Party!

Okay, so I know it's a day early for most of us. However, tonight was a surprise party for Amazing Andy, since tomorrow is actually his birthday. It was quite fun, at least for me. Hopefully he was really surprised and had as much fun as the rest of us  :)

Which leaves me with the fact that now it's late, and today wasn't quite as productive as I thought it would be. Which means catching up and doing more (and posting more) tomorrow.

For those who've left comments (two that I know of...):  I am getting notices in email that you're leaving them, but they aren't showing up on the blog itself, and I don't know why. I will look into that, too. After all, it doesn't help if I answer them and no one of the other 4 people who read this don't know what I'm talking about, lol.

Hope to get it all sorted tomorrow. Story of my life, ha ha!

:)

Yumm!

Today had been slotted for work in the garden, using all my nifty garden oriented Christmas gifts. That didn't happen. 

However, on a related note - I did some more cooking! Yummy!

This was dinner last night: marinated chuck roast (prepared and frozen by my mom and me last year), fresh green beans (yes - from the garden!), rosemary potatoes (with fresh rosemary from one of my new rosemary trees - more tomorrow), and homemade applesauce (a la my mom from a couple years ago and canned). 

Another awesome gift received was a waffle iron! I've never had one of my own, though I remember one from my youth that wasn't used much. It was a big hassle, as I recall, and kinda messy. Thanks to technology it isn't so bad, and so I broke out that bad boy this morning for breakfast. With some sausage to go with it, I can tell you it was mighty tasty!

Tomorrow is Get-rid-of-garden-pests day. I have just the stuff to do it with, too! Things are still growing despite the best efforts of bugs and worms to eat them, so off they are gonna go! My sister's hot pepper/dish soap recipe is first up in the morning, and whether you want them or not, you will get all the details - tomorrow, lol.

For now, off to bed. Gotta stay warm, don't ya' know! Ha ha!

:)

Look How Her Garden Grows!

Yesterday I promised, and this morning, I'm delivering! Garden update! Things are just exploding around here on the ol' faux homestead and I'm very excited. Pictures galore!

First up - George's First Tomato!

You read that right. After long, long, long last, George has a tomato! This really is pushing the "late bloomer" thing a bit far, but I always hoped he had it in him. It's small but sturdy, and he has loads more blossoms. Let's hope this is the start of something awesome. Take a look:

 Not the best pic, but all I could do - the wind kept blowing George around  :)

Second - Basil!

If you recall, I used to have Frankenbasil (see post here:  http://hoemsteadwannabe.blogspot.com/2013/11/halloween-might-be-over.html )

My lovely mother, while she was here at Thanksgiving, did to the basil what I should have done, and repotted and replanted it. She even pulled up a couple of the little ones growing in the cracks and they are in tiny little pots of their own, soon to need to be moved to big pots of their own. So now - here it is! It's growing like crazy. I swear, this time I'm gonna cut it and get it chopped and frozen!

Third - Cukes!

Yep - you read that right, too! There are five, count 'em, *5* baby cucumbers on the plants in the garden. Keep your fingers crossed they all make it, but I'm super excited! It's amazing what a little thinning and fertilizer can do, I guess  :D  Take a look at tiny cukes:

Here - hit "Read More" to read more, and see more awesome pics!

The Important Thing to Remember

I keep telling myself that the important thing to remember is: everyone survived. And so far, are all fine.

Dawgs playin' 

What happened is that, yet again, a pet sitter did not do what I was going to pay them to do.

This is the second sitter in a row that just disregarded what they were instructed to do. 

I did a lot of pet sitting in college. It's a decent way to make money, especially if you like animals. You look in on pets every day or however often. Sometimes you stay the night if that's what they ask and they pay you to do. It's not necessarily difficult to do, though sometimes some pet owners are, well, kinda a little nutty, I'll admit.

But if someone left instructions that the cat food was to be heated, guess what I did? I heated the cat food! It wasn't up to me to decide how someone took care of their pets. So I did what was instructed to do.

Hit the "Read more" button to, well, read more... lol

See! It's Not Just Me!

Christmas!

