Pits to pooches.

These past few days have been about finishing up projects, namely cherry bonanza 09. I was almost out of tart cherries (and my pie is all eaten *sigh*), so I had no more excuses -- time to find a cherry pitter and get to work on my jam. (Note, I had enough tart cherries left to call it tart cherry jam, my favorite!) Finding a pitter was actually harder than I thought it would be, but I finally came across one at Ace Hardware (who knew). My frugal side almost grabbed the flimsy $7 one, but luckily Lisa had forewarned me about the pain of pitting, so I went ahead and grabbed the $14 oxo pitter. And I am so glad I did.

Pitting wasn't much of a pain at all with this guy. Some of the smaller cherries I had to knock the pits loose from, but for the most part it pitted, shot the pit in the bowl, and left me with a lovely pitted cherry -- it didn't even squirt me (ok, it did once, right in the eye -- but that was my first attempt!). Once everything was pitted, I set out to make more freezer jam, using this recipe I found, which is basically the recipe I used before (which is basically just the recipe on the SureGel box, so nothing fancy at all). In no time at all, I had six containers of jam; the extra one I kept out for immediate fridge usage.

Just as easy and tasty as the last go round!

I also discovered that Heidi is quite mesmerized by cherry pitting. She sat at my feet, silently, the whole time. Then, of course, when I was done, she was back to her normal shenanigans.

Yes, that's my kitchen towel in her mouth.

In other exciting food news, I got my first summer tomatoes. Mmmm. Of course, I had to then make my first summer tomato, mozzarella, and basil (which I grew!) sandwich. Delish.

Oh yeah, but I was talking about updates, wasn't I? I finished up two knitting projects last week!

Another new baby -- Marla & Andrew welcomed Ella Jane on July 5! Congrats to them,
and I decided Ella needed a hat, too. They do live in chilly England. Brr!

My first adult hat!

I started a second adult hat, using my new purling skillz (thanks again, Alison!), and it worked! It was looking pretty good, but I was begrudgingly continuing because I realized I hated the yarn (yes, Jess, it was the stupid acrylic Vanna crapola. I hate it!) -- and then I dropped a stitch or something and had a hole. So.... I tore it apart. So now I'm just fiddling around, practicing said skillz with some yarn from Birgit (thank ya ma'am!). Will have to go to yarn store this week to get yarn for new hat(s) for hospital xmas project.

For her pleasure.

I also finally made it back down to the library book sale, which, if you haven't been (and like to buy books as much as I do), is a total score. I resisted much, as I had one book in mind -- the 1-2-3 dessert book I wrote about a few weeks ago. And then, to my surprise... Knitting for Dummies!!! In perfect condition! For $2! I was so pleased. In general, books are $2, traditional paperbacks are $0.50, and the fancier paperbacks are $2. Last time I went, I also picked up a perfect condition Prodigal Summer hardcover for $0.50.

And one last update...

Happy First Birthday to Liz and Aaron's little man! Yeah for Sam! :)

Finally, if you're curious what the pooches got up to this weekend, they had a little fun in the sun...

DogPoolParty