Busy, Busy, Busy Bee!

I've been a little MIA lately...sorry about that!  The truth is that I've been really busy with this that and the other.  Wanna play catch-up?  Here we go!

First up...my friend, Becky, and I drove to Kansas City to meet Maggie Steifvater!  This was a super fun girls' trip for Becky and me.  We listened to a couple audiobooks on the way, hung out on the Plaza, met up with her sister who lives nearby and I got to see an old high school buddy...not to mention the obvious fun of meeting a much beloved author!

Next...not this past weekend, but the one before was my dad's birthday.  So, we went down to Texas for his favorite birthday celebration: NHRA Drag Racing Finals in Ennis.  Got a great pic of me with my dad actually smiling (he usually only does that when a grandkid is in the frame) along with a cute pose of my aunt/uncle's Australia Shepperd, Toby.  Love how Toby's tongue is lolling out to the side.

Come race day the brothers found matching baseball hats that fit!  I have to explain the wonderfulness of this feat.  My dad wears a XXXL motorcycle helmet.  So yea, finding a hat to fit him borders along the lines of ridiculous impossibilities. 

Boy...you can't tell they're brothers at all, can you?

These flowers in my back yard are currently making me happy.  I have nooooo idea what they are, but I transplanted them out of my grandma's yard last year.  I was already taking some tiger lilies (which reproduce like crazy in her yard) when she told me to take some of these too.  She said they reproduce like mad as well and I have to admit that she's right; they've already doubled in quantity.  I can't say the same for the tiger lilies though...the bunny rabbits that get into our yard seem to think they're too tasty to let bloom...bastards.

Almost last up, I got a shock of hot pink (technically the color is labeled magenta) in my hair.  A close friend of mine has a couple of pink spots that I thought were cute, so I thought I'd give it a try.  The verdict?  I'm still undecided...what do you guys think?

Speaking of pink...how do you like my cute cards that I'll enclose with my Etsy orders? 
Love the mud splatter on the bright pink!
 

I'll try to get more in the swing of blogging again this week.  I've got a couple of craft projects to share, not to mention quite a few book reviews.  Stay tuned, I promise I'll be back soon!

Friday Funday

I thought I'd round out this week with two things that made me smile.

One, we finally got the long arm assembled!!  Woohoo!!

In case you're lost as to what a long arm is, it's a huuuge machine that's basically just a larger sewing machine placed on a frame to sew quilts together.  When you get to the point where you've finished a quilt top, you place that, some batting and a backing together and sew a pretty design all over it and ta-da, you're 95% done with your quilt (the last 5% is attaching a binding). 

Here it 'tis!  I've been playing on this thing off and on all week.  It's hard and easy at the same time.  I just need practice, practice, practice!



Next, David planted some miniature pumpkins and gourds this year.  I love to decorate with them during the fall and because of that we decided to give them a go in the garden.  Aren't they the cutest?!

Happy Friday ya'll; have a super, fantastic weekend!

Happy Friday

On this beautiful Friday I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts on this and that (including a couple book review updates).

First off, I saw this picture of the "Infinity of Knowledge," located in the Prague Municipal Library, on Pinterest this morning and...oh-em-gee, love!

Speaking of Prague.  I recently finished this book, which happens to center around a teenage girl from Prague.

Days of Blood and Starlight is the second book from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, with the third book coming out sometime in 2014.  If you'd like to read my review of the first book, you can click here.  I feel about the same way for this book that I did the first...a little hyped up, but still good.  I'm glad that Karou finally discovers what her role in the war between angels and chimaera is.  This is not shaping up to be my favorite trilogy, but it's still worth the time to read and enjoy.  Just don't expect it to wow you like Twilight, Hunger Games, etc.

Speaking of mystical fictional YA reading, I finally read Beautiful Creatures as well.

This is another one that's been built up and up and up...and I thought it was just OK.  I will definitely continue reading this series, in fact I'm wait-listed on my library app for the second book.  However, this is another series that I would suggest not going into with high expectations.  It's good, but not the best.

Another another note, I also watched the movie.  I was forewarned that the movie is verrrry different from the book.  And I'm glad I was told that going in...because it is.  I'm not sure what their reasoning was in changing things up so much, but I'm hoping to be enlightened with the second book, perhaps?  I remember that the Swedish version of the Millennium series (aka the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series) had some things occur in the first movie that were actually from the second book.  Luckily, I'd read them all the way through when watching those movies, so it didn't bother me. 

Random subject change: who wants to buy me this t-shirt?  Because it's soooo me!

Seriously though, I'll probably be adding this to my cart here pretty soon.  I don't care if summer is already over half over.

In other news, our tomato plants have been stinking it up this year.  I mean, we've gotten one lousy tomato and the two plants are ginormous with tons of blooms.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  But, that one tomato really wasn't lousy...in fact, it was delicious and red alllll the way though.  I enjoyed it so, so, very much.

