It's about time that I get back to blogging; I just realized it's been over a month since I've created a new post, and I really feel like I need to get back on track.  A lot has been going on this month:

• Our garden is in full harvesting swing.  June had strawberries, which led into cherries, which led into raspberries and then blueberries.  I've been shelling peas for a few weeks now, and harvested about a half cup of currants (the bushes were just planted last year).  There are a LOT of green tomatoes and little peppers, so I'm betting I'll be very busy in the garden harvesting in August.
• The boys have been busy too with day camp, summer reading, and general playing.  We've been playing the board game Ticket to Ride on the table top as well as on the iPad.
• I've been working parties for my Tastefully Simple business and having a ton of fun showing people great food.
• Although we haven't been out in a few weeks, in early July we had two major geocaching expeditions: One Puzzling Day and the Berkshire Geobash.
• And of course the next NIH SBIR proposal submission date is August 6, and I have two proposals I'm working on, so I'll be crazy busy getting those polished and submitted for my customers.

 Oh, and we're planning a return trip to Disney!  Lots going on, that's for sure.

What's going on?

Let's see...

1. I've decided to become a consultant for Tastefully Simple, you can read more about that here.  I'm really excited about this!
2. Perrin turned 9 this week, so we had a big family bash on Sunday.  He got a new bike!  Now just needs to master the whole bike riding thing.
3. My buddy Kelli came up from NJ last weekend so we spent Friday night crafting with the gals and spent all day Saturday at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield learning from the great Tim Holtz.
4. We've continued to enjoy geocaching.  Eric has now hid three pretty devious puzzle caches.  We've got a 5/5 cache on our radar that we're looking into as well; already found Waypoint 1 and scoped out the coordinates for WP 2.
5. I harvested the first thing from our garden this spring: rhubarb.  There's an article in the works for harvesting and freezing rhubarb.  I also made my annual Rhubarb Cream Pie, which is 28 kinds of awesome.

I'm sure there's more, but these are the highlights of the week!

Many, many stripes

I certainly fit the description of a girl with many stripes, as I have so many interests, hobbies, and skills.  Over the last couple of weeks I've:

• Posted three articles on canning and preserving at Examiner.com: 
• Canning and Preserving Rhubarb
• Where to Shop for Canning Supplies in the Boston Area
• Review: Ball Pectin Calculator
• Installed Camtasia and created a video version of my Ball Pectin Calculator Review

• Posted an article on MA National Scrapbooking Day Events at Examiner.com
• Tried to work on my front brakes, but I was one tool and three rusty bolts short of being successful.
• Did some geocaching on my own and with the family
• Entertained my children through their spring break, mostly by wearing them out through geocaching, but we also spent a fun day in New Hampshire at the See Science Center in Manchester and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord.
• Picked up a new customer who was totally blown away by my work (love when that happens!)

Saturday I'm taking Perrin to the district Pinewood Derby race, since he qualified by coming in second in our Pack.  Probably should get some housework done one of these days.  While I do have a lot of things I'm good at, housework is certainly not one of them.

Steamline Trail Park - Fitchburg, MA

On Monday I had the chance to check out a park I never knew existed, and I never would have noticed on the side of the road, if it weren't for geocaching. I knew there were some caches in this park, so I took the boys to check it out.

The Steamline Trail Park is on Rt. 31 in Fitchburg; you can get there by taking Rt. 31 north from Rt. 2. The trail was developed by Eagle Scout Benjamin Lessard in 2009 with sponsorship from many local businesses. The steamline is a series of pipes that connected a steam plant to nine different paper mills along the Nashua River at this location. The steam was used to power the machinery before electricity, but later than direct water power.


The area that the park is located in is still an industrial zone, and it almost feels surreal to be walking along side old boarded up factories and crumbling railway structures. A an active rail line parallels the trail, but is safely up a steep embankment and behind a fence, so my sons were excited to see a large freight train rumble past so close to them. Along the trail are several educational displays discussing the history of the steamline, the companies that used it, and the Nashua river. At one point near the falls, a fenced area provides bench seating where you can sit back and enjoy the river.


The trail is flat and easy to walk. The self-guided tour portion of the trail is about a half mile, but the trail extends further south along the Nashua river. This is a great place to get out and get some exercise and learn about an important part of the history of north central Massachusetts.

A Bit of Leominster HIstory

I was working on a geocaching puzzle cache today, and stopped by this monument in Leominster. I had never heard of it, and it was interesting to learn more about the history of our city and how citizens contributed to the movement of escaped slaves. Massachusetts has so many historical markers and plaques around that we sort of take them for granted. But it's interesting to stop and take in a bit of history, and think about the people that walked the streets you are walking now.


This article from the Worcester Telegram tells more about the house and the family.

Where has she been?

It's been a bit since I've posted, mostly because life got crazy and I didn't have enough down time to post. Over the last week, I've:

Gone to a two-day conference in Washington DC for National Science Foundation SBIR Grantees. While I was there, I did manage to do a little sightseeing.


I also managed to do some geocaching in DC, which is very different than the woods caches you mostly find up here. The caches I found in DC and Virginia are either urban caches, or virtual caches, where you have to email the owner answers that you can find at the site. I felt like a secret agent pulling out some of these teeny caches.


Back Friday night from DC and up early Saturday morning for Perrin's Pinewood Derby! His "Sword of Omens" car (totally his idea, seriously), won second place in his pack and an invitation to the District race next month.



Then on Sunday after church, we decided to take advantage of the great weather and did some family geocaching at a local site that we hadn't been to yet. We had a super day, going 9/9 on finds!


So that's where I've been. I actually have a couple of projects I plan on posting later this week if I can ever get pictures taken. Too busy making memories to preserve memories last week. :)