Peach Jam!!!

I made jam!

Ok freezer jam so its nice and easy but still!

I was looking at houses on Sunday and happened upon a rather nice fruit stand that had last of the season peaches. They looked so amazing I just couldnt say no and they were only 6 bucks for a half box. So I brought them home and called my amazing older sister and she walked me through what I would need. I now know what Pectin is and folks. Its wonderful

Since the peaches were end of season there were a good few with bad spots but after cleaning them all up and chopping them into peaches I ended up with 10 cups of chunky peach puree.

After adding in some sugar and the aforementioned pectin and letting it boil for a whole 5 minutes I ended up with 10 whole containers of freezer jam. I am pretty excited. It tastes pretty much like peach cobbler or pie filling because of the cinnamon and you can pretty much eat it with a spoon (not that I would ever do that of course)

And I even have room in my freezer for it all. Yay for peaches all winter long!!!!!

Books- this is a rant fyi

Everyone has their favorite author, series, genre, whatever. It is my firm belief that an author shouldnt allow others to write books based on their series. Sometimes authors colaborate and thats not usually too bad since the orginal author is editing and making sure the book stays true to the series. One of my favorite go to authors is Anne McCaffrey. She just tells such vivid stories that you feel like you are there. There is always a good plot without getting to crazy or political and boring.

A couple years ago Anne died and her son decided to take over the series. He had done 2 or 3 books with his mother before she died and they were fairly decent but the ones he has written since her death 3 years ago are just bad. Plain and simple bad. He took a fantasy series about dragons and turned it into time travel, voices speaking through time from ancestors to decendants. He even went so far as to change the general use and shape of the wher-watchers into basically dragons. They are supposed to be quite small and similar to dogs. Used to guard things not to ride like a dragon.
Time travel should be used sparingly at the best of times because it gets way to messy, you cant go back in time unless you already have but you dont know if you already have unless you have seen you somewhere else or heard something in history that says oh hey, that was me I need to go back in time.

Todd (the son) decided that time travel would be the premise for his trilogy and spends all three books confusing you by jumping from time to time and back again and then getting stuck in the middle of the time jump and now there is a "fear knot" there and so no one can go near that time. Its so confusing and annoying and its just ruined that part of the series for me.

I suppose if you arent way into fantasy books like I am you probably wouldnt know the difference between the mother and son but I have read every single book Anne has written and her son is a poor substitute. I would rather never read another book from the series Dragonriders of Pern than have her son continue to destroy what she has created.

Once in a while an author will die and if the series is popular enough another author will be selected to complete the series. It is usually an author that has been established in his own right, in the same genre as the deceased author and those can turn out pretty good. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time that was finished by Brandon Sanderson is a great example. Sanderson is an amazing author in my opinion. Actually better than Jordan so I think he did a stellar job of completeing the series. (Im sure there are those who disagree with me but they arent here so I will say what I want.)

So, go read books by Anne McCaffrey but avoid Todd McCaffrey books. Shudder

The good

As focused on themselves as many individuals are here in the US  it never ceases to give me a small thrill to see everyone working together in emergency situations. I dont think thrill is quite the right word since it is usually in emergencies that this happens and those are never good but I do get goosebumps.

The last couple days as I've been driving around there have been a few different times where an ambulance or fire truck comes through with sirens wailing and it always does my heart good to see everyone working together to get out of the way for them. Even if you think theres no way you can move cause there is no room, the other people will make room so you can get out of the way of the emergency personel. I dont want to say I've enjoyed experiencing this in action but I just like seeing people work together who minutes before were cutting each other off, flipping birds, honking horns and generally not liking the other drivers.

I have a couple vidoes saved that are compilations of random acts of kindness, everything from a police officer stopping traffic to let a duck and her babies cross the street to a guy stopping his car and getting out to help an elderly lady cross the road.
I guess this is on my mind because I was at Walmart yesterday and I found a phone on the floor. At first I thought mine had fallen out of my pocket but I noticed the case was different and was obviously not mine. I took it up to customer service and told them where I found it and they just looked at me like I was a saint and said well God bless you thank you so much for turning it in. I find it sad that doing the right thing is so shocking to people that they feel they need to make a big deal out of it.

Last year I was at a craft expo and I lost my wallet. I didnt notice until I went to buy something and then promptly freaked out and retraced all my steps searching and asking everyone if they had seen it. Someone finally pointed me in the direction of the help desk and low and behold someone had turned it in. I was pleasently surprised to find everything in it and that all the cash was still there. Then I had to stop and wonder why I was surprised and I think its because when you watch tv or movies, it only ever shows the bad. Someone loses their wallet and their identity gets stolen and their credit is ruined and they have to deal with legal stuff for ages.
Anywho.
The point of this post was to enjoy the good that people do without thought of reward or recognition.

(These posts always end up way longer than I expected.. sorry :))

Adorableness

I was driving home today from the store and saw some caution tape on the beach and people with cameras standing around (more like cell phones but you get the idea.) A friend had mentioned something about something going on at the beach yesterday so I decided to rubberneck and see what was going on. I parked and walked back down the beach and read the sign that was posted next to the caution tape.

