our departure to Michigan. I had to stock up on chicken and turkey feed and muck the coop and turkey shed. My four pullets keep sleeping and pooping in the nesting boxes, which means the older hens have to lay eggs on poop. The pullets are so close to maturity now, that I am hoping once they start laying, they'll start roosting and I will not have to clean out boxes all the time.

Cuz it's GROSS and I want to vomit when I do it. But I do it, because I hate getting eggs out that have poop on them. YUCK!

It's a good thing we are leaving, too, because the feed store got a new shipment of Polish chicks in and the kids were crazy about their big poofy heads.



They turn into these and I think I need a big-haired gal in my mix. But, alas, it was not to be.

In between shutting down the house, we have been super busy. I met my friend Misti and her trio on Tuesday at the movies. If you have kids and you didn't know this, Regal Theatres has free family movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You can check where they are playing in your state. Gregory took his friend Preston and then I kept Preston the whole day, so his mom could sleep. She just had a baby a couple weeks ago.

Then on Wednesday, we spent a whole nuther day at the pool with my friend Laura and her trio.



Laura's boys started swimming over the past two weeks, so now we have all of the kids swimming.



They have so much fun at the pool. I never pictured them getting old enough to spend the whole day there without me having a heart attack and dying from fright that someone had drowned.



We had some cutting-in-line drama and some big boys picking on Austin, which required me to stomp up the stairs and take care of business, but other than that, this is the way to spend your summer.



Yesterday, we spent the day running errands. I got the girls these swimsuits at Target for $8. We are going to Cherry Festival in Traverse City and the girls will have cherry swimsuits!!!!



I also canned more jam and made pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes for the first time ever. I took the skins off and quartered them and cooked them down in water. It was SO EASY and so, so, so, so good. If my tomatoes had gotten ripe, I could have had fresh spaghetti sauce all year!!!! DANG IT!!!

Greg and I got in a fight yesterday because I'm not excited about going on this family vacation yet.

I can't imagine why I'm not looking forward to leaving and driving 2900 miles in the car with four kids. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?

Finally, for all those who have prayed and asked, Macario is still hanging on. Leslie had an entire houseful of friends and family with her yesterday. Macario is not waking up anymore, nor is he responsive, but he is peaceful. What Leslie is going through is consuming me. Her daughter, Emma Rose, is the same age as my kids and I know they have such a long road ahead of them.

I can't pretend to understand what that road will entail, I just know I will be there for her along the way.

The Pictures Lurking On My iPhone That Nobody Wants You To See

Now that I have an iPhone, I have a camera every waking moment. I have taken 157 pictures since Mother's Day on my phone.

Beware. I am watching you.



I don't know how I missed this one in my post about Jerry's "going away" party, but here is Jerry making out with a dead pig's head. Jerry is available again, ladies. You may begin forming another line.



While this looks like a picture of Amanda giving her beloved stuffed animal a ride in the swing, I was really trying to get a picture of the house behind her. I think they have turned it into a halfway house. I used to bust people for zoning violations before my iPhone, now I scroll through permits while the kids are frolicking about on the play equipment.



Speaking of violations, this guy lived in the parking lot of our Walmart for TWO WEEKS, in a school bus pulling a motor home.



Let's take a closer look. He chopped the front off a class A motor home and turned it into a trailer. Can you imagine any part of this contraption is legal?

The kids and I circled his homestead several times and watched him come out with his dogs. They felt so much at home, the dogs even used the rocks in the landscaping as their dog run.

When Greg and I spent a year traveling around in a motorhome, we spent many a night in a WallyWorld parking lot when we were in between destinations. If you don't know, most Walmarts extend this courtesy to travel weary RVers. But they never meant you could go on vacation and LIVE in the parking lot. Gah! People like this ruin it for all the other cheap people.



This is an elderly man I met at a park. He told me that after his wife died, he adopted five drug-addicted crack babies and raised them all into adulthood. Even in his golden years, he's adopted two more toddlers of drug addicts and is raising them now too.

He played catch with my two boys for almost a half an hour. Proof that ordinary people live extraordinary lives. I thought about him for days after our chance encounter.



Okay. Here is a Fashion Don't for my Mormon Gal Pals. Don't wear baggy capris under a too short sundress. She looks like a full grown Raggedy Ann doll. The key here is modesty, not absurdity, girls. If the dress is too short, just. don't. wear. it. Stick with my fashion don'ts. Black t-shirts and knee length shorts.



