From My Home to Yours: 7/18/25

 From My Home to Yours

7/18/25

~ taking inventory and getting ready for a big pantry building push, my gift trunk and how does your garden grow? ~ 

It seems that I've been working on inventorying and cleaning my pantry for months, and while that is literally true, there have also been a lot of unplanned interruptions that I've had to deal with.  At any rate, I mean to keep working on it until I get it done.  In August, I'll be taking special care to focus on restocking and building up my pantry for the winter so from now until then, you'll find me somewhere buried in my pantry, cleaning shelves, reorganizing and making lists of what I need to add and or replace.

I've been asked several times by various people how our garden was doing this year?  Is it a good one, are you busy 'puttin up and preserving?'  The honest answer is between my husband's major health event in the spring (during planting season) and the drought and then all the rain we've had following the drought; my garden is in a sad state ... what there is of it!  The above pictured cucumber plants (loaded with blooms and baby cucumbers) give me hope that all is not lost.  

My herbs are doing well also!  Pictured are 3 that I harvested from my garden drying naturally!  From left to right are (1) chocolate mint (2) holy basil/tulsi and (3) spearmint.  There's not a lot of each (I had to harvest carefully as the humidity is so bad here right now that it's causing mold to form on some of the herb leaves.  We don't want to dry molded herbs!), but I was able to get these bunches hung inside on our hearth wall where they will dry safely away from the heat and humidity outside.

It's sunflower season and they're in full bloom ... aren't they beautiful!  Image being able to walk out your door and see a field full ... yes, I am blessed!

I had the unexpected occasion this week to need two little girl gifts, so I went to my gift trunk and pulled out two crochet ruffled blankets made of super soft Bernat blanket yarn.  I rolled them and made them look like a bouquet of flowers, then wrapped the bottom half in tissue paper and tied it with ribbon.  When I presented the 'bouquet of flowers' to each little girl they smiled really big and immediately started feeling the softness with their fingers.  It made my heart sing, I have one more of those blankets left in my gift trunk, you can bet I'll be getting busy crocheting some more!  (The size of these blankets makes them perfect for cuddle blankets or 18-inch doll size blankets.)  Perfect for little girls and their imaginations!

Hubby's been in the kitchen cooking again!  Last week he made potato cakes and this week he made this ginormous from scratch banana pudding.  We've been involved with a group of youth from our church and one other out of state congregation this week doing service projects.   Each day we fed them (some 25 - 30 teenagers and adults).  While the main meal was brought in from various local restaurants, our congregation provided deserts.  We signed up for Wednesday and hubby made this banana pudding.  Yes, it was as good as it looks!

We did a huge bacon cook up!  It's tomato and bacon sandwich time and you know what that means ... bring on the bacon!

I'm working on designing and stitching up this bag using discarded jeans for a specific purpose/project.  This is my first try and overall, I'm pleased with its size and dimensions, but there is still some tweaking I want to do before I do a tutorial on it.  The tutorial will be posted over on my sewing blog, Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine when I finish it.

These draw string bags were also from my gift trunk!  I filled both of them with activities to keep little hands occupied, called them 'busy bags' and gifted them this week as well.  My gift trunk has really paid off this week!

That's all for this week!

I hope you've found something in my ramblings that will help and or encourage you in the upcoming week.

Until the next time ...

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine