It’s amazing what the power of a smell can do to a person. You can be walking through a busy mall, determined and walking with purpose, then suddenly stopped in your tracks by a familiar smell. It can be food, cologne, flowers. And suddenly you are taken back to a familiar place, a better time. Your pace slows and you take the time to look around you and absorb life.

Some scents are intoxicating: my husband’s cologne, a campfire, white roses. I get butterflies in my stomach, weak in the knees, often goose bumps.

Others invoke comfort (and sometimes hunger): Fresh baked bread, waffle cones from Baskin-Robbins, kettle corn at the farmers market. I want to curl up with a good book and a blanket.

The more powerful smells can transport you back in time to relive a moment in the past. These are different for everyone. For me, the smell of an old baseball glove takes me back to playing softball with my dad. Chanel No. 5 reminds me of the last Christmas I was able to spend with my mother-in-law. Hot buttered popcorn always reminds me of my first job working at a movie theater. All these memories are tied inside a simple scent.

Today I am wearing my new Sweet Pea lotion from Bath & Body Works. It’s very comforting, soothing. Whenever things get stressful or aren’t going my way, I find myself breathing in deeply and letting the scent wash over me, in a way that only a smell can.

Oh, it has been so nice to have the rain back. I am a true Oregonian if there ever was one. I love everything about the rain: the way it sounds, the way it smells, how it waters my plants for me. It finally up and rained on Saturday night, after what seemed like ages of nothing but sunshine. Sim and I were thrilled. We were driving home from helping Adam move into his new house. It was perfect. Sim looked over at me and smiled as he had to turn on the windshield wipers for the first time in ages. I instinctually rolled down my window and let several drops hit my hand. The weather was warm and the air was thick. The rain seemed to calm everything; the heat, the humidity, even us.

Sunday was everything a weekend should be. We slept in late, lingering in our pajamas until past noon. I finally showered and climbed back into my comfy pajama pants and a long sleeve shirt (imagine that?!). Throughout the day, we kept pausing at the windows to look outside and watch the rain bounce off the deck. I found myself opening windows to listen to the gentle sounds as the water found its way to the ground.

While we were working on fixing a drip in our guest bathroom toilet, we opened all the windows upstairs and let the clean smell of rain drift inside. We spent the rest of the day curled up on the couch watching movies. It was a great weekend. Everything in the world was right.

Its amazing how something as simple as rain can make everything better.

So I survived canning peaches with my mom. It was actually kind of fun. We started early Saturday morning sanitizing all the jars, rings, and lids, then jumped right in to the peeling and slicing. For those of you who haven’t canned peaches before, it’s quite an interesting procss. First you put a bunch of peaches in boiling water to soften the peel, then you transfer them to ice water. This process makes the peels practically slip off the peach. Then you slice the peach right off the pit and into the jar. Once enough jars are full, you top them off with syrup (sugar & water mixture) and place the lids on the jars. Finally the jars are ready to go into a hot water bath and boil for 30 minutes. Then repeat until you are out of peaches.

A little over half way through, Adam stopped by and my mom tricked him into helping up peel and slice the peaches. Plus it was nice to have someone there to do all the heavy lifting! So the process was sped up quite a bit having extra help.

All the while I was canning inside, Simeon was working on fixing the fence in our back yard. It had recently started falling over and we were afraid the dogs would knock it down and escape. Sim’s dad, Steve, and brother, Jesse, came up to help him as well. Finally our fence was restored and all was happy.

You can check out pictures of both of our weekend adventures in the photo gallery. I also uploaded some other pictures from the previous week, including my birthday party, Ellie’s bee sting, and some other random stuff. Enjoy!

So last night Sim and I went to Sauvie Island Farms and picked about 110 lbs of peaches. Why on earth would we do something like that, you ask? Because this weekend I am going to attempt to learn how to can! My mother is coming over and she is going to teach me yet another thing I can do in the kitchen.

I grew up with my mom making everything that there was to make. She cooked, canned or froze just about everything possible. At any given time, we probably could have gone a year without leaving the house and never starve. As a result, I got really spoiled with great food. In fact, to this day I cannot eat store bought applesauce. Are you kidding me people? That’s not even close to what applesauce is suppose to taste like, let alone feel like. Gross!

Since I plan to one day have children, I want to learn how to do all the things my mother did for me. So this weekend, I am going to can peaches. I can assure you I will be taking some pictures and will have some great stories to tell on Monday! Check back then!