The Blitz: Part 4 - Reaching for the Finish Line

after over 900 cookies, 150 (or so) muffins, 30 loaves of sweet breads (meaning banana, strawberries, etc...), vats of spaghetti sauce, broccoli cheese soup, ground beef with onions, sliced pork, 8 whole chickens, and various odds and ends (i.e squares, more chicken, another slew of ground beef), the finish line is in sight for "The Blitz." Good thing, too, since school for me starts in about three weeks.

The freezers? (we have two) - bursting. Thankfully, we were able to vacuum-seal everything except the bread, which should do fine in the amount of layers we wrapped them in.

Have I accomplished everything I said I wanted to this summer? Well, no, not quite, perhaps. But, mind you, I did add more to the list, including all those pieces of art that I've done (and four more I hope to do/ finish). I also completed my second writing course, culminating in a 200 or so page manuscript. Not the first manuscript I've completed, but the longest so far.

My goal was originally to finish two or three more outfits, which was made moot by the fact that my sewing machine pedal decided to give out about a month ago. I had almost completed another long swishy-skirt, too, the kind that ripples and flows when the wearer walks, but with the imminent return to school, it seemed pointless to spend money fixing the machine until I had more time to use it.

I also wanted to complete a second YA manuscript, finish editing a middle-grade one, and get started on a few more. I did manage to finish editing the middle-grade one, but the rest will have to wait a bit. After all, summer only comes once a year, so I've taken more time to relax with books, watch movies, and spend time with my human beloved and our canine babies.

Ah, Summer,  Why dost thou flee so quickly?

The Blitz: Part 3

Actually, to be accurate this post should be called 'The Blitz: Part 2.5, 2.75 and 3,' but since that title really doesn't look good or sound good, I stuck with the 'Part 3' thing.
Since the last 'Blitz' chronicle both the squares and the cakes segments have been completed. Delectable scents kept wafting from the oven, but my husband and I have been very good with exercising our willpower - neither of us snuck so much as a single cookie from the trays or a single square from the pans.

After baking a double batch of regular brownies, mint squares, nanaimo bars, mint brownies and caramel marshmallow brownies, I went on to bake a few pans of snack cakes.
This weekend I figuratively rolled up my sleeves, squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. After purchasing 36 bananas and 6 large containers of strawberries (among other ingredients, of course), it was time to start on the quick breads.My goal: 30 loaves of bread.
Armed with five recipes (actually six, I printed out one too many recipes, dithered about whether I was going to make an extra 6 loaves, and then decided...nah.) I made the 30 loaves over the weekend - six of each type of bread.
I think my husband is starting to worry a little. "Honey," he said, after stacking the banana bread, strawberry bread, strawberry banana bread and pumpkin bread, "there's no more room in the freezer!" We haven't even put the chocolate banana bread in, yet. Thank goodness we have two freezers. Ah well, it's a good time to go in and get rid of old freezer junk.

Actually I don't think we have much of that. Hmmm. Well, somehow, it'll all fit in.

A decadent chocolate birthday cake was also created this weekend. It's my dad's birthday on Thursday, and we celebrated it on Monday.

The day is filled with the noise of loud machines as workers brick our neighbor's driveway (at least, I think that's what they're doing.) Icewind, of course, being the House, Property and Family Guardian has taken it upon himself to make sure that they behave themselves. This is him keeping an eye on things.

The Blitz: Part 1

I was a bowl of mixed emotions when I got the admittance letter to the B.Ed program. After graduating from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College I'd said to myself "okay, that's it. I'm done with school. I am not going back."

But life has a way of serving our words to us for breakfast and making us eat them.

And this time it wasn't just once, but many times over.

Growing up, I had a huge grudge against the piano, and by grudge I mean that some days I literally wanted to take my mom's cleaver and hack the offending instrument to pieces. "Mom," I complained when she made me practice two hours a day, "why do I need this? I don't ever want to be a piano teacher or anything,"

Heh, heh, heh. Fast forward twelve years and guess what I'm doing right now? In addition to writing and illustrating, teaching piano is my current occupation. I've been doing it for five years, and have discovered that I am very good at it, apparently.

Then, having been an artist for most of my life, as I got older people started saying "have you ever thought about teaching art?" To which I responded, "I don't think I could teach art. It's too subjective and..." Blah, blah, blah. Can you guess what I applied to Teacher's College for? That's right. Visual arts.

Have I learned my lesson? I hope so.

Knowing that next year will be a frantic juggling act between full-time school, work, writing (articles and manuscripts), illustrating, art, adoption stuff, gardening, making my own everything (including clothes), church callings, being a doggy mom of two and being a homemaker,and since I am the 'let's organize in advance' type, I've concocted a brilliant plan *mwah ha ha.*

Okay, well, I don't know how brilliant it is, but hey - if it helps, it'll be worth it.

My plan? Make ahead and freeze six months worth of food. And I'm talking about everything. That way, at least, at least I won't have to worry about the little gnat called, 'I have to cook something.'

So this weekend, 'The Blitz' began, and it began with cookies.

'Thorough' research on the internet (and other sources) revealed that cookie dough, when frozen, only lasts for about three months, while baked cookies can last for significantly longer. Which is probably better anyway. Who knows? Next year I may not even want to take time out of my schedule to take out a roll of dough and shape them into cookies, thereby creating two cookie pans that would have to be cleaned.

The solution? Make and freeze approximately one thousand cookies.

At this point you're probably thinking 'you're nuts. Haven't you ever heard of something called a grocery store? They sell cookies in packages and you can buy them whenever you want them!'

Yes, I am well acquainted with that fact. But hear me out. While we do get packaged cookies on occasion, I really don't want to subsist on them for nine months. And my husband is a self-declared cookie monster. He eats a ton of cookies. Cookies from the store have who knows what ingredients and preservatives in them. Cookies I make? I know exactly what's gone into them. It's a comfort.

So, over a period of three weekends, I am planning to churn out the one thousand cookies. This weekend was a good start, with three-hundred and sixty-one. There were molasses cookies, chocolate crispy cookies, and, of course, the proverbial chocolate chip cookies. 

We used the entire dining table as the cooling stand before putting them in the freezer for a short time. Today it's time to take them out and submit them to the vacuum seal. 

Let the blitz begin!