09/03/2026
I know… it’s a long one🤷♀️ Harvest season is upon us, and historically I’ve always tried to take a little time off in September. It’s my favorite month of the year, and having a few uninterrupted days gives me the opportunity to can my heart’s content, putter around the homestead and begin preparing our home for the season ahead.
With that said—today is my Friday! 🤗
Ron is taking some time off too, so this will be a short staycation and an extended holiday weekend for us. We have plenty planned to keep us busy, beginning tomorrow with the long-awaited delivery of our new bedroom furniture. After waiting more than 16 weeks, we are finally getting our first king-size bed!
Don’t ask me how much it cost because I may cry. 😂 It was definitely an indulgence, but through my work and having lost loved ones along the way, I’ve been reminded repeatedly that you can’t take it with you.
I’m certainly not encouraging anyone to overextend themselves or fall into the “I deserve everything I want” mindset—that can get people into trouble very quickly. But every once in a while, if you have the means, it’s okay to say, “Why not?” It’s okay to spend a little of your hard-earned money on yourself—to get a good night’s rest, enjoy your home and create a moment you’ve been looking forward to.
Life really is made up of moments. We’ve waited a long time for this one, and we’re incredibly excited! We love to snuggle but perimenopause has demanded space else we will both burn 🔥 up!
We’ve already replaced the flooring in our bedroom and the spare bedrooms. Once the furniture is in place, I’ll finally be able to see the whole picture and decide on wall colors, curtains and all the finishing touches. Yes, I probably should have painted first, but my brain needs to see everything together—that’s simply how I work!
Before the furniture arrives, we’re heading down to Bountiful Beloit: Farm Market to pick up 20 pounds of cucumbers 🥒. Mine were fairly nonexistent this year, but I’m hoping those 20 pounds will give me somewhere between 10 and 14 quarts of pickles.
Saturday, I’ll pick up the first of two 35-pound batches of apples 🍎 . Those will become applesauce, apple butter and dehydrated apples. A friend also dropped off a beautiful 50-pound bag of potatoes 🥔 grown a couple of hours north of us—all in exchange for a few handfuls of jalapeños! We bought potatoes from the same grower last year and were so pleased with them, so getting those tucked away is also on the agenda.
Somewhere in the middle of everything, I need to make a trip up to Larryville for more kombucha. We’d like to spend a day or two at the Walworth County Fair, organize the basement, move some pigs around with butcher day quickly approaching, find a spot for my treadmill and begin tackling the garage.
We won’t even talk about how much gardening needs to be tidied up before the cold weather finally arrives! 😳
Once cooler weather settles in and our evenings become a little less hectic, Ron will begin putting up the trim in the bedrooms and finishing that project. While he’s doing that, I plan to dust off my sewing machine and begin working on a quilt for my son. I also have a couple of fleece blankets that were started but never finished, and we’d like to put together a puzzle table for those long winter evenings.
Nesting, cocooning and readying our home and family for the season ahead is exactly where I fit. The cooler temperatures, the colors, leaves 🍁 the smells and the flavors—it’s everything I crave.
There’s nothing more pleasurable to me than puttering in my kitchen, tidying up the yard p, decorating the house for autumn and making plans for long, cozy nights tucked into my new bed with a blanket and the stack of books I accumulated over the summer.
It’s a lot to check off the list, but I’m genuinely excited about all of it. There’s just something so satisfying about watching the food-storage shelves fill with the things your family enjoys throughout the year.
And while we’re talking about preserving food—I want to mention this Presto electric pressure canner has been one of my absolute favorite purchases. If you’re new to canning, nervous about pressure canning or simply need another canner because you preserve large batches like we do, it is absolutely worth the investment!
Finally, later this month, Ron and I will head out on our anniversary trip—the first of many road trips we hope to take over the next few years. This one will take us all the way up to Bayfield, Wisconsin, with several stops and adventures along the way. If we’re able, we’re already thinking about taking another road trip down toward Florida next year—but more on that later!
Happy harvest! Make sure you take a few minutes to appreciate everything you’ve accomplished. Recognize the labor involved, and allow yourself to feel the joy that comes from knowing the intricate details of where it all began—the hands, the time and the labor of love behind every bit of it.
I’d love to hear what your plans are this holiday weekend… big or small. It’s OK to brag on what you love doing… what will bring you joy ♥️
