Seeing Red........

Remember the lyrics " I fought the law and the law won"? Well my version would be I fought the garden and the garden won. Let me start at the beginning so you understand where I possibly went wrong. In the early spring when it was still cold I began to get cabin fever so my mind began to wander on thoughts of spring and summer. I had many grandiose visions of all of these projects I should take on to save money and better my life. One of the few that made it through the thought process and came into action was having a garden. I worked for hours convincing hubby he wanted to create a garden area for me. We even put up a little white fence around it. So finally the day came when the weather was warm enough to plant my treasures for my salsa garden. Since the tomato plants were so small and we didn't have a positive outlook on my green thumb abilities we decided to put in 6 tomato plants instead of three. Right there is where I made my first wrong judgement and the second came quickly after when we began fertilizing routinely. In case you haven't figured out how by now the garden won - well all six tomato plants lived and produced number breaking records of tomatoes causing me total exhaustion trying to keep up with them. We were so excited as the first ten tomatoes ripened and we enjoyed eating them but then more began to appear so we shared some with neighbors and family but then more began to get ripe and people began to dodge us because they didn't want to be forced to take tomatoes home, but then more and more and more got ripe and I ran out of windows sills and counter top to set them in. With a week or so my kitchen was overcome in red. Since I can not bear to see food wasted and I sure didn't want them getting to ripe and fruit flies to appear I had to take action. This action consisted of me making stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and spaghetti sauce. Then of course I can't make spaghetti sauce without making meatballs to go in it and of course I can't make just stewed tomatoes without making some into chili and of course I can't make tomato sauce without making stuffed peppers for some of it. The freezer is now rather full and colorful and my kitchen has lost it's overwhelming glowing shade of tomato red. The garden season has just about come to a end with the exception of a few green tomatoes. (No I am not making fried green tomatoes) In fact I don't see me cooking much of anything for a while. So here I am exhausted from the fight against the speed of the garden ripening vegetables and my ability to use them. And just to let you in on a secret - I loved every minute of these domestic nesting rituals I did and only wish I didn't have to work outside the home so I could do more. It is impossible to do it all - so I've learned - and now I just do what I can. Someone please remind me of that exact statement next month when I start getting crazy working on getting Christmas stuff done ahead. Oh, speaking of Christmas anyone have a good idea for a new Christmas cookie for me to make? I like to make one different one each year when I can. Here I go from one battle field to the next......