Everything in Moderation

My soon-to-leave-the-nest son has drawn the winner of the $10 Barnes and Noble gift card. And the winner is......housemouse88!!!!

Drop me an email at kathleenbacus (at) iowatelecom (.) net, housemouse88, and I'll get your gift card in the mail. Congrats and thanks for stopping by Killer Fiction!

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One lucky commenter will be chosen to receive a $10 Barnes and Noble gift card to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of our Killer Fiction Writers' Blog. So chime in for a chance to win!


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Boy am I glad I'm not the only one here at Killer Fiction to forget about securing a guest blogger. (Thanks for making me not look like a total screwup, Les.) Besides, Iowans have to stick together.


It's not that I didn't vaguely remember that it was the second anniversary of our Killer Fiction blog. It's just that I kept putting off actually doing anything about it. I can, I think, be excused for being a bit absent-minded. It's 'that' time of year again.

In spades.

The calendar tells us that it is time to prepare to head back to school--or in my kids' cases, back to college. This weekend I'll be moving my son into his apartment at a university about ninety minutes away from home. Not a horrible distance, but not easily qualifying for that 'just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by' scenario.

A circumstance for which my son is probably eternally grateful.

He'll be missed. My son and I share a lot of interests and are pretty tight. So, needless to say, I'll return home with a 'Rudolph' nose and plugged sinuses after I've left him there and waved goodbye.

I still have an extra week to prepare for the departure of the other daughter who goes away to college. Then it will be just my youngest (by one minutes and 22 seconds) triplet who still commutes to her classes and mom left at home.

As I told my son yesterday when we went shopping for apartment 'stuff', "It's the end of the world as we know it."

Sniff. Sniff.

So as I said, I can be excused for spacing on the guest blogger for this reason alone. But there's more.

As many of you know, I'm painting the exterior of my house. Hadn't planned to do it until



next year, but when the weather turned out freakishly cool and I got to the point I couldn't stand the old color, I decided to go for it. As a result, I've been spending a lot of time on a ladder, paintbrush in hand. I'm basically down to the trim and the garage. The end is in sight!

If those two circumstances aren't enough to merit a 'bye' in the guest procurement department, I must also add a full time job to the mix.

And last, but not least, there is the 'garden.


Okay, it's not really a garden. It's tomato plants. I love homegrown tomatoes but being a bit of a tightwad, I don't like to have to pay premium prices for them when I have a perfectly nice backyward in which to grow them myself.

So, this year I decide to do it. And, with most projects I undertake, things generally uh, snowball. From 3 plants, my plot quadrupled to 12. And everything was going very well. Until the weather decided to be historically cool for June and July delaying the growth and development of the tomatoes to such an extent that while I have tons of tomatoes on the vine, very few have actually ripened.

Now, with August temperatures soaring into the 90s we typically experience, those tomatoes are now ripening. All at the same time.

I went out and did a 'headcount' last night. Each plant has approximately 20 mature tomatoes which will no doubt ripen about the same time. That means, any day now I'll have about 200 tomatoes to deal with.

Now as I said, I love tomatoes. I'm just not too sure how much I'll love them when I have to deal with them in bulk.

I will give some away, of course, but I really would like to try and use them in some kind of food prep (short of canning, which would be ug-lee). I'd really like to try an easy salsa recipe so if you have any EASY, but good recipes for salsa, post 'em here. (I accidentally deleted your email with the recipe, Glynna, so if you could post it or resend it, that would be appreciated.)

Anyway, those are my 'the dog ate my homework' excuses for not having a guest blogger this week.

How is your fall shaping up? Care to commiserate on empty nest syndrome, gardens or summer projects gone wild, or just give the highlights of your summer? Have at it. Oh. And don't forget to post a fave recipe for tomato consumption if you have one.

Have a super day!

~Bullet Hole~