Home Again, Home Again

I love being what I call a "part-time missionary" but sometimes that service seems long and home seems so far away.  I was at the mission this last time for two months and my husband didn't get to go with me (though he did get to visit one weekend and I came home one weekend) so when it was time to come home last week I could hardly wait.  I've been busy, but it's a good kind of busy.  When I've been away for a while I want to "nest" when I come home.  I've cleaned out drawers and closets and pantries.  I've shopped and replenished canned goods and done some dehydrating.  Dehydrating is one of the easiest ways to store food and takes little effort.  This week I've dehydrated 18 bags of soup vegetables and some squash.

You can dehydrate frozen vegetables so I buy them when they're on sale - in this case Kroger had them $1.00 a bag.  The soup vegetables have onions, celery, carrots, peas, green beans, potatoes.  I can throw some of these in the crock pot this winter, along with some chicken broth and canned chicken and have a wonderful soup.  Or I can add beef broth and cooked hamburger and tomatoes.  The squash can be added to soup, rehydrated and then simmered with a little butter and onion or made into a squash casserole.

I want to do some canning but that will happen later when I'm not so tired from the time away from home.  Soup is my husband's favorite thing to be canned because when I'm not home he can just open up a jar and have a home cooked meal.  Since he hunts venison is our meat of choice for soup so next time I make venison soup we'll have one meal and I'll can the rest.

In the evenings I've been stitching.  I'm not fast but doing a little every day makes for some progress - I'm like the tortoise I suppose, slow but steady.  I finished this one I showed last time I posted...

I think I'll make this into a small bag to hang on a doorknob somewhere.  And then I started some Christmas, to make me think cool in the awful heat!

These are destined to be ornaments.....and hopefully before it's time to hang them on the tree.  :)

Today I'm off to see two of my siblings to celebrate Mother's birthday.  She would have been 91 today and I baked her favorite cake - Coca Cola Cake, with lots of pecans.  Our 4th sibling, who planned to come, made an unexpected trip to the hospital last night and this morning had his 30 something stent inserted.  Prayers for him would be appreciated.