VACATION in the summertime!

I'm a little rusty in the blogging department, but now that I have a little more time, I am going to give it another shot! If you read my blog, please leave me a comment so I know someone is reading it.
Today is the official beginning of summer vacation for me. How did I celebrate? With a 24 mile bike ride of course! My legs were fried from biking all those hills to Glenburn yesterday and lifting tons of stuff at school today, but it actually felt good to loosen them up and feel the breeze in my face. It was a time to think about my plans for the summer and decide what to tackle first. I already created a bucket list; I just needed to prioritize it in my mind.
By the end of the ride, I knew what I'd be doing for the rest of the week. Tomorrow will be demolition day in the bathroom. I'm going to take the vanity and medicine cabinets apart and paint them the same brown as I painted the trim. Then I'll be tearing the laminate flooring (I do not like laminate flooring!) and getting the floor ready to tile. I bought the tile last summer and it's sat in the basement all winter just waiting. I can't wait to see how that chocolate brown tile looks on the bathroom floor. I'm not sure where we'll go to the bathroom and we might be "bathing" in the pool for a few days but I can't wait to tackle the tile job.

Before and After Salsa

I had an abundance of tomatoes this year and I didn't need to can any stewed tomatoes, so I decided to make some delicious salsa.

• First I dipped the tomatoes in hot water to get the skins loose and removed all the skins.
• Then I cut up all the veggies: I added onions, red peppers, green peppers and hot peppers.
• The onions get me every single time. After the tears were wiped away, I dumped everything into the big pot and added some pepper.
  
• The salsa simmered for a few hours and the whole house smelled incredible!
• When the salsa was ready, I processed the jars on my barbecue grill stove because my house stove can't handle such a large canner.

I totally forgot to take an after picture of all the pretty jars of salsa and now that they are stored down in the basement, I don't think I'll bring them back up for a photo. Rest assured, when it's cold and windy and snowing out this winter, I'll be pulling out a jar of this heat and loving every single bite.