I wrote a whole newsletter and somehow it has been taken by aliens, I guess. Not nice aliens like the kind I used to be, but nasty lurking aliens who make trouble for nice women like me.

Anyway, the newsletter was about attics and kids and how those books about adventures in mysterious attics never live up to the reality. It was a great column. I babbled on for at least four paragraphs, even called myself a mad scientist at one point. But, I didn't think I needed to save it in another file so its all lost, completely and forever. Where does all the lost stuff go?

Here are the links, they seem stable.

I drove the old Ford truck today. These days it looks more like something you would leave out in the back 40 acres for picking up hay bales now and then. It does seem to run ok, I didn't have any trouble with it. I thought I might when I got my first real look at it. I hadn't seen it since Todd and I drove around in it while we were still dating. I guess that is 3 years ago, or more. Poor old truck, I felt sorry for it.

It was "interesting" to drive. I can't pick another word. Not challenging exactly, I didn't have any real problems. It was exciting. All that horse power (all 8 or so of them) and the hugeness of the truck itself. When I stood outside the truck it was taller than I am. Just to get in I had to half climb up to the seat. Rufus, as I began to call him, could easily drive right over most of those other cars on the road and I would have just thought it was roadkill.

Driving Rufus was fun, if a little too exciting, around some of those corners. Rufus just has so much power, one tap on the gas and he wants to fly off the handle. At one tight corner I thought the whole truck was going to tip over and tumble down into the ditch.

On the deserted backroad, well paved but no cars or houses, I let Rufus have his head. I could tell he wanted to all day, he was just holding back. Just a bit of pressure on the gas and Rufus surged forward with a roar. I took it up to just over 120 K. Rufus is old but I could tell he would have liked me to let him race and hit that 140 K mark where the speedometer ends and its just Rufus and the bare roadway ahead. But I held him back, images of small animals and pedestrians pushing themselves into my mind.

I'd definitely take Rufus out on another date. Beat up as he is, he had a powerful, masterly style. I told him, if he was a real man I'd go for him, all the way.

Here we are, its that time again. Wasn't last week's newsletter just great- not! I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't take change as well as I thought I did. The move and adjusting here have been sucking my spirit dry.

My Mom seems to think she has to imprint herself on everything I packed and have brought past the bottom of her driveway. She is going through every last bag and box in the name of repacking it. I know the real reason she is doing this. Its nothing to do with repacking things better, letting me sort through them again to see what I could possibly still dump out. Its her way of marking her territory. Did you only think male animals did that? No, sadly enough this is not the first time I have moved back here temporarily and this is far from the first time my Mother has gone through this behaviour. As if moving back here when I'm over the age of 30 isn't bad enough.

I do love my Mother and I know she only wants the best for me but... living under her roof drives both of us crazy. She is a put away person and I am a clutter person. I like my a bit of chaos, the odd clutter makes me feel at home I guess. But, she likes everything out of sight, out of mind and all of it done right now and then. I don't think my way is bad but it bothers her a great deal. As a kid I always had a messy room. Maybe that was my way of marking territory. Not that it worked of course.

Anyway, my thought for the home and garden newsletter this week is organization and housekeeping in general. Yes, I'm also a packrat, so they say. Don't the two seem to go together most of the time.

I am almost a zombie but rather than waiting until Wednesday night I am sending out my Monday newsletter now, very late on Monday evening. Most of the links are packing and moving related. I have moved over a dozen times since the age of 16. Before that I moved around too, following my Dad's dreams of a jersey cow farm.

One of the best things about summer is fresh fruit, right off the tree, vine or bush whenever possible. Have you ever picked a tomato out of the garden on a sunny day? It's like eating a mouthful of warm sunshine. I also like peas in the pod. You pry open the pod and dig your tongue in to lick out the line of peas. They are so green and luscious. Then you get into strawberries, peaches and watermelons - all the juicy fruits that dribble down your chin, onto your clothes and leave your fingers a sticky mess.

Right from when I was a baby my Mom would be canning, making jam and pickles. Everything that was food preservation. Some things didn't work out very well. Most famous might be those pearl onions that were a royal pain to peel and then all spoiled in their jars. I never saw the dumping of the onions but we laugh about it when it comes up in our conversation. I do remember peeling all those onions, that was a lot of work. Strawberries are much easier though the stems start to dig under my fingernails sometimes. I could use a knife to cut them off but that seems to waste a lot of berry and take more time.

I think my favourite fruit to preserve are peaches. They don't take a lot of work to peel at all. When you let them sit in boiled water for a bit the skins almost slip right off on their own. From there you just need to cut them up and pull out the pits. They do make a lot of juice over the table, clothes and fingers but that's not so bad when you can eat the peaches and lick all that juice from your fingers when you're done.

Summer without fruit would be sadly lacking. I hope you all, at least once in your life, attempt some kind of food preservation. It's messy, the results are never guaranteed but it really does bring summer to your home and most especially your mouth.