Yup, I'm still here. I know I haven't been "here," but I am still around and kicking. To quote the cheesy 90s song, "I get knocked down, but I get up again."

Things were a bit dicey for a few days there, but thankfully the pharmaceutical industry is always ready with something to help smooth the rough patches.

So, okay, patches smoothed.

What the heck have a I been doing? Where are my inane posts about our summer? Where are the dozens of photos of my little cherubs?

The posts are clogging up my head, the photos are clogging up my camera(s), computer and iPhone.

I wish I was kidding.

My head is a beehive of activity that makes sleep impossible. Insomnia is an ongoing issue for me. Throw a little anxiety in there and you have a recipe for lots of sleepless nights.

Add a dead refrigerator that decided cooling the food was overrated and wolves at our door, and I turn into a basket case.

Several weeks ago, the lovely and generous Miss Sanja gifted me about 15 pounds of lemons. I couldn't find anything that would use more than a couple of lemons at a time. I needed something that was going to use LOTS of lemons.

After two years of reading, researching, and fretting, I finally canned my first batch of marmalade!

It worked out far better than I ever thought it would. It did not all set up as firmly as I would like, but I feel much more confident about the process now. I even made a second batch (because I still had about 10 pounds of lemons to use)!

And then I made Lemon Pie Squares from the drool-inducing The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook.

Yes, they are as good as they look and I will be posting the recipe in a future post.

And then, because I still had about 8 pounds of lemons left, I made another batch of marmalade. This time I did TONS of marmalade research on the intarwebs and found out that I had not cooked the first batch nearly long enough. So, this time I cooked the living shit out of it, made a HUGE mess in the kitchen during the whole dead refrigerator drama, but this time it is PERFECT!!

Also, the children have discovered that I have music on my computer. I crank up the jamz and they have a dance party. It is so completely awesome. It just makes me smile that they are so uninhibited and free.