Small morning post...

Picked up the boys from morning football practice. Yep, getting three sweaty teenage boys in a small car is quite invigorating....

Not!

Practices this week have started at 6:30 a.m. Guess who has been taking them? Guess who is NOT a morning person?! That'd be me....

At some point this week, I am going to go hunting for a small freezer to go downstairs. I have been thinking about getting a freezer for a while now. Even though I am trying to not buy anything new, I think this will be a good thing. This will allow me to buy in bulk when I see really good meat deals. There have been several times when Sam's or one of the local grocery stores have had really good meat sales and I have had to pass them up because we didn't have room in the freezer. I have been wanting to actually use my once a month freezer cookbooks too. Some of the women I know that cook with this method, swear by it. It would be great to just be able to take an entree out of the freezer --already prepared--and the only thing you have to do is heat it up and prepare the sides.It does take a full day marathon of prepping the dishes, but after that, it is pretty easy. I definitely want to do this now that the school season is beginning. Hubby is working towards his master's degree, so on Monday and Wednesdays, he will be going straight from work to school. The boys have football games on Monday nights, so I will be attending...not to mention other little activities that go on throughout the week. It will be a busy season and having meals already prepared would go a long way towards keeping things sane. Anyway, I am going to look for a small one that can go downstairs and not take up a lot of space so we have just enough freezer space, but not so much that it eats electricity and is a bear to fill. Some of my friends have the large ones and they have to be kept stocked or they use more electricity to keep it cool.

I have to admit I didn't get anything done as far as a garden this year. I am seriously considering putting in my raised beds as it cools off so that next year I just have to remove the layers of newspaper (to keep out weeds) and aerate the soil before planting. We are going to hit the nursery this weekend in search of a dwarf pear and a dwarf peach tree. One of the boys is volleying for an apple tree too. It depends on the space we have left. We planted a cherry tree last year when we moved in. Hopefully it will give us cherries next year. Wouldn't it be great to have most of the fruit we use readily available from our backyard? I am looking at some blackberry bushes and raspberry bushes to use as shrubs along the fences to maximize our potential to grow what we eat. I love to make jams and preserves. This year I am going to try my hand at canning jars of peaches from the local peach farm here in town.

Well, I guess I'd better run and try to get something done for the day. It promises to be a busy one!