Eve

Two good female characters in series I like are named Eve. Eve Duncan is a forensic sculptor in an Iris Johansen series. Eve Dallas is a New York detective in the "in death" series set in the future by J.D. Robb.

Yard Stuff

Larry put this little gnome and huge mushroom in my oval flower bed. I don't know why he thinks it's a good idea. But the Japanese maple, lavender, and vine are mine:)

Porch Flowers - End of July

When I first put my cuttings out, they look pitiful, but now they are lush and lovely. They are easy to root and save over the winter.

Cantaloupe

Cantaloupes are one of my favorite things from the garden. So many of them suddenly ripened that Larry has been sharing with the neighbors. The little children are especially vocal in their pleasure.

Magnolia with Dime

Welcome

The sheets are clean and awaiting our next visitor:)

Tomatoes

Larry blanched the tomatoes to get the skins off, trimmed them, sliced them, and cooked them down. He put them in freezer containers because it isn't enough for a full canner. They are in the freezer waiting for the next batch of ripe tomatoes.

Lazy, Busy, Disabled

I was talking to a friend who said she needed to take a laundry basket around to put things where they go. I told her that if she tucked a few plastic shopping bags in a pocket, she could gather up things according to where they went and put them beside the door closest to their destination. Then when she was finished with whatever had taken her to that room in the first place, she could take the bag to the correct room and either put the things away or put the bag in the right room and continue on her way. That way she would have both hands free and she would not have a big build up of things that were out of place. She has steep stairs to the basement, so she could hold on to the hand rails, too.

That hint was from my busy days. I tended to spend just minutes at a time cleaning at a dead run. If I didn't run back and forth, it saved time.

Watermelon

Larry's watermelon crop probably won't be huge because it's rained at the wrong time, but this one was perfect.

Electronic Relief

It's great to have someone I love visit. It's also great that he has a clue how to fix my electronic glitches:)

Electronic Distress

My wifi gadget stopped giving me data usage information. My audible books aren't syncing with my iPod, and my gmail isn't working. Thank goodness these are annoying details, not health issues.

Television Show

The Great British Baking Show is one we like. I wouldn't want to be on it, but they have amateur bakers do challenges. The amateur bakers are funny and interesting. I don't like the people who run the show very much, but I really like watching people who like to cook trying to do whatever challenge is presented. Their hands shake, sometimes what they try is a disaster, but it's always interesting to me to see people willing to try in the filmed competition. The flavors they put together sound strange to me a lot of the time. Sometimes I don't understand what they say until they are into it. They made gluten-free pita bread on this show. Pita sounds like pee-tah when I say it. But they mostly said it with a short i.

It Worked Yesterday

I hate it when my audible downloads don't work. It worked yesterday but not today. I guess I'll have to spend time with the help line tomorrow.

Scary Stuff

Sometimes I find a television show I think is interesting. I enjoy it for a while and then it is too scary for me to continue to watch it. I liked CSI for a while. Tonight I stopped watching Bones. I like interesting stuff, but I don't like it when I scream. I guess the characters will survive; it's the season finale not the series finale. Maybe I'll pick back up next season. But I really don't like being frightened.

Thunderstorms

I like thunderstorms. I like how it cools a summer day. I like the sound, kind of like bowling pins crashing or somebody roller skating on the roof. Sometimes we get rain with it and sometimes just the wind from somebody else's rain. We had one yesterday with rain, and today with just a few sprinkles...but both relieved the awful heat.

Not Too Much

Trying to have a garden that doesn't make too much is a challenge. This is good stuff and not enough to make it necessary to do anything with it:)

The Smell of the Beach

I don't know why sometimes I smell the beach around here. A beach is nowhere near. But I don't mean a fishy smell. It's kind of a warm sand smell that is really nice. Sometimes I smell it at the football field. I was told they spread sand on the field. Maybe that was the cause. But that doesn't explain why I can smell it sometimes in the yard when the wind is just right.

Do You Remember?

Larry decided he wanted Jambalaya and bought the stuff. He did the first paragraph of the recipe directions and then asked me to hunt up the stuff, read the next part, and help with shelling the shrimp. I did and he cut them into smaller pieces. While we were working on it, he asked if I remembered the first time I'd made it.

I totally did remember it. A friend had given me a picture cook book when we got married. It was greatly appreciated because I didn't know how to cook anything.

I also didn't know what some of the stuff was. I checked to see if we had the ingredients and then cooked it. I didn't have a clue what jambalaya was. I had heard the song that had, "Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filet gumbo." But for some reason I thought jambalaya was soup. So when I followed the directions and didn't end up with soup, I was kind of unhappy about it until Larry got home and was thrilled with it. He knew what it was, and I had done it right:)

New Flowerbed Update

This is the flower bed I started in the fall for tulips and hyacinths. Now it has hollyhocks, a couple of white salvias, sunny lady impatiens, and a honeydew melon. There is a lavender plant and Japanese maple in the background.

Hash Browns

We harvested our little crop of red potatoes in a couple of sessions. This is maybe half. The ground was so hard it broke the handle of the potato fork. It broke down in the metal part. Larry said the way to replace the handle is to cut it off at the beginning of the metal part and throw it in a fire. The wood will burn away leaving the metal part so the handle can be replaced.

But I decided I wanted hash browns. Larry said we couldn't use these because they are still full of water. The recipe called for two pounds so I weighed the red potatoes in the bag. It took all of them except one. He tried to make me use it, too, but I insisted that having weighed the potatoes so the recipe would be right, he didn't get to adjust the recipe in favor of tidiness.

The hash browns were fantastic. They aren't really on our diet, but it was time.

Today's Stuff

Washed sheets, fertilized tire garden, porch flower boxes and baskets, potted plants, and flower beds near the porch. I also fertilized the tire garden. Larry dug potatoes, we both picked a few cucumbers, and tomatoes have started to ripen.

