Just some things I did...

I had a fairly productive day. I started off by mowing my yard. I'd waiting a little to long to do this so my grass was very, very longish and my lawnmower kept stalling. It is NOT an easy mower to get started so it took extreme patience (and the promise of an afternoon cocktail) to go slow enough to finish the job. After mowing I went through my garden and picked some zucchini and spaghetti squash so they could get stored properly before growing into monsters.
Then I went inside and hung up/put away clean laundry that had been waiting for me on top of my dresser for probably a few weeks now. I also finished up a couple new loads on top of the old ones so my closets are a lot more full now, and a lot fresher smelling. While putting away one of the loads I decided to attempt a simple syrup for my awaiting afternoon cocktail. I've never made simple syrup before and I didn't really bother to look up a recipe I just boiled some water, put in some chopped up plums, added some sugar until I thought it was enough and let it simmer for a little while. Then I transferred it to a clean mason jar, let it cool down, put the lid on and put it in the fridge for later. While that was happening I was also baking a spaghetti squash whole in the oven. Do you want to know what I planned on eating with that squash? My homemade spaghetti sauce. Wanna see what it looks like?

Here it is:

Getting Started...... and ........Finishing up

Wanna know how I made it?

First I picked and onion from my garden, chopped up an entire head of garlic (not from my garden) and browned them up in the pot with a little olive oil. Then I cut up about a thousand tomatoes and put them in there. My garden this year has three kinds of tomatoes...big kind, roma kind, and then tiny cherry ones. I used them all. I let them sit in there on simmer for a very long time...they got very juicy and runny. During that time I added spices: sea salt, pepper, basil (I wish I had fresh basil but I don't), a tiny bit of ginger, a bit of garlic powder (I really like garlic)...and I think that's it. After it had been sitting on simmer for about an hour I chopped up some mushrooms and olives (both not from my garden) and added those in along with a big pour out of a bottle of Merlot and a few chunks of brown sugar to help cut the acidity. I then kept it on simmer for another hour or so. As you can see from the picture it is very chunky and way more delicious than the picture indicates.  

I did end up having some evening (not afternoon) cocktails. My simple syrup concoction was delicious, as were the chunks of plum that I left in there. 

Oh, also at some point today my internet modem broke. The place where the USB is supposed to connect to charge the device got knocked out of place somehow and so therefore was doing no good. After spending a substantial amount of time on the phone with my internet provider making sure I was getting a replacement sent to me, without having to pay for it, I was frustrated and irritated that I was going to be without internet for a few days. Then I decided, hey, this modem I have can't get any more broken than it already is so why don't I open it up and see if I can fix it. It took and absurd amount of packing tape and a very strategic and precarious arrangement of books and tissues (to hold and weigh down the cord and modem in just the right places) but I got it working again. And it's been working for about an hour now so i'm going to consider it a success!

I'm like a weird mix of Martha Stewart and Macgyver. But cuter.