I took this picture on Friday night around 8:30. This picture was taken Sunday morning.
I can not believe how much growth I had in one day, especially in the squash and zucchini department. I added some vermiculite composting tea. Maybe that made all of the difference. I am not sure, but this is a fun little project!
I lucked into these beauties. Their former owner had to move and was not able to take them. They are going to be great additions to the goldfish pond. The bigger one is about 6 inches and the little one is about 5. They are gorgeous! I put them in the pond and they are already making friends!! Happy day!!
I found out yesterday from Kate that we are not going to be able to restore the fishing gnome that used to live beside my pond. He was indeed filled with pond water and was decaying. So, my pond will no longer have a little gnome fisherman living on it's shore..... that is until my next trip to Old Time Pottery.
.... and most of them are about food! 1) On Sunday, we had visitors at our house. They were Mr. D.'s Father, Step Mother and Brother. Here are a few pictures from that visit. I cut Mr. D. out of the above picture because he doesn't like being on the blog. It was their first visit to our home and we were excited for them to finally see it.
2) Since they were coming, I made their favorite lemonade. So, this week's lemonade attempt was actually Crystal Light Lemonade. What can I say- they love it and it was easy. Here is a picture of the snack that I had put out for their arrival. 3) Because we had our adoption home study on Saturday we were behind on our to do list for things we need to take care of on the weekend. I had offered to cook for Mr. D.'s family, but was told they preferred to go out. So, you can imagine my surprise when they walked in with a cooler full of seafood and beef for me to cook for dinner. Normally this would not be a problem, however we were literally down to a box of pasta salad mix and maybe a can of beans in the pantry. I simply had no sides to go with it. I had cheese tortelloni, but no sauce to put on it, you get the picture. We have been trying to eat what's in the freezer, refrigerator and cabinets for the past few weeks. We have not been to the grocery store in quite a while except to pick up a few things here and there. Fortunately they were very understanding. I offered to run to the store, but was turned down. We ate out and in the end it was all okay. I was horribly embarrassed as it is not like me to be unprepared for people to eat in my home. I mean here are three people who have never been to my house and I am sure they left with the impression that we have no food! Even as I tried to go to sleep that night I kept thinking- what could I have made with the two baked potatoes we had that would have been enough to feed 5 people. Anyway, they brought 2 steaks, a lot of shrimp, some oysters and a lot of tuna. We were fortunate that they left all of this behind and Mr. D. has eaten like a king all week! Phil, Becky and Boomer also brought with them the most amazing cake. It is now ranked 2nd just behind Cake Bites from Pastry Arts in the YUM! It's some famous cake from Knoxville that was incredibly delicious!!
4) Mr. D. installed under cabinet lighting!! It's amazing!! I have been wanting it for years!!
5) Mr. D. likes ahi tuna. He emailed me this recipe and I cooked the tuna for him. 5) We invited our neighbors over to eat. I was able to secure a little more food before their arrival! Parker and Caleb were excited because we have never eaten at the table before when they are here. We usually eat in the living room. Here is a picture of the cuties. While we ate dinner, I let sweet Austin try out my Moses basket. He gave it a great review! 6) While the boys were here, they took a trip out to my garden. They just had to pick something, and I just had to say OK! Here is the bounty they found. On Tuesday, I fried up those green tomatoes for my dinner! 7) This train set was the best $10 Mr. D. and I ever spent! We bought it when Parker was 2 and they still play with it eagerly ever time!
8) On Tuesday, Mr. D. wanted me to cook shrimp for his dinner. I came home and peeled and deveined the shrimp. He said he wanted shrimp cocktail and this is the recipe that I found. I cooked 1/2 of the shrimp and fried oysters for him.
9) On Wednesday .... the ocean called...Mr. D. couldn't stop thinking of the shrimp for the night before and wanted me to make it again for dinner. So, I did!
