Slurp!

This message brought to you by friend Jeanne at http://orjustme.blogspot.com/.

I copied almost exactly her lunch from the other day. Toasted French bread schmeared with goat cheese and topped with roasted zucchini and olive oil. She used basil olive oil, but Publix had no fresh basil today, so I "made do!" It was a tough job, but I managed! One word. Yumalicious.

Birthday Joy

Decided to use the CTMH You and Me kit to scrap the pics from Joy's birthday party. I changed things up a bit and used the papers for the first layout on the second and the ones for the second layout for the first. Rebel that I am!!

Farmer Sue...

I am not! And frankly Scarlet, I don't know why I keep trying. But I do! The cantaloupe volunteers that came up by the chicken coop that I moved have withered and died in the heat. Nevermind the fact they got watered every day. Dead. My tomatoes are dead. I never got enough at any one time to do anything with. No salsa. No spagetti sauce. No mater salad. Just sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper for dinner. Not that there's anything wrong with that! And the plant that gave me the best results was the one I got that was 3/4 dead on the $1.00 discount table at Lowes! Go figure! But my new Southern Living magazine that I just got the other day said it's time to plant tomatoes for fall now. So I HAVE to try again. The snow peas...what'd I get? Six total? Or was it 4? It's been so long, I've forgotten! And here is the result of my cukes. Three. That all together aren't even 6" long! The vines withered and died too. I have gorgeous strawberry plants. Gorgeous! They've tripled in size. And I think John and I have eaten 5 strawberries each. And the ONLY reason we got them is because they were hidden by the leaves and the birds couldn't see them to peck their one hole in and leave. We had more volunteer cantaloupe and one tomato plant come up at the chicken coop. I left them. They are doing fantastic! They are in the shade most of the day though. The cantaloupe plants are loaded with bloom. Just loaded. If they all set and ripen, I could put them in the back of John's truck and go out to the highway and sell them. Blacken a couple of teeth, get me a corn-cob pipe and sell them. But they won't! I'm not getting my hopes up. Hell, I'll go dance a jig if I get ONE measley lope off'n the plants! I'm cuttin' these babies up to go with dinner tonight. If you want a taste, I suggest you start driving now!

t!m Goodness

One of my fave lss's, Posh Scraps was having a sale to make room for more new products scheduled to start arriving from CHA Winter. All t!m and Sizzix were 25% off. Well, it had t!m's name, so I was there! I finally found the Valise movers and shapers die. This is gonna look so cool using GrungeBoard and cardstock as a mini album! I also found the Sewing Room die and picked that up. Love his vials with cork stoppers. Have so many ideas for uses on this! And glassine paper. Kinda like kraft paper, but a lighter texture and it looks so cool crumpled up and made into flowers! This is actually pockets, but I can cut it apart to make flowers, or use the pockets for hidden journaling. And the two

non-t!m purchases are Maya Road canvas banners! They have rivets in the top to put embroidery thread, waxy flax, bakers twine, whatever thru. I can ink them or leave them as is and stamp flourishes or letters or whatever on them. Or even use rub-ons or alter some chipboard alphas. Oh! The possibilities! And last but not least is the 7 Gypsies apothecary labels. Had to have something to go on those vials!! I *may* use the Arsenic Poison one and just leave it sitting on the kitchen counter! And 10 BINGO chips that I can leave the red color or run it thru my white ink pad and let it dry, then ink in whatever color I need

Happy Birthday Joy

Today Joy turns nine! Holy schnikey's, where had the time gone?!

I made her a little something to sit on her desk. I used CTMH Veranda pp, along with a few of the Mix and Mingle album pieces. Decorative brads are Filigree Charms. Alpha is Irresistables Eclectic that I sponged Cocoa ink on and I have NO idea why they look green! Words are from my stash and the bird and birdcage are t!m Holtz dies.

Tonight we'll be joining the family for her partay at Palm Harbor Wing House.

