monday, monday

It was a good weekend. I posted quickly on Saturday morning that it was a busy day and would only be getting busier. I was in the midst of making strawberry jam and preserves and a marmalade and freezing strawberries. I spent about 4 hours on Friday night "putting up" strawberries. Then I was at it again Saturday morning for another 4 hours or so. I finally processed the rest of my second batch of strawberry preserves (or as I like to call it "Heaven in a Jar"! lol) on Sunday morning. This is the first of many weekends that will be spent in the kitchen putting away fresh produce for winter.

Last summer we joined a CSA. It has been an amazing experience. We go to the farm once a week during the summer and help out in the barn getting things ready for the weekly distribution. Then we bring home a bushel or two (or often more) of whatever was harvested the day before. My kids had so much fun just running around outside. And D and I really enjoyed the hard work and learning about how organic family farming works.

We also were able to can and freeze a lot of things to put away for fall and winter. It was a lot of work. One weekend we froze about 50 ears of corn. That means we blanched them all (put them in boiling water for a minute or two, then put them in ice water), D cut all the corn off the cobs and I put it in Food Saver bags and vacu-sealed it. That was just one weekend of corn. We did that a few times throughout the summer. It seems I was always canning green beans, too. Then there was the zucchini. We got really creative in how we used it fresh, and then I just started shredding it and freezing it in 4 cup bags so I could make bread or zucchini pancakes all winter.

And don't get me started on how many pickles we did last summer!!!

The amazing thing? We ran out of corn in February. I have 4 quarts (2 meals' worth) of green beans still in my basement. We have just a few jars of pickles left. I have 2 loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer left from the last bag of zucchini that we froze. And our only jam left is peach that we made last September. We really used what we put away.

I'm wondering how WW will go for me this summer when I am so very busy in the kitchen for hours on end like that. Friday night I really just ate a piece of salmon that D grilled for me. I never even sat down, just picked at it on the platter while I was hulling strawberries. I probably ate more salmon than I intended to that way. But I never even sat down. Not a good thing, I know, and really not the norm for me. But the 3 oldest kids were on a sleepover so the 3 littles were eating hot dogs and berries for dinner at the picnic table. I do get a little (LITTLE?!) OCD while I am in the kitchen like that. I am just in my zone about getting stuff done and the next batch started.

So how will I do with staying with my plan for summer when I am snapping and canning green beans for an entire Saturday morning? Or making pickles for 3 days straight? I don't take/make the time to eat well while I am doing my kitchen stuff. Will I be able to make good (fast and easy) choices? Will I take the time to really track my daily points? Or will I just be winging some days? And will winging it work as a method to lose the last 13 pounds I want to lose?

I have thought about switching to CORE for the summer. That way I wouldn't have to worry about tracking points at all...other than a few weekly points here and there. On the ohter hand, could I give up my weekend bagels or daily lunch wraps? I don't know. I have a couple more weeks to figure things out. I know things really started getting crazy last year around the beginning of July with making pickles. Then again, we are going to pick more strawberries on Saturday morning, too. I have a few more jam recipes I want to try! LOL

Oh, Kathy. Yep, my hair is naturally curly like that. Good thing, too, 'cuz I am really lazy about doing my hair!