10) I started working on a block project for a special little lady. More pics to come as the project progresses. 11) On Sunday, I planted pumpkin seed in the starter box. Here is what they looked like today. I have always been told that you put out your pumpkin plants on the 4th of July. I am going to let the kids plant them at my Star Spangled (insert my last name here) Celebration. The same kids will be invited to our Halloween party and they can see how their pumpkin grew! 12) This has been an incredible week for us produce wise. They have started selling locally grown produce and such in the lobby of my school. How much more convenient can it get that that? This week I have purchased homemade salsa (made my our Junior Master Gardners club), green and purple beans, zucchini, blueberries and fresh cornmeal and grits. Also, our school garden had lots of okra this week. Ms. Courtney came down and fried up a mess for the children. We taste tested it. It was DE-LICIOUS!!! Don't worry, we taste tested fudge pops right after so anyone who found the okra less than delicious soon forgot about it! 13) Miss Rylee is ONE today!!! Happy Birthday Rylee Grace!!!
I got these beauties at Costco. Here are the arrangements that I made.They decorated my house as we had another adoption home study update this weekend.
Today I harvested herbs.I wrapped them in waxed paper and labeled them so I would remember what they were when I went to work with them. I still haven't figured out what to do with cinnamon basil or pineapple sage. I need to so some more research on that. Here is what I did make. I made tomato basil pesto, regular basil pesto, rosemary butter and Italian dipping oil for bread. I gave most of this away, but there will be plenty more where this came from.
Things in the garden are going well. I put in 4 more okra plants and 2 cucumber plants this weekend. I have 6 tomatoes green and growing on the vine. I also discovered that my eggplant is actually a white eggplant. It's been HOT HOT HOT here!!!
Father's day is just around the corner. I really don't celebrate Father's day because don't have a need to. I no longer have a father and my husband isn't a father. Nonetheless, as a teacher, we are required by law to come up with some token for the kids to take home. This year, here is how the conversation went:
Kate- What do you think we should make for Father's day? Me- Oh, when is it. Kate- It's in like two weeks. Me- OK, we will have to figure something out
Fast forward approximately two weeks to this past Monday Kate- Oh CRAP! We gotta come up with something by Friday for Father's day Me- This Friday?
We then spent about two hours coming up with pretty much the worst ideas in the history of Father's day. Kate laughed as she told about how as a child she made an ash tray at school once for Father's day. We laughed at how crazy that would be to do now. Since the ash tray idea was faux pas, Kate thought it would be fun for the kids to make cookies for their Dads.
Kate found a recipe that she wanted to use and we planned to make the cookies on Thursday and Friday. Then, someone Kate knew died- which meant she had to go to a funeral on Friday. She came with bags filled with ingredients for cooking making to begin on Wednesday.
She said she would work with the kids to make the cookies. Don't think I was being lazy or anything, but only one of us can focus on big projects while the other has to take care of other things in the classroom. I did ask her if she was sure. After getting all of the kid's hands washed, Kate realized she needed a mixer. So, the kids went on to their lessons and Kate ran to her "FIANCE'S" house to retrieve a mixer. It's just a perk with his house being about 2 blocks from the school. We both had to laugh when she came in with a mixer- wrapped in a Flower's bread wrapper. Why were we laughing??? Because the mixer (and who are we kidding the Flower's bread bag too) looked just like something we would have found at Granny's. OK, so she gets the kids again. They wash her hands again. She looks over the recipe. Then she realized that while she had the mixer she did NOT have the beaters for the mixer. Kids back to lessons. Kate back to Blake's for the beaters. Kate come back. The kids wash their hands AGAIN and Kate gets started. She let the kids measure things and put them in the bowl. The recipe called for butter, confectioner's sugar, flour, salt and vanilla. Finally everything is in and Kate starts mixing away. After a while she came over to where I was working and asked me to come and look at the situation. I came to find a bowl that was full and lots of powdery looking stuff. Kate said something just didn't seem right. We double checked the measurements since we were making like a million times the recipe. Everything checked out. So I asked Kate to read me the recipe step by step. Cream together butter, sugar, salt and vanilla. Kate: "Ummm-- I didn't do that, we just put it all in the bowl." We looked at the dry mixture for a minute and thought to ourselves "What would Paula Deen do at a time like this" That's right, we added a stick and a half more of melted butter. Mix mix mix and voila! It looks incredible. It tasted even better! It was a great cookie for the kids because they could safely taste the dough without worrying about salmonella. I am sure they were all concerned about that. The extra buttery dough was SO good that I actually ate enough to make myself sick. We ate dough and put the dough into parchment paper to roll for what would eventually be slice and bake type cookies. The dough when to the freezer and we went on with our lives. That was batch one of 5 million. With each additional batch Kate always creamed the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla first. For the next few days we because a little cookie sweat shop. Kate never lost her cool and was graceful under pressure. I helped the children decorate their bags and package up their cookies just in time to take them home for the Dads. In the end, it didn't turn out to be a cookie disaster at all.
