Today's Writing Excuse: Tomato Overload

I love eating sun-warmed tomatoes right out of the garden. But there are only so many I can eat. We have large yellow ones, small yellow ones, medium-sized red ones, and small red ones. (Somebody was a little overenthusiastic at the garden centre in the spring.)

Of course, I don't want to waste these beauties that I've tended carefully all summer (I did have to water them once or twice). Here's what else I've been doing with them, instead of writing:

• making pseudo sun-dried tomatoes (in the oven)
• making tomato soup
• making tomato bread (in the breadmaker)
• taking the skins off, chopping them up and freezing them for future use 

 My kids were excited by the process of removing the skins, which involves boiling them for a couple of minutes

and then plunging them into ice water.

But what the kids really like to do is to pick the green tomatoes or collect rotten ones and squish them up for "potions class".

Interesting how adults and kids can have different perspectives on the same thing! Other things kids might do with a lot of tomatoes:

• make tomato mud pies
• feed pet crickets or ants
• make a target and let them rip
• have a tomato throwing contest
• cut them open to see what's inside

It's cool to take an ordinary object and think about the different perspectives people of different ages might have about it.

After all this thinking, I considered writing a quick story about a girl who has a big tomato problem. But first I have to go make some salsa.