The Un-post

Okay, it's been almost a month since I've posted and I can't seem to get over blogger's block.  The block can be traced back to my unrealistic expectations that every post must have umpteen cute pictures with wittily written intros, captions and conclusions.  I know that I am putting these on myself (though I'm hoping couple of my umpteen readers have come to enjoy such posts).  But, for my own benefit, sanity and growing imperfectionism, I just have write out loud that: 

"It is officially acceptable to publish brief, picture-less, uncreative posts so as to better document our lives and more consistently keep in touch with others."

I also need to list all of the post ideas that have crossed my mind but never became reality, so as to let them go and move on.  

• John and I rescued a bunch of apples off a neighbor's pruned tree and made 3 quarts of applesauce in my crockpot.  I actually took pics, but you'll just have to use your imagination for this one.
• I bought a 1/4 bushel of tomatoes from one of the farmer's at my local market for $5 and made a YUMMY cream of tomato soup (in, my friend, the crockpot) and then dried the rest out in the oven for like 36 hours and packed them in olive oil.  I know.  I am a food preserving ROCK STAR.
• John had a baseball themed birthday party with friends at a local park.  We had hotdogs, pickles, and homemade baseball decorated cupcakes.  I hate to withhold all the pics from this one, but he got a lot of blog-time for the family baseball game and there are just too many to weed through.
• Noelle will be 6 months tomorrow.  Crazy.  And cute.  She's really cute.  She's also about ready to crawl.  Oy.
• I've made some yummy food including broccoli cheese soup,  a fall salad with pumpkin butter vinaigrette, and sourdough bread that I made from a wild yeast starter.  If you do not know how amazing creating your own sourdough starter is, google it.  Seriously, I am so proud.  
• Our garden is doing better this year and John really loves cherry tomatoes.  
• I've also had various random thoughts/links/resources on the movie Fresh (which was AWESOME - watch it),  simple swine flu prevention (which is not as dramatic as mass media is making it out to be), and the soda tax (which is one of the most brilliant government money makers ever.)
• My friends and I had a successful clothing swap and I recommend you do it with your friends.  
• Leah is doing pretty well with school.  She is learning Spanish really well and very motivated to write letters and read at home.  She's very obedient and obsessed about keeping her green star so she does not get a timeout.  But the silver lining has worn off as she is tired a lot and dealing with frequent "frenemy" interactions.  We just pray with her through it all and try to communicate and demonstrate God's grace.  
• I feel frequently overwhelmed with how messy the house can get.  We got rid of some things and did some organizing, but "stuff management" is just not my favorite part of this job.  
• I'm also aware that I still haven't written about the homeschool to public school switch and am open to revisiting this later as we journey through the school year.  But it's just too much right now.   

So this is my effort to hit the reset button.  Hopefully, I will be blogging again soon and a little more consistently.  (I've got some stuff up my sleeve regarding Halloween and All Saints' Day.  If we can find our camera, you may even get to see the pics.)

Wow, this has been totally cathartic.  Blog as therapy.  Interesting.