Apparently this is seal birthing season in the Sound and there was a baby seal up on the beach. They cant swim well enough to keep up with the mothers for long periods of time so the mothers leave them somewhere safe to sleep and rest while they go hunt for food.
So here are some pics of a cute very furry baby seal

How Topics wander

Now if you are one of the men that has married into the family you have probably noticed that my sisters and I are very good at starting on one subject- say cooking- and end up on something totally unrelated- buying shoes, or something of the sort.
Poor Will has had to try and put up with my leaps on many occasions and for the most part he deals with it well. I remember one day a while back we were driving somewhere and I had been quiet for a while (yes I know thats highly unusual for me) and I just turned to him and said  "you're 38 now" He got a weird look on his face and said "um ya... what made you think of that?" Now even at the best of times my thought processes are something like a ball of twine that a cat has been playing with for 20 minutes. Theres no logic or rhyme and reason behind the process... at least not to the male brain. To me it makes perfect sense to go from thinking about the long drive to the book I'm reading to thinking about food and I wonder if I have any of that at home, to thinking about Minions, and then trying to remember what number I put on his cake the previous year before happily exclaiming Yep, you're 38.

The reason this came to mind just now is because I was reading some comments on a blog I follow on occasion and over the course of around 30 comments (probably 10 different people talking back and forth) the conversation went from proper verbage for guns to making fun of anti gun nuts (I was rooting for those comments) to contemplating the value of a live t-rex versus a dead one, and if a t-rex eats kittens and then someone then eats the t-rex does that make it sorta like a turducken?  It could be called a trexten. There was also talk about taking over Detroit with the t-rex but it was decided that its arms were too small. (Surprisingly a few of the commentors were of the male variety but I think it was a woman who got started on the t-rex thing)
Anywho I was just enjoying the random leaps of the mind that seem to occur on a fairly regular basis.

And while I'm thinking about it,  here is a giraffe in a tree

Say hi to Casper everyone :)

Its the little things

It doesnt always take much to make me laugh. For instance.. today is Sunday meaning both Will and I have the day off. We had decided to go look at some places for rent and then head to Cabellas for some browsing and arrow and target buying. Will and I had different priorities as far as what to look for so we kept splitting off from each other. Will- apparently getting tired of not being able to find me decided it would be appropriate to pat his leg and say... here Shawna, come here, right here! So after done giving him the evil eye I decided he would get exactly what he asked for. I decided I would stick SO close that there was no way he couldnt find me. This resulted in me laughing so hard I couldnt breath and Will saying "Really? Really? Now stop that!" (We may have gotten a few funny looks from customers but oh well) Now if you arent familiar with Cabellas, they have very large indoor displays of animals with plaques that say what they are and sometimes where they are from. Well there was a Caribou but it had been knocked over. Now normally this isnt cause for any amusement but if you read the rest of the plaque it says... Ground Caribou. Naturally seeing the pun in this I cracked up, sadly no one else seemed to comprehend the complexities of the funny so I laughed alone. Finally on the way out of the store, Will was carrying my large targets and I was leading the way. Since he had been quite snarky I turned to him and said "This way to the car my good man, do be a dear and keep up" I even made sure to say thanks! Apparently thats not the thing to say either. I mean there is just no keeping this man happy, first he wanted me to stay close and then he complained when I did, and when I thank him for carrying my targets he gets all huffy.

Finally I made some banana bread after we got home. I called him up when it was done and he came upstairs, stole the slice I had just cut, proceded to slather it with butter, took a bite and turned around and said HEY, THIS IS THE HEEL. So being the kind caring girlfriend that I am, I proceded to guffaw, laugh, chortle and generally make fun of the bread thief. I dont think I've laughed this hard in a very long time.
It really is the little things that make days good :)

Life after Facebook

Well a couple of my sisters and I decided to bid adieu to the time hole that is facebook.
 I figured maybe I could attempt to keep up with my blog this time around... maybe. Last time I posted was Sept 11 of last year.

Lets see what has happened lately that is note worthy. I got promoted to Customer Service Manager at Hobb Lobby a couple months ago. Its actually been a lot of fun and surprisingly less stressful than being a cashier. At first I wondered if that ment I wasnt doing it right but have come to the conclusion that only dealing with the few large problems each day rather than 50 petty issues is much easier to deal with. That combined with the fact that I know have the authority to fix those problems make my days enjoyable.
We have been very much short handed the last month or so, we had a total of 10 people quit or transfer to another store and only 3 new people hired. This means that everyone is doing 2 or 3 jobs to pick up the slack. I am trying to get into a full time position however that means I would be in a department rather than being a CSM all the time. I think it would be a fun change but mainly I'm interested in the jump in hours (and pay )

Our dog Nikki is doin great, she is gonna be 2 years old next week. My friends laugh at me but we do dog playdates with one of her friends who is a lab/rot/pit mix about 1.5 years old or so.

This is usually how they end up after a day of playing. (Nikki is the black one, Shasta is the brown)

 They both know each others names and Shasta will say Yes! if you ask if she wants to see Nikki. 

Nikki just runs in circles prefering the more silent and dignifed approch to excitement. 

I decided to pick up a new hobby. Ive been lookin into it for about 8 months now but finally got the beginnings of what I need. 

It is pretty much the awesomest thing ever! Oddly enough I am right handed when it comes to archery. I guess it has to do with eye dominance or something. Im not a horrible shot but I havent gotten to do much shooting yet since fall has come and since its Washington that means rain. We are gonna clear out a space in the garage so i can shoot from inside out into a target in the driveway. Im super excited about it.