31 Days to Purse your Passion

I'm joining in the 31 days series that I first saw at Chatting at the Sky. I've chosen 31 days to pursue your passion because that's what I'm working on in my own life. I'm a few days late to the game but that's okay.

Pursuing your passion is easy for some and a struggle for others. I find it's easy to name what you're not passionate about but not as easy to identify what you are passionate about. This series will be an exploration of discovering and pursuing your passion. My goal is to incorporate my passion as part of my career. I want to work toward goals and ideals that I believe in.  In my own life I've noticed that I get all excited, ready to make something happen and I work on some life changes for a while but then over time they seem to fade to the background and here I am still at the same job, ten years later.

My goal in working on this series is to maintain motivation and exploration. I think it's important to revisit your goals and ideals on a regular basis. It can be so easy to get lost in the day to day activities without much thought for the bigger purpose.

I'd love to hear about your passions and how you make them part of your daily life!

Oh, I'm also giving up sugar for 31 days. I'm still eating fruit but putting a ban on the sugar that comes in cakes, cookies, ice cream--you know what I mean. I've been feeling addicted to it lately and am ready to break the cycle! Wish me luck and be glad that you don't live with me!

Italia!

I went to Italy! My dad turned 65 and decided he wanted to go to Italy for his birthday. I asked if I could tag along and off we went to Rome!

I've been to Italy before but never to Rome. It's an amazing, vibrant and crazy city. I live in a small town so just being in the big city energy takes a little getting used to.

While in Rome we tried to hit the major tourist attractions--the Coliseum, Pantheon, Vatican and museums, Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, shops, and FOOD! We also took a cooking class that was really fun! It was with Andrea at Le Fate. He was a great teacher, funny and charming. He didn't let you get away with anything though! There were 12 other people in the class and it was really fun to meet lots of other travelers. We met people from England, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil and Singapore!

We made Gnocchi with pomodoro sauce, stuffed pumpkin blossoms with prosciutto and mozzarella, beef with arugula and tomatoes, eggplant parm and tiramisu. Delicious!

Canning tomatoes

The same weekend that I froze the chiles I also canned tomatoes. I did it all on Friday night after work--which was ridiculous. I have this weird thing that I like to get all my chores done early so I can have the rest of the weekend with no obligations. Honestly, it rarely works because there's too much to do and it just makes me really tired. And still I persist. Silly.


Anyway, back to the tomatoes. I got one box of tomatoes which I think is 20-25 pounds.


I got a big pot of boiling water going and then scored the bottom of each tomato with an "x". Then I dropped the tomatoes in the boiling water for less than a minute. I pull them out of the water with a strainer and then put them into an ice bath. I usually put the ice bath in my kitchen sink because it's big enough to handle big batches of the tomatoes. After they've cooled in the ice bath I start peeling. The x that I scored makes it easy to get started peeling.




This all takes awhile and involves multiple boiling/cooling/peeling cycles. I don't really find this relaxing--more tedious, but worth it in the end.




Here's my cooled, peeled tomatoes. Then I start jamming the tomatoes in cleaned, sterilized canning jars.






You really have to jam them in the jars because once you put them in the canner they cook down. I still don't ever put enough in the jars to have my jars come out of the canner looking full.


I live at 7,700 feet above sea level so I use a pressure canner. It's similar to a pressure cooker and allows me to process the jars for a much shorter period of time than I would have to if I used a regular canner. It's difficult at altitude to maintain a steady boil for a prolonged period of time so a pressure canner is the way to go.


I processed the tomatoes at 14 pounds of pressure for about 15 minutes. The instructions for the pressure canner say I should process for longer but it actually overcooks the tomatoes. I was a little nervous the first time I didn't follow the directions but it's worked out fine. I've had other, more experienced canners tell me they do the same thing. But do whatever you feel is best. I'm no expert.


Once the time is up I turn the burner off and left the pressure dissipate and then remove the jars and let them cool on the counter. This year I ended up with a mix of about 18 quarts and pints of tomatoes. I use them for spaghetti sauce, green chile, soups and other tasty winter dinners.

Freezing Chiles

I bought 1/2 a bushel of roasted green chiles! We like to use them for green chile, soups, and stews. They're also great on sandwiches and burgers.

