Sweet strawberry goodness!!!

It's that time of year again! Strawberry season! I've had a strawberry garden since the first year we built our house out here (5 years). I have nutured these babies every year and slowly built up from getting a handfull of berries to a WHOLE BOWL! My neighbor across the road had a beautiful strawberry garden, and every spring he would invite us over to pick all we wanted. The first year we lived here, everyday for a week I came home from work to find a 3 gallon bucket of strawberries on my porch! So I called his sweet wife and asked her, "what in the world do I do with all these!" She said in her sweet, soft voice, "Make jelly, honey!" SO, that was the first year for my jelly. I get requests every year for it now!!! My step-daughter took some home with her to her "other" brother and she said, "Dakota thinks you should sell this jelly in the store!"
Well, this year, I have enough berries at one time to make more. I had to "borrow" some from my mother-in-laws garden but not many.

I got all my stuff going early this morning. I washed and cut up the berries, mashed them a little for that sweet juice to start flowing. UMMMM!!

Cooking away!! The only part I hate is the "stirring constantly." I did take a break for a photo!!!

Time for a bath, sweet babies!!!!


Doesn't get much prettier than that!! I get so excited to hear their tops start popping! (That means the seal took!!!) Yeah!!

Ok, is there any question what the Pierce's are having for breakfast tomorrow!!! Biscuits!!!!!

Cleaning Therapy

I took out my pent up stress on my living room today. I decided not to go back to work until Monday, so this morning I asked Clint if he would help me clean the upper stuff in our living room.
Our ceiling is cathedral and the highest point is 20'. So, needless to say, the upper window and fan don't get much attention! A few days ago, I looked up as the sun was shining through the window and there was an ENTIRE village of spiders living up there!
Awful, I know! But, not anymore!!! I swear it was even brighter today as all the sunshine was getting through!!!!

It's amazing what you can get accomplished when you put your mind to it! Who knows what will get cleaned tomorrow!

We've had a good day today! It started out pretty emotional but we recovered. Tonight, McKenna had a baseball game and literally, we couldn't watch it for all the people coming to us to give their condolences and share memories of Brad. It was hard on Clint, but I know how much it meant to him to hear all of it. My new motto is "Today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today!" Only time will heal and we can only take it one day at a time. Please continue to pray for our family!

I've been GONE a LONG TIME!

Gosh! I have been gone a long time! My life, it seems, is going in fast forward! My small sewing business has really taken off, I've done oodles of orders and just participated in my 1st craft show! It was a wonderful success! I, unfortunately did not get a picture of my booth, but it was cute!!! I have now to tackle a stack of custom orders to do!
On a more somber note, please remember my husbands family in your prayers. We lost my brother-in-law on Saturday. It has shaken our family to the core and we are just at a loss for words at the overwhelming outpouring of the community! He leaves a wife and 5 children (all Sr. in high school and older) It has definately put into perspective how short life is!

I promise to stay up on this better from now on!!