Peachaliciousness

Decided to pull out our LOUD ice cream freezer yesterday and make some fresh homemade peach ice cream. We used to make ice cream all the time when I was growing up and I swear that our ice cream freezer was no where near as loud as our machine is now. So loud that the catz decided it was safer under the bed than on top of it. So loud that John abandoned the La-Z-Boy for the couch which is closer to the TeeVee! And I had to do two batches because the starter makes enough for a half gallon but my cannister only holds a quart at a time. And in ice cream making, what's the point of going thru all the trouble for a measly quart?! And it takes about 30-40 minutes for freeze one batch, so it was a LOUD almost 2 hours here! But the end result is just heads and tails over what you get at the grocery store! John has already put in a request that next time, he wants ginger ice cream. I can do that!! 

Sing with me...

It's raining...it's pouring...the old man is snoring.
Went to bed...covered his head...didn't get up til morning!

We are getting buckets of rain and I am not complaining one little bit. We got 2.25" yesterday evening and overnight. So far today we've had over 4". It was raining so hard at one point that the downspouts couldn't get it off the roof fast enough and it was coming over the tops of the gutters. We had "lakes" out back! It is still raining and there is more forecast for the rest of today and tomorrow. The Tropical Wave in the Gulf is slowly moving north and west away from us, but it may take til Sat for us to be back to our more typical afternoon thundershowers.

Finito

We finally got the tree finished up today. Hauled all of the limbs with branches to one side of the "back 40" and all of the "logs" from the trunk to the other side. The birds and small animals will find refuge in the limbs while they decompose and the bigger logs will take years to break down. We thought we'd see rain before we got done. There is a Tropical Wave moving north and the weather guy said we'd likely see off and on showers. But we didn't get any rain, so we got it all taken care of. Then I mowed and John weed wacked the yard and then we hooked the trailer to the back of the mower and trimmed the front hedges and got all of that raked up and hauled out back to decompose too. So a good, productive day. And I managed to get stung again! They must like the stank I give off when I'm sweating! Don't know what it was this time, but it got me on the top of my left foot. I was trimming some of the hedge with hand clippers where John missed and it zapped me. Hadn't been stung in years, now twice in one week. John and I both commented about how much we are gonna miss our pine tree. The birds still haven't found the feeder and John did manage to get the tree cut around the other feeder without any damage, so I got it filled and hung today as well. They will find them in time. Now that we are done out there, they can take some time to figure out where we moved them to. What's left of the trunk is gonna have to decompose on it's own. It is too big for the chain saw to go thru. So we'll have the reminder of our tree for many years to come.

Making fire wood

No, not really! Pine isn't the best to burn. It's full of sap and does more snap, crackling and popping than heating. So this will be drug out to the back 40 and left to decompose on it's own. It would most likely take 5 or more trailer loads to haul it to the dump, and each load is paid for separately. So we'll just drag it out back and let Ma Nature reclaim it. It's gonna take a few days to get it all cut up though. We've realized we don't have the gumption to get it all down in one day. We worked for 2.5 hrs and the sun is just intense out there, so no sense in getting overheated and then sick and not be able to finish. I've had issues with getting overheated then passing out all my life and it's not gotten any better as I've aged. But I have learned when to say when! So we're done for today. Tammarah's another day Rhett!

You'll notice the bird feeder that the limb is resting on. Hopefully when he gets to it, John can cut that limb off and not break my feeder! We did manage to free one feeder and then John cleared me a path to the shed so I filled the one feeder and got it hung in the oak tree. I pulled out the pressure washer while John was cutting and cleaned the pond waterfall and birdbaths. The pond guy keeps telling me that algae on the rocks means we have a healthy pond environment. I say algae is uglae!

I also managed to get stung by a wasp! I have a concrete cardinal that sits by one of the bird feeders and it was in desperate need of a new paint job. When I picked it up, I didn't realize the wasps had built a nest under the cardinals tail. And one flew up and stung me on the right knee. Good thing I'm not allergic. It swelled up nice though and is pretty sore.

Edit: I have tried since 11 AM to post this. Blogger must have taken July 4 off! But there are others who are posting with no troubles. Just checked my Google Reader and there's lots of posts. So maybe it's just me! No matter. Eventually I'll get it posted.