Once I finally got them home, they were still hot. I think some people spread them out and get them cold quickly but I don't really bother. I'm not sure if it's the best idea but we've survived this long so I figure we're okay! You can just put them in freezer bag as is but I peeled them and removed the seeds.




It's really easy to peel and take out the seeds, I actually found it kind of relaxing. My friend did the same thing though and she had 6(!) bushels--I don't think it was quite as relaxing for her!






I ended up with about eight small plastic bags full of chiles. I put them in the freezer and will just use them as I need to this winter.

Kid's Clothes

I've been secretly looking at the cute fall clothes for little kiddos lately. My daugther is 20 months but seems to still be fitting in her 12 month size pants. I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed because I'm looking for an excuse to get her some cute new clothes for fall. We've been lucky to get lots of great hand-me downs and have two great grandmas that like to buy clothes (mostly the really cute sets from Carter's). There's also a great kids consignment shop nearby where I've gotten really lucky finding cute outfits (sometimes with the original tags still on)!

These are few of outfits that I've been checking out. The only things I really seem to need for her right now are socks though--bummer!

Gymboree outfits--







Old Navy 



Carter's

Bodenusa.com

What are you loving for your kids for fall?

Goals and logistics

I'm working on living a more intentional life which I believe will help me achieve my personal and professional goals. As part of this I've been thinking a lot about where I want to be in ten years, bucket lists, and life goals. Identifying and naming the goals and plans is a great way to give voice to your desires. It often seems that by simply naming the goals, something is triggered in our subconscious selves that quietly drives our energy and focus. I like to think of the goals and plans as an outline for life--you may not know all the details but you know the direction you want to go. You may not even know how you are going to achieve the goals but having them identified and named is critical.

Once you've worked to identify your goals, plans or passions it's natural to think about where they will take you in life. It is not critical to know or define the details and logistics of how you will achieve those goals or what will happen when you achieve those goals. I tend to get mired in the details--how will the schedule work? When will I get any time to run? How will we afford daycare? What about insurance? And on and on and on. Here's the thing---no one knows, and that's okay. It's best to create the framework and not worry about filling in the details until something actually happens. I am notoriously bad at this--it makes my husband crazy.


When I catch myself heading down the road of details related to long-term plans/goals, I try to stop and realize I'm not there yet. Life, plans and schedules will likely be totally different by the time the goal actually happens so I don't need to worry or obsess about it. Sometime it works, not always. I've used a few different strategies to try and break out of this pattern:

• I try to remind myself that the details usually work themselves out. It's not always easy or what you planned but one way or another it will work. 
• We don't know what the future holds--remember, even the best laid plans go awry
• Often everything works out just as it is supposed, regardless of the amount of my planning or worrying
• Realizing that the worrying and obsessing just causes stress and doesn't actually accomplish anything. It actually detracts from my overall goals because my energy is sapped from the worry and can deflate my enthusiasm for my big life plans.  

What are your goals and life plans? How are you working to accomplish them? Am I the only one that gets way too caught up in the details?

Staying Present

I live in the mountains, summer comes late and fall gets here early. It was 32 yesterday when I got up at 6:30 am to go for a run. I have a hard time staying in the present day/moment/time. I think about all the things we have going on the rest of August and it makes me feel like summer is already over--not good! Honestly, when I look at the calendar and look at the schedule I get tense and feel like I haven't gotten to do all things I wanted to do.


Soooo, I'm trying to work on staying present. Rather than getting ahead of myself and being sad that summer is coming to an end I'm trying to keep in mind that it's actually STILL SUMMER. Rather than being sad about the things I haven't done I think I'd like to make a short list of the things I want to do this month. Here's my list:

• Have a fire in our backyard firepit and roast marshmallows
• Have another backyard BBQ with friends
• Do a few more mountain bike rides in the high country
• Take my daughter hiking at the beaver ponds where she can throw rocks in the water to her heart's delight!
• Go camping one more time

So it's a short list, which I think is important--it seems more achievable this way.


When I get too far ahead of myself and obsess over the calendar, what we have to do and what we're missing because time is going so fast, well, then I really miss out. I miss out because I'm ignoring the present moment--the beautful evening outside, the great run that I had this morning (even if it was chilly), my daughter's hysterical laughter when I make funny faces at her.


How do stay present and enjoy the moment we're in, instead of worrying about the future?