Sorry I have been absent so long.  Each day I say, I must update my blog today and before I can sit down to do it, the day is gone and I am tired so I put it off again.  It is not that there is so much I have to do it is  just that I want so much to get my knitting done that I spend too much time finishing this sweater or that slipper sock.  I set for a task this year the goal of making two pair of slipper socks for every one in the family for Christmas.  That means 4 children with 3 spouses, 12 grand children with 4 spouses and 10 great grand children at two pair each that is 46 pairs of slipper socks.  I have just 7 pairs left to make and I have reached that goal.  Then I wanted to make sweaters for the smallest great grand children and I have four out of the 7 all done with just 3 more to do.  So you see I get excited to knit just a little longer so I can do what I set out as a goal for myself before I knit just for fun.  Amazon is setting up a new site to sell one of a kind, handmade items and asked for crafters or artists to join their store.  I applied and hope I can sell some of my children’s sweaters, slipper socks and Barbie outfits on that site.   I applied and am now waiting to hear from the review board.  I can’t just put them on ebay because you don’t reach the right buyers, they are looking for cheap knock offs or bargains.  I need to reach people who truly want hand crafted items that are 100% hand made are are willing to pay more than 10 cents an hour for the work that goes into them.  I have know for over 50 years you don’t get more than 50 cents an hour for handiwork but I am not willing to sell it for less than that and you can only give away so much.  Back in the late 40’s and 50’s my Aunt Ruth used to knit Ace bandages for wounded people who could not use the elastic kind because of skin problems, she gave them away to hospitals.  There was no way they could have paid  her a fair price for them.

My other time project here has been to have a good variety of vegetables at each meal.  I got so used to having lots of fresh vegetable on my table when we had the farm and I just can’t set a table without the same thing now.  I do have a few canned vegetable from the farm like green beans and beets but the corn is all gone and the frozen things I had to give away as there was no way I could bring them down here with us.  So I had to find a way to have my three vegetables, potato and salad at each meal and not drive us into the poor house.  What I have found I can do is buy in bulk at the Nelson’s Farm Market.  They have most of the nice fresh vegetable by the 20, 25 or 50 pound box at a price that doesn’t kill me for each meal.  I get one box each week and have some fresh, give some to my daughter for her family, and freeze the rest.  The first week I got broccoli  crowns.  I cut the buds off the top and froze those in 1 cup packages to use raw in salads then chopped the rest of the crown up to use in baked vegetable or stir fries  or to steam as a separate vegetable.  I freeze them laid out on a cooky sheet for about 3 hours them put them into gallon bags .  That way I can take out a handful or a pot full at a time to use.  I always put them into the oven or steamer frozen so they cook up just like they did when I first brought them home.  I put these and the small bags of buds into a pillow case size bag that I put a zipper on to keep it closed tight.  This double bagging helps to keep them from freezer burns as well as make them easy to find when I am getting them out of my chest freezer. The second week I got a box of cauliflower.  There were 12 very large head of cauliflower in the box so it worked out to about $2.50 a head while if I had gotten them one at a time they were selling for $3 to $3.50 for the same things.  Patty got two, I kept out two and I froze the other 8.  I just broke those up into the small flowerlets  and froze them on the cooky sheets then bagged them in the quart bags. I got a nice big pillow case full.  Yesterday I took out a package and made a cauliflower pizza crust for Patty.  It came out great.  Patty, Becca and Jen came over for dinner and we had pulled pork.  Everyone else ate my big brown and serve buns but Patty can’t eat wheat so I made the pizza crust a little thicker than usual and rectangular, then cut it into eight pieces and that was her bread for the pulled pork sandwiches.  It came out great and she took home for lunches what was left.  The next week I got a  big bag of sweet potatoes.  Again we saved out lots to eat fresh but chopped and froze a bag for the baked vegetables.  And this last week I got 20 pounds of parsnips which I did the same thing to.  If I were still in TN or NH I would not have to freeze these root vegetables but here in Florida none of them keep more than a week or two without either freezing or at least putting in the refrigerator and no one has a big enough one to put that many vegetables in.  When I want to bake some vegetables I go to my freezer and take a big handful of each one along with some brussel sprouts and sometimes an onion.  Put them on a cooky sheet, sprinkle them with olive oil and in 40 minutes I have a wonderful medley for one of my vegetable.  I always have a salad and another vegetable plus potatoes and 4 ounces of meat to complete our dinner.   This week I will get a box of zucchini  and some peppers to freeze and my variety will be complete.  Then I will start over with the broccoli  again.  So they may have taken the girl out of the farm but they can’t take the farm out of the girl.  Have a great day.