Yep, the holiday was pretty awesome, if super awesomely COLD! Comin' from Miami to the frozen north of Atlanta, I haven't been warm since I've been here. Otherwise - all is good. Gonna get home tomorrow and make waffles with my new waffle iron! (I kid you not - I got one and I'm going to use it!!)

But in talking to my sister, who was trying to talk me into taking her chickens (she has five left, because they keep meeting early demises), she told me this story. And somehow I missed it on her blog. But see - it's not just me that has strangeness in her life on a daily basis.

I swear, I can't make this stuff up. Read it and see:

http://www.caleyskitchengarden.com/2013/11/drive-through-autopsies-for-chickens.html#more

So there you go. Hope everyone had a great holiday! More updates and all... later. After I'm home, have had a shower in my own shower, slept in my own bed - and enjoyed the warmth of Southern Florida once again.

:D

Name the Tomatoes!

My mother is the world's greatest bargain hunter. I probably don't do half as well as she does, but I do try, I really do.

So when she was here at Thanksgiving, we went shopping for garden stuff, go figure. I had one more basket I could use for another hanging tomato, so that was on the list. (If you recall, I posted a picture of Goldie not too long ago.)  

However, there were some pots with just one plant, a couple with two plants - and one pot with three tomato plants in it. That does happen more than you think, so for the bargain conscious out there, always check before you buy. They are the same price - it's based on the size of the pot, not number of plants.

Anyway - with no more hanging thingies for the tomatoes, we put them in regular pots. Eventually they will have to be staked, but they both already have loads of blossoms!

Problem? No names!

So I am asking for suggestions for the two 'mater plants that are currently nameless  :D

Here's UnNamed Tomato #1:

And UnNamed Tomato #2:

They are doing great even without names, but I know they would grown even more if they had them! So help a girl out with some names, pretty please?  

And while we're at it, apparently the two colors of peppers I'm supposed to get are yellow and orange - take a look at this bad boy turning orange, hehe:

And that will also do it for me now. Tomorrow - heading up to the frigid arctic region of Atlanta for the holiday. May or may not get some posting to this here blog while I'm up there. Just keep your fingers crossed that I Do Not Freeze. Brrrr...

:)

Frosting Fiasco!

So I wish I could say I've been super productive on the days I haven't posted here. And some days I have been. Others, not so much. Or rather, not as much as I would like.

But what I did manage to accomplish was making my yearly batch of Christmas cookies! I did that Tuesday afternoon so they could be decorated Wednesday.

Here's some decoratin' going on:

The pet sitter was drafted into helping. She claimed she enjoyed it...

The problem came, however, when the frosting didn't seem to want to work right. We had a ton of trouble getting the stuff to even stick to the cookies, let alone getting the decorations stuck to the frosting. 

Eventually, we just got the icing on as best we could, put a bunch of sprinkles and stuff on plates, and smashed the coolies into the decorations. 

Well - it worked, mostly. The problem was that the cookies... don't look all that great. Some are kind of... ugly in fact. They taste good! But let's just say, I'm going to call this my "Abstract Period". Ha ha.

Take a look:

So after all was said and done and my helper left (in reality, the pet sitter who came to get her key, lol), I realized that - when I was making the frosting, I forgot to put in milk. And that is why the frosting was hard like it had already set. *sigh* Sometimes it sucks getting old...

The finished product, such as it is...

Did I mention that they still taste good, though? Yummm...

:)

'Tis The Busy Season

Not only is it growing season here, it's just a busy time for most of us. Me included, ha ha. Will attempt to do a catch up later on today. And I just figured this was a good picture - for someone from South Florida (where it is sunny and 83 every day ;-)  )

:)

It's Working!

Heck yeah, it is!

No idea why, but after long last, may I present to you - yellow peppers!

And not just yellow - they are *big*. Well, relatively speaking. Nearly grocery store size, and that is exciting, given they aren't supposed to get that big here. Here's the second one:

Given that they don't seem to have any more blossoms, these may be the last of the season (along with the two green ones on the other plant). But that's A-OK! I can't believe how many of them there were this fall! Got 'em cut up and frozen (the ones not used immediately, hehe).

This one is in between, but more yellow by the day (not the best pic, but you get the idea, lol):

I guess that means the other plant was supposed to produce red or orange ones. You know - I'm happy with green  :D

Loads of other stuff to update about - more tomorrow!

