Ambition

Ambition is my downfall, not necessarily perfection, but ambition.  I don't have the same kind of ambition that people normally think of, I have no aspirations to climb a corporate ladder, or even to get a professional job, so i normally get accused of completely lacking in ambition, but I just put it all in a different place.  I was always told to live up to my potential, your so smart you can do so much, so my decisions have caused so much tension since I've just lost the will to fight for the things I don't want. 

This is my ambition, 6 jars of blueberry syrup, 6 jars of blueberry butter, and 8 jars of solstice preserves, a cherry blueberry mix.  It might not be the same caliber of storage that some people have, though I aspire to that one day, but it's mine. The syrup I don't know what I'll do with, maybe swirl it into cheesecake or coffee cake or pancakes, is there a non cake thing that blueberries go with?  It's to sweet to go with crepes, way to sweet as a straight topping, so not very many options, next time I think I'll just make whole fruit butter, or straight jelly instead of the syrup juice is juice for any recipe right?  The butter is amazing I ate the leftovers with a spoon. I would put up my recipes but since I broke the one commandment of caning and just sort of winged it I don't want to let anyone think that they were guaranteed safe.  But the way I see it, the national center for home food preservation says that sugar is for flavor and color not a preservative, and I know that sugar doesn't add acidity so realistically decreasing the sugar should increase the overall acid level(it doesn't hurt that I love tart/sour so I tend to double the lemon juice, because it just tastes so much better that way) so as long as you maintain the acid level and process long enough you should be good(this is my theory not fact, and not something I recommend).

The first blush of red on the first tomato, the first cucumber flowers,  the cucumbers need a trellis now, the original plan was to use some old fencing but it won't be ready in time so the cucumbers are going to grow on some spare tomato cages this year.  Soon there will be pickles, tomatoe sauce, then later salsa, and even later we're buying a head of beef, a pantry to be proud of.

This is my pride, my ambition, I have so much, and it's a shame that so many people see this as a lack, or laziness, because it's not, it's just a different level.

Theoretical Homeschool Subjects

So, While this had no practical application for the next decade or so these are the kind of questions that don't matter but I ask them anyway.  How important is it to learn cursive anymore? I know there are things I would want my theoretical home schooled child to learn, the obvious ones; math, reading(real reading by knowing the alphabet), history and science, music isn't my strong suit but it is Fuba's so that one is covered by someone who knows what they're doing, and handwriting/beginning letter writing I would have to outsource to my mother, because well she writes in a way people can read... I write in a way that most days I can translate.  I don't necessarily think of PE or "Good Citizenship" as some states call it as classes just life, so I don't count those.  But then there are other subjects that are important to some, less to others, Latin, modern foreign language, more specialized social sciences, more focused education on hobbies, and all of those are still kind of applicable to the modern world, which all brings me back around my primary question, cursive, aside from being the starting point for a signature, what good is it in everyday life, and is it worth the time to learn and reinforce it?

Blueberries

So I was going to post about my completely purged and reorganized kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, and hide the pictures of my living room that has become the staging ground for this amazing chaos but there is something better in this world than a kitchen that screams "YOU CAN COOK HERE NOW!!!"

And those things are blueberries,  LOTS of blueberries, my mom brought home from somewhere on the way home from MN. The bag has twelve cups all prepped for "Blueberry Bonanza" a recipe that makes both syrup and butter for canning with the same berries, the cup is now a simple blueberry syrup and the box has some that I'm going to go steal for a pancake.

So the syrup is setting in the fridge, it's not bad hot but hot syrup has never been my thing. I like cold food, everything except beef stew everything else I prefer cold, but since the syrup only took 5-10 minutes it has plenty of time to set before the rest of my plate is done.

Quick Blueberry Syrup

1 cup               Blueberries

2 tbsp              Sugar

1/2 tbsp           Lemon Juice

I just heated the berries for a bit let them get a little soft then used an immersion blender to smooth out the skins. Then added the sugar a little bit at a time until it got to the level I wanted it to be at. Then toss in a splash of lemon juice, stir it up and let it almost simmer for a minute. Remove from the heat and put in another container because staying in the pan makes it coagulate pretty weird, and let it cool for a bit.

Then for testing... I have some ricotta in the fridge so a lemon ricotta blueberry pancake sounds like just the thing, and a French toast too, because it's not strange to make a three course breakfast at 1:00 in the morning, so I found this recipe for the pancakes.  And my french toast which is wonderful but very much a splash of this a handful of that some vanilla extract some lemon extract and a grab of cinnamon sugar, always a little different but always great.

Have to finish of the pancake batter off.  I wish I had a double burner griddle

And TaDa breakfast for dinner at 2:30 in the morning. It's amazing the pancakes were good, but maybe not the best for this, next time I think I'll try a buttermilk pancake or waffles, something sturdier.