Stream of consciousness

I’m going with stream of consciousness/miscellany because I’d planned to share a grocery shopping post, but I haven’t gone grocery shopping yet, so that plan isn’t exactly working.

(a photo of previously purchased groceries, just for illustrative purposes)

When my life feels a little too busy for grocery shopping, I am sorely tempted to complain about what a pain grocery shopping is. But then I usually end up realizing that that’s a ridiculous thing to complain about because I don’t have to plant, water, and harvest/butcher my food…it’s all there for the buying at a store.

Heaven knows even the worst grocery shopping trip is still easier than producing food.

A good thing about running short of time to grocery shop is that it makes me work with what I have in the house. Maybe the meals I produce aren’t gourmet quality, and the elements don’t always share a common theme, but they taste good and they’re a whole lot healthier/cheaper than takeout. (and using up odds and ends is good on the food waste front.)
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I keep thinking that I’ve seen the last of the broken glass from my unfortunate parking lot incident, but more keeps showing up. The back of our van had quite a bit of stuff in it (a number of open bags, unfortunately) when the window broke, so it got everywhere. We tried to be careful when we took our things out of the back of the van and into the house, but broken glass has a way of dispersing itself.

Happily, the body shop did a great job of cleaning out the glass from the back of the van so at least it’s not actually in my vehicle anymore.

Incidentally, driving a van with a missing back window (I had to drive it to the body shop) is a little bit hilarious, once you get over the embarrassment. When you pull up to a stop sign and look in your rearview mirror, you can see the driver behind you look, and then look again, and then motion to their passenger, pointing at the broken window. It happens every time.

I’m so glad my van is back with a fixed window now. Yay!
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I pretty much adore early fall weather: sunny, dry, and temps in the 70s every day.

Also: no need for heat or air conditioning.

Love.
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I enjoyed reading Meagan Francis’ recent post about sleep. (She’d recently been criticized for, um, sleeping too much.)

Getting enough sleep whenever possible has always been a high priority for me, and I think that prioritizing sleep helps me to get a lot done during my waking hours.

(Fortunately, no one has thought to give me grief over my nightly eight hours, though!)
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The freezer under my fridge has gotten a little bit out of control. I’ve just been randomly stuffing things in there and I really need to take stock so I can use up that food.
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I am anxiously waiting for the $10/half bushel apples to show up at the farm stand so that I can make applesauce. We ran out months ago, and all of us except for Mr. FG can pretty much not stand to eat store-bought applesauce (it tastes so watered down to us), so we’re really anxious to have some again.

Speaking of farm stand produce, I made some really yummy oven peach butter out of some of the bruised peaches I bought from the farm stand. I used a recipe from Food in Jars, a book by the author of a blog by the same name.

The taste is great and I really like that it uses way less sugar than jam and requires no pectin.

I just saw her recipe for Honey Vanilla Peach Jam and now I am sad that peach season is over. Darn. Maybe next year?

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I suppose I should go make a grocery list. Or maybe I will just rummage through my fridge and freezer and cobble together some more meals. 😉