Well, I suppose I could have taken a picture of my newly-organized food storage room. (Seriously. It's AWESOME.) But I didn't. I'm really whipping that basement into shape, though, I tell you what. And now when the zombies attack, we won't have to wade through gigantic Halloween spider decorations and rubbermaid bins full of baby clothes and a broken-down swing in order to find the kidney beans.
We have LOTS of kidney beans. Kidney beans are very important to Forrest. Both dark and light red. Come over--we can have chili anytime.
You know what else we have a lot of? PEACHES. From our very own trees. I know! We grew peaches! And guess what? They're delicious. It feels slightly miraculous that we can grow delicious peaches all by ourselves from a little tiny dwarf peach trees in our back yard in suburban South Jordan. Delicious peaches seem like they have to come from an orchard in Idaho, or at least from my Aunt Karla's property in Mapleton. But we grew our very own and today I even made a tasty little cobbler, which I'm taking over to Grandma and Grandpa Sweat's for dinner as soon as I finish writing this. Turns out Grandma Sweat made peach icebox dessert (my cobbler was a whim)--so tonight we're having Cold Peaches and Warm Peaches. Mmmmm.
Hey! I just remembered! I have a picture of one of our peach trees. See? I haven't left you picture-less.
I'm so proud of our scrawny little tree.
What else? I started teaching again for the semester. I've been really nervous because I had nine students a week ago, but during the last week before school started I lost SIX of them (not taking it personally) and only had three on the roll on the first day of class. The SL Center "prefers" that you have five but have "occasionally" let a class carry with as few as three. Luckily, on the first day two more students showed up, so I'm good to go with five. All women. They seem like a good group, but I'm going to miss my Winter 09 class--a creative writing class works best with 10 or so, I think. It will be interesting to try and make it work with this small of a group. But at least I'm getting paid! And less grading. That's always good. Silver linings and all that.
Oh, and I also got the completed manuscript of my anthology of Mormon short stories off to the publisher. Hooray!! Now it's just proofreading the galleys, getting author approvals, finalizing the cover, all that good stuff.
I also read a really good book this week. The Likeness by Tana French. I'd seen her previous book around (called Into the Woods) but hadn't read it, and picked this one up on a whim at Target. Man, that chickie can WRITE! Technically, the book belongs in the mystery/thriller genre, but French's prose is just gorgeous. Gorgeous! I love myself a good literary mystery. They're few and far between. Warning, though: The main characters are Irish cops, so there's some language. What does it mean about me, though, that if I imagine the swear words spoken with a lilting Irish accent they don't offend me as much?
The kids are doing great in school--happy, swinging along. They seem to like their teachers and their classmates and have not (yet) caught the swine flu. So all is well.
And after that stream-of-consciousness rundown, we are off to Grandmas for a Peach Party!
p.s. I can't wait to hear what Barack Obama tells all the school children on Tuesday. Perhaps he will ask them to create a child army. Or do their homework. Either way, it's SINISTER!!!!
7 comments:
You like Irish swearing? See the John Wayne/Maureen O'Hara clasic,
"The Quiet Man". Lots of genuine Irish actors in it (e.g. Barry Fitzgerald and his brother, Arthur Shields)Not a real swear word uttered but the Irish can make almost anything sound like cussin'.
I really wish I had a peach tree. I let my landscaper convince me that I didn't want to clean the mess and I have regretted it ever since. You may have just inspired me to plant a little peach tree!
And, that whole Obama thing. How ridiculous! The president wants to talk to the school kids and the whole nation goes beserk! Certainly there are bigger things corrupting our children than a democratic president!
I really wish I had a peach tree. I let my landscaper convince me that I didn't want to clean the mess and I have regretted it ever since. You may have just inspired me to plant a little peach tree!
And, that whole Obama thing. How ridiculous! The president wants to talk to the school kids and the whole nation goes beserk! Certainly there are bigger things corrupting our children than a democratic president!
I SO want fruit trees in our backyard! Now you've made me want a peach tree - I was leaning towards pear, maybe we could do both. And just today, we've been building shelves in our basement to organize food storage. I'm glad you're able to teach your class, 5 students will be much better than 3. I think it sounds fun to teach a class that small.
Lucky students, they'll get lots of your attention. And you have an adorable peach tree. We made blueberry/apple/peach cobbler on Sunday with leftover (non-homegrown) fruits we had sitting around. Good golly, it was tasty. Cobbler is a wonderful thing.
The peach I ate that grew on your very own peach tree was hands down the best peach I've ever eaten. The juice was running down my forearm - it was James and the Giant Peach magical!
Love,
Your mama
I've always wanted a peach tree because it is the prop in one of my all-time favorite Simpsons episodes. Lisa wants a horse or a pony or something and Marge says, "Well what about the peach tree we bought you last year? You never play with that anymore!" So Lisa jogs into the backyard and plays with the tree while singing an off-tune song that goes, "...I'm playing with my peach tree aaaaahhhhhh....."
If we had a peach tree, that would become the ultimate on-going joke in our home. Oh, and the peaches would be great as well.
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