For the Love of Pears!

It was a cold and rainy summer. Somehow, the pear tree that grows next to me--the one my neighbor has almost decided is mine produced a scary abundance this year. It's good that I wasn't working.
I have no idea how many I picked. I gave away seven bags to friends. I canned, and gave away countless more.

Pinterest was my precious tool...until the end of pear season when I discovered EVEN MORE pear recipes I really could have used. At least I'm fully armed for next year. And I'll be calling Fruit by Sherbrooke as soon as they start dropping.

That's less than half of it.

I got off easier when I found this canning recipe: The Easy Way to Can pears  But I also made my famous Pear Liqueur:http://DIY Pear Liqueur But do you think I could find real vanilla bean anywhere? I used cinnamon sticks until that ran out. Then I went to my local Halal store and purchased real cinnamon, which I can't find now. The universe is telling me to 'Stahp!'.

Not all of it. Just the cool bottles.

I made four of these: Pear Custard Pie and my husband was addicted, until he wasn't anymore. STAHP. And I literally made ten loaves of this: Pear Loaf and a few Pear Dump Cakes, which is a layer of pears with a pre-boxed cake batter and some cinnamon thrown in.

And There's still a third of them lying on the ground, too abused to use because it was also windy this year and they hit the sidewalk and other various concrete garden fixtures with ferocious velocity.

I'm glad it's over before I started dreaming about them. It's true that the last few days have seemed strange because I have not done any pear related chores. Now I can go back to editing.

Oh RIGHT!!   I almost forgot! I can now go back to writing and writing related things that don't involve pears! Enjoy the recipes. I for one don't want to see another pear until next year.

Days Gone By When Time Flies

Image courtesy of: farconville/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sorry guys...I had a Halloween post planned for today. But then I realized Halloween isn't until NEXT Thursday. Apologies to my Halloween guest Loush O'Raven, for I told him his interview was THIS week...Halloween. Oops. (Not to worry. He'll be here next week, on the REAL Halloween.)

This kind of thing happens to me a lot these days. The months pass by so fast, I can't believe it's less than nine weeks to Christmas. I thought it was September until halfway through October. I feel like a dog chasing her tail.

I know it's not just me. But is it my age? My lifestyle? I've been having a familiar text conversation with my friend Melaida for several weeks. It starts like:

     "Hey. We still on for dinner on Friday?"
     "I thought that was next week?"
     "You're right. My bad."

Or there's something like this:

     "Sorry, Mel. I forgot I have company coming tomorrow."
     "No problem. One of my friends decided to get married this weekend. I can use the extra time."
     "Cool. I was feeling bad about having to cancel again."

Tuesday:

     "Just checking if we're still on 4 this Fri."
     "Yep! After work, right?"

We're constantly trying to solidify plans and make sure we have the correct date.In fact, the only reason I realized that this wasn't a Halloween week is because we're doing dinner tomorrow...the 25th. We haven't decided where we're going to eat yet. We're mostly concerned about our next meet-up to be done before Christmas to exchange gifts. I have no doubt either one of us will forget, or some other obligation will get in our way.

How did we get so busy? Where has this year gone? Are we the only ones who lose track of time like it's draining through a sieve? Why does time fly so fast these days?