............. today my water hose literally melted. Yes, my super awesome hose- featured here!! I am not sure when this happened but from the looks of the amount of water in my yard and the neighbor's, I would guess about 2-3 hours. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the drama! You may be wondering why the water was on. Well the main faucet was on, but the hose wasn't unless you were using it.. or ummm,... I guess unless it melted. There is something crazy things about this situation.. a little irony that is my life if you will.... not one drop of this water landed in my garden. It was all on my yard, the neighbor's yard, and the rocks, but not a drop in the garden. I had to water the garden with the broken hose before I could go and shut the water off. By the time I got all of this situated, I was soaked to the skin!!
Last night, we had our first real thing from the garden. We each enjoyed one pod of okra. They were DELICIOUS!!!! I make really good fried okra. I am not sure of that amounts because I am one of those cooks who actually doesn't measure. I soaked the okra (and some store bought squash) in a mixture of buttermilk and egg. They come out of that mixture and go into a mixture of flour, corn meal, salt, pepper, season all, and garlic. Fry it up and YUM!!! I can not wait until there is more okra!
Let's see-- what did we do this past weekend....
On Friday night, my Mother came to visit. We did so many fun things!! We went to the spa on Saturday morning. I got a pedicure (one more thing off of my summer to do list) and she got a massage. I took her to Whole Foods because she had to try the corn salad that I previously blogged about. She loved it too!! I also took her to my little slice of heaven here on earth-- Pastry Arts!! She FINALLY got to taste the cake bites and she LOVED them just as much as I do. She had one of each flavor they had that day. She ranked them as: 1) turtle 2) vanilla 3) red velvet 4) caramel 5) chocolate I would rank them: 1) vanilla 2) vanilla 3) vanilla 4) vanilla 5) vanilla
We had fun. She helped us with a few projects around the house and then went home on Saturday afternoon.
Mr. D. and I are still playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 in our spare time. It's so much fun spending this time together working on a meaningless project! !
I feel like I had something else I was going to blog- but it escapes me... maybe I will think of it later!! Keep checking back!
1) As part of my anniversary gift, Mr. D. bought a couple of cool bottles to house my lemonade making efforts. I made a new recipe this week. He said it was "better". I didn't like it very much at all. Here is how I made it this week. 2) He also got me a little potted daisy plant for my kitchen windowsill.
3) We got the pleasure of babysitting Austin this week while his big brothers played T-ball. It was fun having this little guy around!! He is already Mr. Personality!!
4) He is also very LONG!! Here he is on my favorite baby blanket that I have. My Mother made it for me! It's PRECIOUS!!
5) My class started a new project this week- SEA MONKEYS!!
6-12 Kate surprised me this morning by spreading buttons all over the classroom. I collect and LOVE buttons!!! Kate is SO MUCH FUN!!!!
13. I found the cutest baskets on a 50% off sale today!! I love them and have the prefect place picked out for them already! The picture is dark- but they are an olivey greenish color.
This picture was taken Sunday morning. 
I can not believe how much growth I had in one day, especially in the squash and zucchini department. I added some vermiculite composting tea. Maybe that made all of the difference. I am not sure, but this is a fun little project!
