Herbs and Spice and Everything Nice

Ok, I'll admit, I feel like crap. I got up this morning with a horrid, throbbing headache, and a queasy tummy. I wish if I had to have a "hangover", there might have been a few good martinis the night before to cause it! So not fair. Maybe I'm just paying in advance for card night at Mary and Brian's tonight, I dunno.
So the base had sod laid in our yard a few days ago...very nice. I actually have a LAWN, instead of a lot of dirt and rocks with a little grass. Not a whole lot would grow in the yard, mostly because of the very poor drainage. We basically live on a small spit of land that used to be swamp before it was filled in. But it's still very low, especially where we are, which is maybe only 1/4 of a mile from the water, and before they built these houses last year the area between my house and the house next door was a runoff ditch...almost a small creek. They filled it in...sort of.  Every time it rains, that area fills with water from our backyard gutter, side gutter, the neighbors' gutters, and runoff from the field behind us, and it runs into the front yard, gets dammed up by the sidewalk and basically floods our front yard. Well, now they've laid sod, and it looks great. However, they didn't fix the drainage problem before they laid it...landscaping idiocy. We had a good old-fashioned thunderstorm/torrential downpour for most of the afternoon and evening last night, and guess what? Flooded sod. I can see this is going to be a problem. Not only did the "ditch area" flood, but aaalllll that water built up at the edge of the sod(because they didn't sod the entire side yard, only half) and now there's a lake. Idiots. We've told them about the drainage issues here, but they've never done anything to fix it-just yelled at us about the lawn and told us to throw out more seed(wait...I thought it was base housing's job to tend the areas of lawn outside the back fence?). Good job, AMCC. 
So payday is on Wednesday, and I'm excited to get my tomatoes. I've been hunting for good sauce recipes for canning, but  not finding much that I like. Guess I'm going to have to improvise...HOORAY! I think I'm going to can some chili starter, too, along with whole, diced, and crushed tomatoes, and plain tomato sauce.
I am secretly hoping I will have enough left in my budget to get some peaches, too. Some peach jam, and canned peaches will be great this coming winter! I'm thinking about going over to my folks' next month and picking some blackberries, too. I refuse to pay for blackberries when I know I can get them free for the picking, you know? 
Today, I'm especially glad for this blog...writing always clears my head. I think I'm starting to feel better, although I' pretty sure the Excedrin had something to do with that...


Okay, I have some "new yard" pictures(pre-flood).