:)

The Christmas Tree Saga

As part of the title of my blog says - I can't make this stuff up... *sigh*

Here is a glimpse into the strangeness of my life that finds me more often than you might believe...  :D

This is Jeffrey, my Christmas tree that my mom and I got from Costco last Thursday (What? Doesn't everyone name their tree?)

He stayed like that until last night. But man-oh-man was he dry! The water seemed to just evaporate, no matter how often he was watered! 

Still, here he was and he needed decorating! That's the point, after all, isn't it? So last night, I pulled out loads of Christmas decorations.

Slight back story - last year a new kitten joined the household. So I purchased (and had some from the last kitten, years ago) some plastic ornaments. Anyone with cats or big dogs (and I have both) understands this move. Last year - nada. Penny sat in the branches a couple times, but that was it.

So this year I decided to pull out all the cool, *glass* ornaments I have! They are beautiful, don't ya' know.

Got the tree allllll nice and decorated, yes siree Bob it was! I leaned down to wipe something up off the floor just after giving him more water - and the floor was wet. 

Yep. The trees stand was leaking! And must have been for *days*! The rug seemed to wick up most of it so the hardwood floor wasn't damaged. But since the only bare feet in my house belong to doggies and kitties, well... it was easy to miss. The water must also have been drying quick.

*sigh* Guess what this afternoon entailed?

Yep - had to UNdecorate the tree. Someone came over to help, the tree was laid down (if I'd stuck to the plastic ornaments they might could have stayed on during this process), tree stand changed out, set back up - and REdecorated.

I. Kid. You. Not.

So here, finally - is the completed, decorated, un-naked Jeffrey the Tree!

If you ask nice, maybe sometime I'll tell you about the lady who yelled at me all the way across the parking lot yesterday morning. Yep - true story, lol.

:)

Mater Makeover

So Mom decided that the 'maters needed a little... something. And at Lowes, we found a bunch of clearance plants and flowers. 

Viola! Decorated tomato plants!

Here's Henrietta with her new flowers. Notice the tomato at the bottom  :D 

Here's Ruby - she has another blossom of her own, so keep your fingers crossed for at least one more tomato!

George. *sigh* He's got marigolds there keeping him company, but still nary a tomato...

And the newest member of the 'mater family - Goldie! (golden cherry tomatoes, so proclaims the tag, ha!)

There you have it - plants on top of plants. Literally - ha ha!

:)

Looky! Another First!

Look, Look, Look!!

My first green bean harvest:

Yep, there they are - aren't they beautiful?  :D

And there's a ton more on the vines, too! Tiny but awesome...

So this is giving me some confidence that I might be doing something right in the ol' garden. Other stuff is growing well so far, and my mom has taken a look and helped with it all. That makes it even better, of course!

There are also a few additions to the garden, courtesy of Mom, which I'll get to soon. But I had to share this awesomeness first!

:)

Tiredness Abounds

I took the day off work today to hang with Mom and get some stuff done. Talk about an unproductive day - and it wasn't even our fault! Just a convergence of events that kept us from getting done what we wanted to.

There's loads of excitement in the garden though! More on that this weekend. 

Off to bed now, 'cause I'm wiped out. More later!

:)

Managed Another One!

Or two, I suppose, depending on how you look at it (them).

I got another embroidery project done! Some people are now are pregnant with their first child, and I made a couple of burp cloths (or whatever they want to use them for, lol).

Here's the first:

And some of the back, of course:

The second. It just seemed like a little boy thing, and I also thought it was just cute besides:

Most of the back:

I don't know if they really knew what to think when they opened them, but hopefully they will at least use them. I'm also thinking now that maybe I should have put my initials on them. Oh well.

All for now - Mom is keeping me busy, busy, busy! Lol

:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

My mom has arrived! We're having loads of fun already. I am *very* Thankful for that  :D

And just because - the BEST Thanksgiving episode of any show EVER:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/322#i0,p6,d0

Have a great one, Everyone!

:)

More Doin's On the Ole Homestead

Wow - Thanksgiving is almost here! And so is my mom  :D  She will be here on the very day, and I'm excited for her to see my garden. 