Also, Molly totally face planted in her bed last night.  It always cracks us up when she does that.  What's even funnier is when she's lying like this and her right ear is sticking straight up because of the way she's lying on it.  Ahhh, pets.  They're more than just companionship, they're also comedic relief.

Happy Friday all, and I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Garden Bennys

Today I thought I'd share with you guys a quick little stroll around our garden...fruits and veggies only.  I could share flowers, but then this post would be about twice as long. 

There are many reasons why I love my husband, but one particular thing that endears me to him especially is his love of gardening (comes from being raised as a farm boy).  So, during this time of year there are all sorts of awesome things happening back behind our house. 

Our most recent and tasty treat that the backyard is currently producing is strawberries!

This container contains only last night's picking!  And there's about a dozen missing that David took in to work to share with his boss today.

I will admit that last night was the biggest harvest yet, but still!  I'm so pumped that we're getting so many, strawberries are my favorite fruit...well, if you watch the Big Bang Theory you might know they're not a real fruit.  But, I digress...



Here's a portion of what our strawberry patch looks like.

The main section of our garden that's been getting our attention (before and during strawberry picking) is this one.  The two center rows are salad mix and spinach.  Yum!  As you can see, I can have a big, fat salad pretty much whenever I want.  And spinach has been going in and on a lot of meals.  Sandwiches, salads...I even put some in the flautas I made the other night.  Spinach is probably my favorite veggie, I love it in just about any form; I love it raw and cooked.

The far left row is carrots that will be picked pretty soon...they're an experiment this year, so the verdict's still out on them.

And then the far right row is David's favorite veggie...beets.  Pardon me while I gag for a moment. ::Ack::  But, he and Molly both love them.  The traitorous little girl revealed that she liked them too last year.  Oh well...more for them!

Next up, our teeny tomato plants.  These two bad boys won't be this small for much longer.

And the two rows to the left (can you even tell there's two rows?) are green beans.  We had green beans coming out of our ears last year.  Hopefully that happens again as I'd like to experiment in canning them this year.

You might be wondering what the green stuff with flowers at the bottom is: chives!  Love 'em! 

**Please disregard the corn husks, we had some the other night and that's how David disposes of them...in the garden.  One of the many reasons why gardens aren't pretty a lot of the time.

These guys are on their way out...asparagus.  We got quite a bit more than last year, but really only two full meals worth.  I'm looking forward to a better crop next year.  In the meantime, these will continue to grow and get more branches throughout the summer...hopefully leading to an even better crop next year!

Lastly, the pots on my patio.  There are a couple flower pots in there, but those pictured mostly consist of herbs and three pepper plants. 

Our pepper plants didn't do too well in the garden last year, but a friend of mine had HUGE peppers with her potted plants.  So, that's what we're trying this year... 

The herbs I'm growing this year include: parsley, cilantro, basil, rosemary and dill.  I LOVE cooking with fresh herbs!  And it's so easy to just run out to the back really quick with some snips.  You can't get much fresher than that!

Well, that's about it.  I hope you enjoyed this mini photo tour of our garden/backyard. 

Do you garden or grow your own herbs?  Want to?

Blogging Spring Break?

It's been over a week since I've been on here...yikes!  That was totally unintentional, but I guess sometimes life gets in the way.  Which, I'm totally OK with by the way!  Want a quick recap of what's going on in our lives?

First off, we have signs of life in our garden!  To the right is the first shoot from our asparagus bed.  When we first moved here David was insistent on the idea of having fresh asparagus.  He grew up with a patch at his parents' house and even had started a patch at the house he lived at when we first met.  However, when you're moving around constantly, like we were there for a bit, you don't get the chance to grow something like this.

In case you're unaware, you can't harvest asparagus the first year that you plant it.  You can't even harvest it the second year.  Well...technically you could, but it'll be puny little stuff and won't reseed itself.  You're technically supposed to wait until the third or fourth year before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. 

At this point you might be asking how we're going to eat this stuff this year considering that we've lived in our home only 1 1/2 years.  Well, when David made his asparagus order he picked out two-year old asparagus crowns.  After waiting through last year, just to make sure the asparagus took well, this year we'll be enjoying these bad boys freshly cut from our own back yard.  In case you can't tell, I'm super excited about it.  Though, I will say that David and I have refrained from buying asparagus at the grocer or ordering asparagus in a restaurant within the past month.  When this stuff is ready we'll be eating it every meal and my tolerance for it lasts only about as long as it's harvest-able.  It's always interesting to me how the length of a vegetable or fruit's season lasts around the length of time it takes you to fully gorge yourself into a mild repulsion of said item.  I feel this way about asparagus as well as many other fruits and vegetables.

Next up from my mini-Spring break from blogging last week?  I did finish a couple of books, but neither are super noteworthy.  Because of that I'll be brief about both.

