Fall is upon us

I'm having a hard time accepting that the summer is over, it went by so fast, but I'm excited to greet fall. This summer I made three very simple goals. I wanted to have a natural childbirth, I wanted to walk a ton to be able to do the Sound of Narrows in June (7.5 miles) and I wanted to learn how to make jam. The childbirth was a wonderful experience, I feel pretty good about how I did walking and I exceeded my jam expectations. We made 80-something pints of jam and learned how to can other things. We made strawberry, peach, blueberry, mango, peach-mango, blueberry-peach, grape, and pear jams. In addition, we canned pears, peaches, grapefruit, tomatoes, (a lot of this was just stuff that was leftover in our produce basket for the week) applesauce, spaghetti sauce and salsa. Many weeks this summer we'd use a Saturday or an evening and spend about 6 hours canning. Devan really got into it with me and it was a great time for us to spend together talking while Hannah watched movie after movie.

Since I was actually successful in accomplishing my summer goals, I've decided to be brave and announce my fall goals ahead of time. 1) To be to be more consistent about cleaning the kitchen before bed and reading the scriptures as a family every evening (or in other words, lose the nightime TV) 2) To do more crafts and messy fun things with Hannah and 3) To be able to run 5 miles. (My last jog was 4.5 miles but I only ran about half the time, so I hope this isn't too unrealistic.) I know that goals are supposed to be more specific and measurable, but I'm a fragile creature, so I just need to be able to look back and think I've improved a little. Putting this out here scares me and makes me feel very inadequate, but I'm hoping it will make me more accountable and make it easier to accomplish my goals. I'm excited for all the fun (and hopefully improvement) that fall will bring.