Pickled Peppers and Sea Shells for the Road

I’m leaving town to go camping for a week, so I’ve spent today doing the Really Important Things that need to be done before we can pull out. You know, things like pickling peppers and redecorating the living room. And, oh yeah, laundry and packing.

See, I surveyed my garden yesterday and determined that the laden plants engulfed in weeds just won’t freeze frame until next week when I can deal with them. Dealing with several dozen peppers meant a three hour marathon of chopping, brining, and canning, sandwiched between some dicing and chopping on my husband’s part as he transformed a pile of tomatoes into his one-of-a-kind salsa.

On top of all that, I couldn’t dream of hitting the road without getting my living room decorated for summer. Yes, I know it’s August first, but May just wasn’t a good month for decorating, what with a masters degree to finish up and all, and June wasn’t much better. July somehow managed to squeak by, and with my front door still sporting a wreath with a pastel bunny. There may have also been a prominently displayed photo of my children framed in what looked suspiciously like an Easter basket, and there’s a chance that yellow orb I found on an out of the way shelf may have been a colored egg, but I’d like to give myself the benefit of the doubt.
So it was as clear as the glass carrot candles that turned up on my mantle that we simply can not leave until the summer stuff is up. Because if it’s not done now, it never will be. I mean, you can get away with hanging summer decorations on August first, but the eighth is simply out of the question.

So it’s nearly midnight, and most of the camping gear is in the car. Well, not the cooler, because we really don’t have our menu together, and not the clothes, because some of them aren’t washed yet. And not really the bedding, either, because that’s in the attic. But we’re good to go, mostly, because I’ve got my wooden fish hanging over the doorway, and seashells on my shelves. And if we get hungry this week, there’s always peppers.

A note about this week’s posts: I’ll be posting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this week. Guaranteed. (Hint: thanks to the miracles of modern technology, the posts are all queued up and ready to go. You won’t miss me a bit, unless, of course, you comment and come back looking for a response . I likely will not see your comments—the flood of them, I’m sure—until I’m home on Saturday, but will look forward to reading them then. I also won’t be adding those nice links on facebook this week, so you’ll have to remember to stop by all on your own :)).