Finally, a new ride for Greg in the Trader's parking lot. Look! It's a motorhome, but it's also a flat bed. Greg could work his way all the way across America. It's perfect! Do you think we could afford one? Which Walmart should we stay at first?

So this ends the first installment of Caught In Michele's iPhone.

Stay in your homes. Nobody is safe anymore.

Asking For Help Again

My dear friend Leslie has brought her husband Macario home under the care of Hospice.



If you are a longtime reader, you may have remembered me asking for prayers last year.

Or you may remember me spending eight days on the Big Island with Leslie and Macario in 2008. I went back and labeled all the posts from that adventure today.

Macario has been battling lymphocytic leukemia for five years. He took a turn for the worse 2 days ago and that was when it was discovered he is septic and the disease has tremendously advanced.

He was in a tremendous amount of pain. Leslie had to scream at people to get him enough pain relief. If you knew how out of character that is for her, you could barely picture it.

But she got him out of the hospital and he is at home now, with Leslie, his six year old daughter, and both his sisters and an arsenal of drugs to administer around the clock.

I am devastated by this turn of events. Please pray for Macario and all of them today. Please pray for his comfort and that he will be free from pain. We all want him to be comfortable.

But What Are These For?

I cannot say enough what a terrible mistake it was to sign the kids up for swim lessons in an unheated pool. It just never occurred to me that it would be so cold in Las Vegas in June, they would have hypothermia when they got out of the water. I am not even kidding that they have to get out before the lesson is over because they can't stop shaking.

I told them they can get out. I made it clear if they became too cold to just get out. I'm not going to torture those kids for a 2 week swim class. I didn't take them on Friday at all because we had 30 mile an hour winds again and Sarah had swimmer's ear and Austin had gotten his kindergarten shots and couldn't move his arm.

The wind will not stop here. It's been windy since MARCH. What the heck?

There was a little boy in Austin's class and he was screaming and crying and shaking from the cold. Since Austin is the only one of my kids with a little fat on him, he can actually take the cold longer than the other three. So he's fine compared to Amanda and Gregory, who start shaking after 15 minutes. The little boy's mother was so mad. She was SCREAMING at him to get back in the pool. The little boy was so upset. He could not even stand up straight because he was so overcome with the shakes.

The scene was horrible and I wanted to yank that kid out of the pool and let him lay down on the asphalt with a towel. Good grief. These classes are through the City Of Las Vegas and they cost $25 for a two week session. Let it go, woman. You are torturing your kid for $4.25?

When we got home, all the kids piled back into the shower together and turned it on as hot as it would go.

Twenty minutes later, (Greg, the water police wasn't home) I went to give them towels and Gregory said, "Mom, I know these are called testicles, but what are they FOR?"

Oh my good Lord, I wasn't prepared for that! I couldn't even answer. I was STUMPED. In a split second, I was seeing the whole birds and bees talk unfolding and I am so not ready TO GO THERE.

I may never be ready to go there. As in, never.

So I posed the question to my triplet mom friends on Facebook.

"If you were six, why would you have testicles?"

Here are the answers I got.

Shely: Tell him he is like a Christmas tree and the balls are hung there for decoration :)

Kristi: It's like a beanbag chair for your penis. If you didn't have testicles, where would it sit?

Loren: Hmmm... tell him he's like a camel and they're there to store stuff for use later. Like a LOT later

Oh, man, you guys crack me the heck up.

Seriously, I am still laughing. Can't stop.

Feel free to add to this list today.

How Ya Doin City Boy?

On Saturday, the kids and I got in the car and headed across the barren Mojave desert to go 68 miles to our farm in Logandale, Nevada. The significance of the farm has still not worn off on me. You have never in your life seen a place more barren or inhospitable to life than the Mojave desert. We don't even have trees or cactus. It's just like creosote and sand.

It took us several years to make dirt in my garden. You have to MAKE dirt here. Do you get that? Can you imagine what I could do if I lived somewhere that just HAD dirt?



We headed out to the farm for their annual Heirloom Tomato Taste Test Contest.

This was so much fun. They had heirlooms mixed in with conventional breeds.