The Rise of Nine is the latest (third) book in the Lorien Legacies series.  If you're not familiar with this series, you might remember the movie I Am Number Four which brings to life the first book.  This first book held a lot of promise and the second book, The Power of Six, was still pretty good.  However, I felt that this most recent book lost a little bit of the momentum that this series had going for it.  There is supposed to be a total of six books written for this series, with the fourth coming out in August of this year.  I'm really hoping that the next one is more enjoyable than this most recent installment.  If you were to ask me how I felt about this book I'd probably just shrug my shoulders and say, "Meh."  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great either.

The second book I finished with lackluster pizazz was this one.

The Glimmer Palace is a historical fiction novel surrounding the life of a Lilly Nelly Aphrodite.  The story follows the birth, childhood and young adult story of this soon-to-be, some day, great actress.  I borrowed this audiobook from a member of my book club and while it could be entertaining and somewhat interesting...I just never got into it.  The protagonist never had me rooting for her because I just never felt that connection.  Plus, the ending was kind of sad and left me walking about thinking, "That's it?  Well, OK then."  Overall, just not my favorite.

I do promise that I have some fantastic book reviews in store for you soon.  In the meantime, I probably wouldn't necessarily recommend these.

Cheese Soup with Red Pepper and Bacon

Jeez, sometimes I don't realize how long it can take for me to try out a recipe...I printed off this recipe back when this blog published it and I just noticed that was back in 2009.  Yikes.

The prompt for finally trying out this recipe is that there was a freeze here recently, our first one.  And David ran out to our bell pepper plant to rescue all the peppers on the vine pre-freeze.  So, I was in need of utilizing these babies before they wrinkled up into nasty rot-ness.

So, I hunted through my recipe books in search of something scrumptious that called for red bell pepper...bingo.  I changed this recipe up a bit, but not much.


Cheese Soup with Red Pepper and Bacon
adapted from How Sweet It Is

1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped (or 3 small home-grown red peppers)
3 slices bacon
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup grated yellow sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated colby cheese

Cook the bacon in a medium sauce pan until crisp.  Remove from pan, place on paper-towel-lined cutting board.  When drained, chop finely.

Retain the bacon grease in the pan, if there's a whole lot then you can remove some.  You only want a teaspoon or two's worth, which is what about three bacon strips will give you.  Throw in the chopped onion and saute until translucent.  Be sure to scrape up all those crusty bits on the bottom of the pan leftover from the bacon...mmmm...that's the flavor right there.

Add flour and butter, whisking constantly to create a roux.

Reduce to medium heat, and add heavy cream and chicken stock. Add cheeses in increments, stirring constantly so cheese does not stick to the bottom of the pan.  [I would recommend using a roux or flat whisk (like this) or a gravy or sauce whisk like I'm using in the picture below.]

Reduce to low-medium heat, and let simmer for 15 minutes, or until thick. Stir occasionally.

You can add salt and pepper to taste, if needed. I found that the bacon grease adds plenty of flavor, making the need for such seasonings obsolete.  If soup is not as thick as you would like, add flour by the tablespoon, stirring until it thickens.

Add the chopped red pepper and bacon to soup, stirring to mix.  You may save some extra of each for garnish, if that floats your boat.

Let simmer for 5 more minutes.

Serve in soups bowls. And prepare to swoon.

I l-o-v-e-d this soup.  It was rich and creamy and perfect for a cold winter night when you just want to curl up on the couch in your sweats n' fuzzy socks and watch some chick flick like Bridget Jones, Princess Bride or 16 Candles.

Needless to say, this was not a manly man soup.  It has girly written all over it simply because the meat to cheese/veggie ratio isn't nearly high enough.  I'll definitely be making this for myself again in the near future...but as a meal for both David and I?  Not so much.

Peppers, Peppers, Peppers

I've been hanging out in my kitchen quite a bit lately.  Partly because my garden is being fruitful and partly because there's a ton of good fruit out there in farmer's markets and the grocery store. 

I wanted to update everyone on our red chili pepper plant.  The little sucker was producing in droves, but has kinda slowed down for a bit.  Probably because of this crazy heat.  However, if he's anything like our last one, I know there will be another huge burst at the end of summer. 

What I like to do with these peppers is dry them and then, later on, make them crushed red pepper flakes.  You know, that stuff people like to sprinkle on their pizza to spice it up?  At least, that's David's favorite thing to put on his pizza.

To start this process with our peppers, I need to dry them.  I started out with a needle, thread and one of the peppers.  I poked the needle through the base of the stem, then wrapped the thread around the stem, then poked through the base of the stem again.  It's kind of hard to see, but here's what it looked like.

 

After the first one is knotted, you just start going through your pile and hook the stems through the base of their stem.

After a while, it looks nice with a pretty even line of peppers falling to each side.

After I had gone through my whole pile, I loosely knotted the top and hung the peppers in my dining room to dry.  This way, I can loosen the knot when I get more and add them to the already semi-dry, older peppers.  Towards the end of the summer, I'll crush them all and contain them in something.  In the meantime, I think they're kinda cute and give the dining room a little bit of a southwest flare!