Here's some new stuff from it!

First up - Lettuce

Yes, again, lettuce. See all the pretty flowers on one of the lettuce plants? (It's almost as tall as I am if I stand next to its tub.) Should I cut these off? The other lettuce isn't growing nearly as big, but it grows. Until I cut it, but now it doesn't seem to be growing back. Clearly, I haven't got the hang of lettuce...

And second - Yellow Pepper!

Look at that!

Yes indeed, that's a pepper turning yellow! None of them have turned colors yet, since they usually don't grow big enough. This one isn't huge (though bigger than the average ones I get), but it sure enough is turning yellow. Awesome!

All for now - I've got some embroidery projects in the works that will be up once I finish them though.

:)

Never Hurts To Ask - Two Life Lessons

That has long been a motto of mine, and it should be one of yours, too. Read on!

So - True Story (And Life Lesson #1)

Thor came out a week or two ago, and of course I wanted to see it. Today was the day! It was awesome (and well, who can ever get tired of looking at Chris Hemsworth. *swoon* But I digress, hehe). But when it was over, it was so good (or fun, might be a better word) that I wanted to see it again. Like - right then.

On the way out, I asked the ticket taker if it was okay to watch it again. He was so awesome, he gave not just the theater number, but the time the next one started! Seriously! No paying for a second ticket, nothing! I was very excited, and guess what - totally enjoyed the movie the second time!

The moral of this story? It never hurts to ask!

So - Another True Story (And Life Lesson #2)

If you don't know, pretty much all the Marvel movies have scenes during and/or after the credits. And they are pretty good ones. All the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have them, too, as do some of the Harry Potter movies, and so on. 

How do I know this? Because always at movies, I have stayed to the end of the credits. Always. How else did my friends and I figure out there would be another Aliens movie? 

This sort of thing didn't used to happen as much as it does now. It was just a private little joke amongst us dorks that stayed to the end. Sometimes you got the little nuggets that others didn't realize were there.

(Read on... Click "Read more")

Another Busy One

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate shopping. I hate it, with a severe passion. I detest and loathe it. That's why I generally make one trip to Costco and Walmart a month and no more. So for all of those who already know of this hatred of shopping, please take a seat - I won't be responsible if you knock your noggin.

I went shoe shopping today.

Yes, it was amongst the usual Costco/Walmart run, but it happened. And that's not the most amazing part! Or parts... First off - nearly everything I put my feet into *fit*! Yes sirree Bob, they did! That never, ever, ever happens to me. EVER! So that's probably one of the contributors to the second thing (really - sit down!).

I enjoyed it. 

Or for sure, it's nothing I want to repeat anytime soon. I've hated shopping so badly this is the first time in six years (pretty sure) that I've done any real shoe shopping at all. I have shoes I've been wearing that are this close to having holes in the bottom. So it was time. Add to that the successful shopping trip this past weekend with my cousin and her cousin, and well... there you have it. I don't think the Earth has stopped spinning on its axis or anything, but it's still pretty amazing here in my world, lol. 

All of that is a very long explanation (or just call it what it is - an excuse, hehe) for why I don't have a "real" post today. Though I should soon-ish, at least, if not actually tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep plugging along and hope you do the same!

:)

Playing Catch Up

Whoa! What. A. Weekend.

But it was a good one!


My cousin came to visit Friday - hurray! It was awesome, of course. She spent the night and then Saturday, she and one of her other cousins "made" me shop. Yep - and the weirdest part? I liked it! I got a ton of stuff for not much money, which makes it even better 'cause I don't have much money, ha ha!

Anyway - I'm still playing catch up. The cukes and carrots are getting bigger, the squash plants aren't doing any better (though I'm going to try more fertilizer), and there is one huge pepper growing, along with a bunch of medium sized ones. 

Now that that's marginally caught up, I will actually have a "real" post, even some pics of something, tomorrow.

:)

*Heavy Sigh*

So on the good side - my team won Trivia tonight! Yay us! And yay this girl who answered about a third of the questions *along with* the bonus songs! Yay me!

