Outstanding

It was a very productive day. It was gorgeous, sunny, a nice breeze, and it didn't get as hot as the past couple of days. Sometimes it's easy to forget that self-satisfied feeling that comes from accomplishing a lot! But it's a good thing.

I started out this morning putting potatoes and eggs on to cook for potato salad while hubby and I had breakfast. After we did our daily podcast, we hit the local grocery store for their four-day sale. We did okay at stocking up on sale items.

Once we got home, I got down to (kitchen) business. We had a bunch of apples, so I cut up somewhere between six and eight pounds of apples and put them on to cook for applesauce. What a yummy smell! I put together the potato salad and got it in the fridge, then I sat down and peeled about a two-pound bag of mandarin oranges and put them in a container for easy snacking. The apples were cooked down by then, so I used the potato masher to "smush" them up into chunky applesauce. I tested them for sweetness, then used a little Splenda and some cinnamon to season them up. Mmm!

Hubby was kind enough to grill some burgers for lunch. We had a bag of whole-grain ciabatta rolls, so I sliced those for the burgers. It was outstanding. In the afternoon we took our walk in the park, then hit another sale to pick up a couple of flower baskets, a couple of tomato plants and a pepper plant. I'm attempting to do container gardening this year - we'll find out later if it's a success or not! I got everything planted and watered and was ready to sit down for a bit.

It was a good day. I'm glad I'm at the point in my life that I don't have to live at the breakneck speed I did when the kids were tiny - those days when I had three little kids, a huge garden with all the canning and freezing throughout the late summer and fall. It was hard work, but it was so nice to have home-grown food throughout the winter.

All in all, it was an outstanding day - and for no really stand-out reasons......just because it was. And that's good enough for me.