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Creativity

I don't consider myself a particularly creative person.  On the violin, I'm more than happy to play the notes someone else has written rather than make up my own.  I'm perfectly content to read books rather than write them.  I have to get my house decorating ideas from someone else.  And on and on...

But life hands me lots of opportunities to be creative whether I want to or not.  Every summer and fall I get to be creative with the produce from the garden and fruit trees. Lately we've had a great abundance of tomatoes and apples.  So yesterday I made salsa to can.  I filled my 12-quart pot with peeled, quartered tomatoes and cooked it way down, adding onions, green peppers, jalapenos, and seasonings.  I can't say I particularly enjoyed the process so I'm writing this post to remind myself to plant fewer tomatoes next year!



Tonight was apple night.  I made a spinach salad and added sliced apple to it.  Then I made an apple cake and we had hot applesauce with our main dish.

In addition, I got to be a creative parent.  This summer we decided to get serious about wearing bike helmets.  My husband has worn his for a long time when he rides his bike 6 miles each way to work.  However, our kids haven't been very good about it.  But after our youngest son had a bike accident and narrowly missed having a serious head injury and broke his arm instead, we started insisting on it, with mixed results.  Today, three of them didn't wear their helmets when they were supposed to.  So I decided to encourage them by helping them practice wearing their helmets...at dinner.  It was pretty funny; fortunately they thought so too.  Will it help them remember to wear their helmets?  I can only hope.


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