Their former owner had to move and was not able to take them. They are going to be great additions to the goldfish pond. The bigger one is about 6 inches and the little one is about 5. They are gorgeous! I put them in the pond and they are already making friends!! Happy day!!
I cut Mr. D. out of the above picture because he doesn't like being on the blog. 
It was their first visit to our home and we were excited for them to finally see it.
On Tuesday, I fried up those green tomatoes for my dinner! 
7) This train set was the best $10 Mr. D. and I ever spent! 
We bought it when Parker was 2 and they still play with it eagerly ever time!
He said he wanted shrimp cocktail and this is the recipe that I found. I cooked 1/2 of the shrimp and fried oysters for him. 
Mr. D. couldn't stop thinking of the shrimp for the night before and wanted me to make it again for dinner. So, I did!
I have always been told that you put out your pumpkin plants on the 4th of July. I am going to let the kids plant them at my Star Spangled (insert my last name here) Celebration. The same kids will be invited to our Halloween party and they can see how their pumpkin grew!
We taste tested it. It was DE-LICIOUS!!! Don't worry, we taste tested fudge pops right after so anyone who found the okra less than delicious soon forgot about it!
Here are the arrangements that I made.
They decorated my house as we had another adoption home study update this weekend. 
I wrapped them in waxed paper and labeled them so I would remember what they were when I went to work with them. I still haven't figured out what to do with cinnamon basil or pineapple sage. I need to so some more research on that. Here is what I did make. 
I made tomato basil pesto, regular basil pesto, rosemary butter and Italian dipping oil for bread. I gave most of this away, but there will be plenty more where this came from. 
Because the mixer (and who are we kidding the Flower's bread bag too) looked just like something we would have found at Granny's. OK, so she gets the kids again. They wash her hands again. She looks over the recipe. Then she realized that while she had the mixer she did NOT have the beaters for the mixer. Kids back to lessons. Kate back to Blake's for the beaters. Kate come back. The kids wash their hands AGAIN and Kate gets started. She let the kids measure things and put them in the bowl. The recipe called for butter, confectioner's sugar, flour, salt and vanilla. Finally everything is in and Kate starts mixing away. After a while she came over to where I was working and asked me to come and look at the situation. I came to find a bowl that was full and lots of powdery looking stuff. Kate said something just didn't seem right. We double checked the measurements since we were making like a million times the recipe. Everything checked out. So I asked Kate to read me the recipe step by step. 
Cream together butter, sugar, salt and vanilla. Kate: "Ummm-- I didn't do that, we just put it all in the bowl." We looked at the dry mixture for a minute and thought to ourselves "What would Paula Deen do at a time like this" That's right, we added a stick and a half more of melted butter. Mix mix mix and voila! It looks incredible. It tasted even better! It was a great cookie for the kids because they could safely taste the dough without worrying about salmonella. I am sure they were all concerned about that. The extra buttery dough was SO good that I actually ate enough to make myself sick. We ate dough and put the dough into parchment paper to roll for what would eventually be slice and bake type cookies. The dough when to the freezer and we went on with our lives. That was batch one of 5 million. With each additional batch Kate always creamed the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla first. 
For the next few days we because a little cookie sweat shop. Kate never lost her cool and was graceful under pressure. I helped the children decorate their bags and package up their cookies just in time to take them home for the Dads. In the end, it didn't turn out to be a cookie disaster at all.
We each enjoyed one pod of okra. They were DELICIOUS!!!! I make really good fried okra. I am not sure of that amounts because I am one of those cooks who actually doesn't measure. I soaked the okra (and some store bought squash) in a mixture of buttermilk and egg. They come out of that mixture and go into a mixture of flour, corn meal, salt, pepper, season all, and garlic. Fry it up and YUM!!! I can not wait until there is more okra!
2) He also got me a little potted daisy plant for my kitchen windowsill. 
13. I found the cutest baskets on a 50% off sale today!! I love them and have the prefect place picked out for them already! The picture is dark- but they are an olivey greenish color. 
