On Labor Day, I labored

It rained all day yesterday, and is still raining, as a matter of fact. Wanna see what 24 hours of rain looks like?

Two and a half inches and counting.

And the forecast calls for … more rain. Thank you, Lee! Where were you last month when the now-shriveled baby squash plants needed you?

I mustn't complain, though. Rainy weather outside means it's a good time to putter in the kitchen, and that's what I did yesterday.

First, I made a few jars of pickles from the okra I bought on my way home from North Carolina. I also bought a few raw peanuts, but no apples – organic apples probably don't sell as well as perfect, sprayed-with-pesticides ones do. I didn't explore the whole market, so organic apples might have been available, but I didn't find any.

When the pickles came out of the canner, I started emptying the pantry. Threw away a lot of stuff (one box of something had a Use By date of 2007 on it) and re-packaged and rearranged the rest. Everything fit with room to spare. I could use a couple more glass storage jars, but that problem will be solved when I begin using the canned tomatoes.

Dinner was sausage and homemade sauerkraut, baked in the oven and served with mashed potatoes, and after dinner I made a batch of granola.

Looks like I'll be laboring the day after Labor Day, as well, since all that cooking has left the stove a huge mess. There's also laundry to do. I will, for now, delay sweeping and mopping. Rain combined with an inside dog makes for many, many pawprints dotting the floors.

Did you see the Google doodle yesterday honoring what would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday? It's still there, for now, click on the arrow to see how people celebrated being Freddie for a Day. I love how Queen's music spans generations – my teen-aged granddaughter loves Bohemian Rhapsody as much as I do.

Finally, the person I live with (that would be my husband) has a BMI of 23.6, which is smack-dab in the middle of the normal range. He's probably five or six pounds over his ideal weight. Believe me, I know how bad you feel when you can't seem to lose that last fifty five pounds. (For anyone new to Knit. Run. Reap. Eat., my BMI is significantly greater than 23.6. I am, in fact, on the cusp of morbidly obese. I should probably do something about that. Oh! That's what I've been doing for the last several months years lifetimes.)

But yesterday, if he said it once, he said it a dozen times: "I weigh more than I have in a really long time."

I humored him each time he said it, complimenting his appearance or praising him for the hard work he's been doing to get back to where he's most comfortable. At 9 p.m., when he said it again (did he think I didn't hear him the other umpteen times?), I'd had enough. I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that I knew precisely how he felt, that I understood exactly how frustrating it was for him and that I was completely done listening to him whine about it.

I think he got it. I sincerely hope he did.