How did I get here?

I was looking back at what I had written at the first of the year and realized that I have been busier and busier, but I have not become more organized as I hoped to be. The kitchen is still torn up after the tomato canning events and the living/dining room is full of sewing/quilting/knitting and other clutter. I would post a picture, but then you would all know what a real mess I have become.
Instead, I have decided to take a room at a time and clean it up..... then post a picture. Maybe I can actually get the kitchen, living/dining room, sewing room (yikes!) and bedroom straight by the middle of August. Goal for this week is the kitchen.
Oh yeah, check out the logo for the Improv(e) your Butt Challenge. Details over at Tallgrass Prarie Studio. That is another area that needs improvement!

World's Most Expensive Tomato Sauce

In the last post I showed the wonderful garden my sweetie made for me. I didn't tell you how expensive it was. First, there was the frame. Lumber from Lowe's. $$ Then there was a dumptruck load of topsoil. $$$ Plants. $

Since Buster likes to excavate, there was fencing.$

We have had a bumper crop of tomatoes, so I decided to make tomato sauce and can it. Thrifty, huh? We grew onions and garlic, too.

I bought canning jars.$

We want to be safe so I bought a pressure canner.$$

I spent hours washing jars, peeling tomatoes and chopping ingredients to make two huge pots of sauce.

My favorite part is my compost collection bin. We bought this little jewel $ on a vacation. They had nice little ceramic ones for less, but I figured I would probably drop it and that would be the end, so we sprung for the stainless one. It has a top with a charcoal filter to keep the smell of the garbage out of the kitchen. Now when I peel an onion or eat an orange, I just put the remains in this little bucket until I can go out to the compost bin. No more guilt over throwing out that natural fertilizer.

After chopping and stirring for hours, I finally put the jars in the canner to process.


Then, a mere 6 hours and $$$$$$$ later I have these jars of beautiful sauce. I wonder how much that is per jar?

Yes, indeed, I now have six, count 'em, six jars of sauce. Move over Ragu!