Amanda could pick out the heirlooms with one hundred percent accuracy. In fact, she chose the Heirloom Italian tomato as her favorite, then the SunSugar variety as her second choice.

After the contest, Amanda and Gregory went back up and gobbled up the remaining tomatoes. They looked like they were at a buffet.

Amanda couldn't wait to get her hands on the baby goats.

Okay. I want a goat in the worst way. When I get back from Europe in the Fall, I am going to talk Bob into letting me get a couple milk goats. I guess goats are social and cause much less trouble if you have two, according to the guy that runs our farm.

Gregory spent nearly an hour in the chicken coop. He just LOVES those baby chicks.

I got a look at what my turkeys are going to look like full grown. OMG. Is that the ugliest thing you've ever seen? I don't think I'm going to cry at all when Bob chops the head of that big old thing. Although I've got to admit I've allowed myself to get a teensy bit attached to my turkeys. They are the nicest birds!

I took a good look at how the irrigation system works for the crops they grow there.

And how they are pasturing their chickens.

This photo is for Leslie. Artichokes. Leslie lives on the Big Island in Hawaii and can't get artichokes without paying a fortune.

Just move to Las Vegas like all the other Hawaiians, Leslie, and I'll hook you up!

When we were there, this little boy who looked to be the same age as Austin, walked up and said, "How ya doin' City Boy?"

I laughed so hard, I nearly peed my pants.

Who you calling City Boy, son?

Numero Uno Padre

Greg has had the kids out all morning today on Father's Day. He didn't even feel he needed a break or anything in honor of his special day. The last I spoke to him, they were all playing in Walmart.

If that isn't proof he is the best father ever, I don't know what is.

Plus, he puts up with all my antics, so surely he is the best husband as well.

Okay, it's back to the laundry.

And a shout out to my one man reader.

Happy Father's Day! You men are the best!!!!

I'm Not Smelling Like A Mexican

I'm making my own laundry detergent now. You can assemble the intervention. I've officially LOST IT.

I read a blog from another triplet mom and she makes her own laundry soap and it looked so easy. She said that her son's horrible eczema cleared up completely once she started making her own soap. Austin still occasionally gets eczema. Mostly it is aggravated when Greg gets a different laundry detergent on sale. We normally use All Free and Clear.

So I was intrigued. She claims she can make her own laundry detergent for 2 cents a load. If you are Mormon, you should read her blog. Her food storage system is impressive. I currently spend about 12 cents a load.

The kids and I happened to run right into all the ingredients today and I bought them.

It wasn't until I got into the car that I was overwhelmed by the smell of the Fels Naptha soap.

I lived in Tucson, Arizona for 2 years and I have been to Mexico many times. Although I cannot pinpoint the exact brand, there is a Mexican laundry detergent that has a VERY DISTINCT smell. Zote? If you go into a Mexican dollar store or grocery store, you will recognize the odor immediately.

It doesn't smell bad. But it's pretty strong and very, very distinctive. It almost smells like lye with fragrance. When I smell it, I have a very strong association with the sheets in a Mexican hotel room, which conjures up images of beer bongs, the Creeping Crud, and super bad Corona hangovers.

When I volunteered in the morning kindergarten class, where 80 percent of the kids were Hispanic, the entire classroom had that smell. If you know what soap that is, chime in.

So here's the laundry detergent recipe.

1 grated bar Fels Naptha soap
2 cups 20 mule Borax
2 cups Arm and Hammer washing soda
2 cups baking soda

You use two tablespoons per load. So I calculated that it cost me roughly $3.90 to make that batch, which yielded 7 cups. There are 16 tablespoons in a cup. So that is 56 loads at 7 cents a load.

I am saving Greg 5 to 10 cents A DAY.

And I kid you not that he walked in the door today and said, "Did you go to the Mexican dollar store?"

So now he's freaking out. He told me he isn't going to walk around smelling like a Mexican.

I told him if it helps Austin's skin, he WILL smell like a Mexican. I told him I would even laminate his birth certificate to carry around with him, in case he gets pulled over. I would hate to see him thrown back across the river when he can't prove he's an American.

Then he told me if I want to save money, quit buying chicken feed. Or better yet, why don't I start beating the clothes on a rock and save him some electricity?

So after all that drama, I noticed that on the back of the Fels Naptha soap it said: Does Not Contain Naphthalene.