Yesterday's Meeting

Our quarterly volunteer meeting was great. Our liaison is the chaplain at two different hospitals. He took pictures of the gift shop at the other hospital to give us some ideas to improve our gift shop. One of the other employees stuck them into a power point presentation so we could get a good luck at what does well for them.

We discussed it and decided on four of the things that the other gift shop does well with and started cleaning out some of the stuff we have had for a long time, including a ton of magazines that were donated for us to give to the patients.  Hopefully we will be able to upgrade the look and provide more stuff for the patients, families, and staff.

 

Good Trash

Today I was able to give a child a little toy that was a free thing brought in and put in our basket. There were several choices and he selected the one he wanted. His dad told him to say thank you and he did. The little boy's face lit up and I felt good, too. 

I brought several newspapers from last week to use beneath the pine bark nuggets for a little path in my tire garden.

And I have a pile of box tops to take to the school toward the end of this month. I'll take a couple of bags of old magazines to the school when I take the box tops. 

The plastic bags from WalMart make good packing material and I use them to pick things in the garden. I drape it over my arm so I have both hands free for picking stuff. People complain about the plastic bags, but I like them. If they don't have holes in them, I get a lot of use out of them. I buy small garbage can liners. but I usually dump the contents into a free plastic bag, knot it and toss it in the big can outside. The liners I paid for last a long time that way.

I've used baskets and bags for my stuff, but really it makes a mess. I have a bunch of insulated bags for frozen stuff, and I'm willing to clean and air them.

Finally Rain

The weather keeps saying it's going to rain but today it finally did. It was raining when I woke up and came down steadily for a good while. The sky was gray, the air was cool, and a nice steady rain came down. I like days like this.

Once Upon a Time

I was in high school and college in the 60's. It was a time of civil unrest due to racial tensions. There were some of us who felt that the two extremes were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panthers. So it was possible to want change without being violently radical. At present I am reminded of that time but there is an absence of a calm way to show support for anybody. I am against violence and I don't really think it does a lot of good. People who feel sympathy aren't necessarily willing to join in that kind of group. The civil rights movement wouldn't have accomplished what it did without the passive resistance choice as opposed to violence.

Stuffed Eggs

This is a cool low-carb snack. Larry was saying it was too hot to eat, so I reminded him that I'd made these. He perked right up.

New One

I wish I had a clue what this one is. I planted it in one of the flower boxes. It's really tall and doesn't blend in with the rest of the flowers. I pulled up three others but this one is so firmly rooted that I decided to let it bloom to see what it was. I think I'll let it go to seed, gather the seeds and then get rid of this one. It has stickers on it...not really thorns, but not smooth.

Deadheading

I have enjoyed the day lilies, but most of the blooms are gone and I need to cut the stems off. It's not as much fun as it sounds like. I wanted perennials because they would provide color and not be a lot of work every year. Well, deadheading is a pain and there's no way I can keep that flower bed free of grass and weeds. I think I'll weedwhack the whole thing...weeds, grass, and deadheads. 

 

Impatiens

 I planted a few impatiens that are supposed to be all right in the sun. They droop badly in the heat and sun but perk up again when the shade gets to them. Water doesn't really help them when it's so hot, but they recover. In the background a melon vine and several hollyhocks are doing well. I have a white salvia that is doing fine, even in the sun.

Today's List

I got almost all of today's list checked off. The worst part is shopping. I just about don't want to do anything else if I have to shop. But I got my porch flowers and nearby flower beds fertilized. I tied up sweet peas, weeded the oval bed, picked blackberries, and watered the tire garden. I have another bunch of blueberries and blackberries in the refrigerator in green bags but the store was out of sure jell. I have enough for one batch so I guess I'll use it on the blueberries and make cordial out of the blackberries.

The weather forecast keeps saying it will rain but it hasn't so I'm still having to water stuff. I saw where Nashville has flooding. I guess they got our rain.

Sharing

I took extra squash to the hospital today and a nurse came by giving out tomatoes and cucumbers from a friend of hers.

Check It

Today I went through my bank's drive thru. I pulled up about a car length and counted my money. I circled around and gave back ten dollars which they had over-paid. I checked my slip and saw it had the amount I had asked for. She thanked me profusely. I told her I would have told her if I'd been shorted so it was only fair to tell her when overpaid. A mistake can go either way so it is important to check even though they usually get it right.

I also check to see if my prescription is actually mine. I've gotten home before with somebody's heart medication. I had to drive back (20 minutes) and get mine. I gave them back the other prescription, but I don't think they used it. It's easier to check before driving away. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Happy July 4th!

Grilled meat, potato salad, baked beans, sliced cucumbers, and watermelon:)

We've never had a seedless watermelon before. It's really odd to look at it, but it was just right.

Beginning of the Month Chores

It's the beginning of the month so today I moved furniture, vacuumed under and behind things, vacuumed along the baseboards, changed the sponges in the kitchen for new ones...whatever I could think of that isn't normal tidying up. Tomorrow I guess I'll vacuum the middle of the floors:) The middles get it more often than the baseboards...once a month is all right for those.

Blackberries

Today I made blackberry jelly and blackberry cordial. I forgot to put the vanilla in the cordial, but I don't think it will matter if I put it in right before use. I've made the cordial before and used a small amount with carbonated water. It had the added benefit of getting the stuff out of the refrigerator. Storing the berries in green bags is useful, but getting it out of the refrigerator is good. Cleaning up the mess after boiling the berries and extracting the juice wasn't as bad as last time since I didn't let it boil over and burn onto the stove.
After making the stuff at home, I appreciate Smuckers more. I'm going to have more blackberries.