Canning and Complaining

I drove to Nashville and back yesterday to pick up Olivia and Julie.  Since I was in the car for over 8 hours, and half of that I was alone, I did not have that much opportunity to complain!  It's easy to not complain when you don't have an audience.  Or anything to trigger the complaint.

On the way home, when we had about 85 miles left, all of a sudden there was a huge tree in the road.  So of course, the first thing I did after I stopped was to take a picture of it!  :)

This gave me an opportunity to complain……I did not say anything while several complaining thoughts went through my head.

This is going to make me late getting home…..I have so much do when I get home…..I will be late cooking supper…..I have no idea really where I am nor how to get to a road that will leave me home…..I have to can tomatoes tonight……

But instead I just turned around, headed in the opposite direction, got off the Natchez Trace, and waited for my GPS to reroute itself.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Nothing.

So we drove a couple of miles south on this unknown highway (because I knew that my home was south of where I was!), and then I pulled over into a parking lot and let my GPS do its work.

Finally.  It gave me a path home.  After about a 20 mile detour, we ended back on the Natchez Trace, headed south, with about 71 miles to go.  All in all, it really was not that much out of the way.

We were later than I planned getting home, but thankfully, Julie volunteered to cook supper, and I began the process of canning tomatoes.  I canned 9 pints.

Today I am canning pinto beans.  7 quarts are in the pressure canner right now.  I am going to can beans one more day this week, and tomatoes as needed, and then I am done canning for a while.

I have got to get my school plans finished and all of my things organized and ready to go.  I shopped at our teacher supply store today and bought some really cute things for our Back to School Celebration.

Oh.  On my drive to Nashville, I finished The Giver.  What an abrupt ending!  But I saw on Amazon that there is another book that should wrap things up.  I can't remember the name, but I will be reading it. We finished The Cricket on the Heath on the way home.
I am reading The Cat of Bubastes as a pre-read for Clay.  My older girls and Jimmy have all read it, but I wanted to so I could discuss it with Clay.  I am almost finished reading Carry On Mr. Bowditch (and that book is so sad!) with Leah and Sam, and I began reading to everyone The Phantom Tollbooth this morning.  We are also listening to The Candymakers in our car.

Lots of reading going on over here!