That is a really bad ingredient made from coal tar that happens to be in most commercial laundry soap. I wonder if that is what makes Austin's skin get irritated?

I guess we'll find out in a few days. I can't wait to see how it works on stains.

Adios, amigos.

Get The Hell Out Of My House

I've gone completely manic. I have 10 days to use as much of my garden, my share basket, and all my neighbor's fruit that I can steal. Not yours Jo. Turn off the electric fence though.

I've been getting beets like crazy in my share basket from the farm. I am not crazy about beets. Beets are just oh-kay. I've actually been throwing them into the chickens and they won't even eat them, and they eat their own eggs and will peck each other to death and eat each other, so what does that tell you about beets?

But I do like pickled beets in salads, so I decided I had to do something yesterday.



So I got out Cousin Arlene's pickled beet recipe. Cousin Arlene is Greg's mom's cousin. Which makes her I Don't Know What to the kids. But kids, this is a family recipe, so you WILL EAT IT.

Cousin Arlene's Pickled Beets

2 lbs beets
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 cups cider vinegar
1 thinly sliced lemon
1 TB cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice



This is super easy to make. Even Forest Gump could do it. You just boil the beets until they are soft, then peel them, and dice them. Then you put all the ingredients for syrup in a saucepan and bring it to boiling and pour it over your beets in jars.



I do drain my syrup through a sieve and pour it over my beets.

Greg had thrown out my cloves and my allspice, so I had to schlep over to my neighbor Jo's and borrow some. Greg is the opposite of a hoarder. If you haven't used something for five minutes, he's thrown it out.

I highly recommend moving into a neighborhood with neighbor's who keep well stocked pantries. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I rely on Jo for odds and ends. She totally hooked me up.

Then speaking of neighbors, our other neighbors went out of town for an extended period of time, abandoning their orchard in peak season. Since this is the Wild West, I'm sure that gives me squatter rights, so I hoisted Gregory up over their wall and sent him over to open the gate for me.

Much to our delight, their fig tree had loads of ripe figs. Be still my heart. If you have never had a fresh fig, you must before you die. They are absolutely scrumptious.



So we picked what was close enough to get without a ladder. If I can find a way to discreetly haul a ladder down the street, I'll let you know.

The figs were very, very ripe and they do not keep at all. So I decided to make strawberry fig jam. OHMYGOSH. This is the best jam I HAVE EVER MADE.



What you do is mash five cups of figs and strawberries. This is exactly how you make regular strawberry jam too. You mix the fruit with a package of pectin and bring it to a boil.



Then you add SEVEN cups of sugar. SEVEN. As in 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 cups. If you are diabetic, BAM, you're dead. Do you even understand how much sugar I used yesterday? I ran out. I only added 6 1/2 cups of sugar and it still set up. Whew.

Then you bring it to a boil again for 2 minutes.

I don't actually have any proper canning equipment. I just use this big old pasta pot.



It works really well for me.



Since I don't have the correct tongs to pull the jars out, I can just lift out the strainer and not burn myself. A lot.



And here's the finished product. This is so rich and tasty, I cannot even describe it. If my neighbors read my blog, I have totally got a jar for you guys. If you don't, can you believe the birds got all your figs? Wow. It was like Alfred Hitchcock.



Then since I had already been standing in the kitchen for three hours, I made chicken enchiladas and pico de gallo. I use the Pioneer Woman's recipe for that. It's just equal parts tomato, onion, cilantro, and a finely cut up jalapeno and freshly squeezed lime juice.

So what were the kids doing while I was cooking?



Amanda created an entire paperdoll town. She is the princess of her town.

The other kids tore up the whole place and someone got into glitter and it is in every nook and cranny in this house. Joselle!

When we finally all sat down at the table to eat dinner, Jerry came pounding on the door. The kids went flying to open the door and invited him in for dinner. So he came right in and made himself at home. Greg wasn't home yet, but with Jerry's mom laid up with a broken hip, I don't know when Jerry had his last real dinner. He's only forty. Someone has to look out for him.

Not ten minutes after that, Greg came peeling into the driveway.

He walked in the house, saw Jerry sitting at the table and bellowed, "I work hard all day and I have to come home and see you sitting at my dinner table. GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

I sent him packing with some pickled beets.