IN THE KITCHEN & GARDEN

We arrived home from our trip to the Land of Lincoln and America's Dairyland where we celebrated my sister's b-day and LH's b-day - one Italian dinner and one Greek dinner and we are neither. But the Swiss have an Italian canton!!!
The tomatoes in the bowl on the kitchen counter were ripe and I was able to pick a few more off the vines making for another 4 lbs.. Too much to eat, so I cooked them up and made another two quarts of tomato sauce.
With the frost forecasted for Wednesday evening, I harvested the Basil which cannot tolerate very cold. I made some pesto sauce with the majority of it and am drying the remaining twig. Had I had the pesto sauce recipe last year, I would have planted more basil!!!!
Today, I will make Florentine Lasagna with my homemade tomato sauce! This will give LH and I several meals in the weeks to come. Florentine Lasagna is my term for meat lasagna with spinach mixed into the ricotta. Usually, Italian dishes that contain spinach are called "Florentine", although not in Italy, where we had very few dishes in Florence that actually contained any spinach at all.
So, this week I was in the kitchen and in the garden.
I also was using the sewing machine to shorten a skirt from a suit and will shorten a pair of lightweight grey wool pants I picked up at the Talbots outlet store while visiting my sister.
This unintended Sabbatical will end at the end of this month. There has been space and breathing room to heal. I have missed the rhythm of preaching and worship. I have enjoyed catching up on things around the house and that it is much cleaner than before. Still cluttered, but cleaner.
In the next couple weeks, I will be preparing for my time away from home with the new interim position; finding my confidence, preparing to serve again, getting items needed for the efficiency apartment, trying desperately not to miss the dogs and LH too much, trusting that God is with me and will work things out, and that LH will soon have a position himself.
Soon, I will be fertiilizing the lawn, putting down some Sweet Peat and laying the garden and flowerbeds to rest. Always a somewhat sad time to say good bye to all my flowering friends and to harvest the herbs.
As the growing season comes to end, so does this Sabbatical. The flowerbeds and garden will enjoy their fallow time and my fallow time is over and the hardwork of spring preparing has begun now in autumn.