Also - here's a picture of another of my kitties. Her name is Meg Katherine. She's beautiful and awful sweet when she isn't out for blood and attacking the kitten. *sigh*

So - True Story

Today, two of my students told me that I had a big butt. They were being complimentary, even asking me to share it with them because they thought theirs were too small. No lie. *heavy sigh*

There are two things I'm taking away from this.

One - that my students obviously need more lessons in American Culture. And two - I most likely need to go on a diet. Yeah, if anything deserves a heavy sigh, that is it. (I suppose I should make the obligatory reference to "Baby Got Back", but I'm not going to ;-)  )

Oh - and it's chilly here! What the heck?! This is freakin' South Florida!

Off to go snuggle under the covers with Meg Kitty, one of the best heat sources in the world. Or at least this house :D

:)

More Growing Stuff!

So a couple of things today...

First off, here are the cucumber sprouts. There are no carrot sprouts that I can see yet, and how that one lone cuke got over on the other side, I dunno. (Probably I clumsily dropped a seed, ha!)

And second - finally (thanks to my sister!) figured out how to get a "Home" link up so that it shows when people go through posts (assuming they read more than one then click off, lol). I knew it had to be something even I could do, and turns out - it was!

Still super excited about Friday! 

Still working my way through the Little House books (long-ish story best saved for another time, lol)

So that's really all I've got tonight. It's something, right?

:)

Love a Day Off

Today being Veteran's Day here in the US, I would like to say a Thank You to all who have served. That's a huge job and I'm grateful for all who have done and still do so.

I also had the day off today, and it was a good, but only semi-productive day, lol. 

This is how it started:

Yep, a frambled egg and cheese sandwich and cup of hot tea - Yum!  (No, I did not misspell "frambled". It's my own term for eggs that I just break into the pan and don't scramble ahead of time, just mix 'em up as they cook). 

I did have pictures of the carrots and cucumber seeds coming up already, but the sprouts are so much bigger today, I'll take more pictures of them tomorrow, when they are even bigger. 

Got some stuff done around the house, stuff done on the computer, laundry (most of it). So - a good day. And back to it tomorrow. Good thing I actually like my job  :D

Oh - and best of all! One of my favorite relatives of all time is coming to visit on Friday. So Happy Hour this week will be even more awesome, hehe.

:)

Squash Crisis

Remember how exciting it all was when so many squash seeds came up? On this very blog there were pictures of two tubs full of thriving, blossom-laden squash plants.

Then... some of them started looking not so good. That prompted me to "thin" them. I pulled some out of each tub and put them in another. But - most of them still aren't doing very well and I just don't know why! The leaves are withering like they aren't getting enough water, but the dirt is always damp and they get plenty, believe me. I thought maybe it was too wet, but same thing - every time I check, the earth is a good level of damp to dry-ish.

Here are some pictures:

These are the transplanted ones. I didn't really expect them to do all that well, but it never hurts to try, right?

These are the two original tubs. The plants in the purple tub are having issues. The ones in the orange tub are "okay", but their stems/leaves are starting to do that withering thing some, too. 

So - ideas? Too wet? Not wet enough? I have more seeds. If they all die I suppose I can try again. It's good dirt - the kind for growing vegetables. Nothing appears to be eating the leaves. 

Guess all I can do is keep an eye on them unless someone has a brilliant thing to try!

:)

Garden Expansion

As promised!

The no dig, low-work garden has been expanded!

Got some more tubs and dirt and planted stuff! I even managed to get the drill working right so I didn't have to try to carve more holes into the bottoms of these tubs with a knife. That worked okay on the thinner plastic of the original tubs, but these are much thicker. They were the same price, and deeper and bigger, so how could I resist? 

Here - the squash needed to be thinned, so I took some of the smaller, worse off plants and put them in one of the new tubs. Cross your fingers that they make it. I know stuff is supposed to be thinned, but I think we've all already discussed how I hate throwing out live plants. So - their own tub. 

And this is the beans and their new trellis! They seem happy.








As for the "expansion": this new tub is full of cuke (cucumber!) and carrot seeds. This is pretty much the last of the variety I'm going to work on this growing season. I have enough stuff that if things don't come up or thrive, there are other seeds to take their places. 

Read on for a Crop Update!