Laughing Thursday!

So it's Happy Thursday! -a self-created happy day- Sometimes I get depressed and don't really know why I've fallen into a slump (could be lack of sleep, crazy hormones, being taken away from my wonderful momma when I married the Georgia boy, lack of chocolate,etc.) but it just happens. Well, laughter is the best medicine...atleast for me it is! And it is for you, you just may not know it!

Ok, so here's my idea: each Thursday I'll have a topic where you can post your funny stories and we shall all laugh till odd things fire from our noses. Make sure to share this with your friends so that they can post too. This week's topic is....

Funny Family Stories!

Here's mine:
The parental unit was out of town and had left my sister and I in charge of our two younger sisters (they must've been desperate to get away! Or just wanted to see how survival of the fittest played out in our family). Lil Pookie (what I affectionately call my sister Mandi) and I decided to try our hand at making banana nut bread from scratch...
We preheated the oven-set out the ingredients-I would mix and she Lil Pookie would tell me what to put in-PERFECT team work...RIGHT? Well, ya see we didn't know much about cooking, much less from SCRATCH cooking. So when Lil Pookie told me to put in a CUP AND A HALF of BAKING SODA guess what I put in...

FLAMES IN THE OVEN are what came next as our batter multiplied itself right out of the pans in the oven and onto the heating elements! We calmly kinda paniced and I'm not sure what all actions we took. Meanwhile, the two youngsters are probably laughing at us. Then I decided to taste what was left in the pans (I look back and wonder how momma ever let me out of the house after she observed my decision making) and it was the MOST horrible tasting bread lump ever. It gets better when I include the fact that we where about 17 and 18 years old when this happened, so we where not young!
The parental unit did return home and we did tell them what took place. Mom got a good laugh when we told her that we had used her entire box of baking soda and Lil Pookie and I learned the valuable lesson of reading the directions a bit more carefully- 1 tsp of baking soda NOT 1 cup!

When Life Gives You 99cent Bags of Lemons...

Today was a productive day! My skin is saturated with a lovely hint of lemon and my fridge and food dehydrator are brimming with lemony goodness.

Last week I nabbed 2 bags of lemons each for 99 cents during a run to one of my favorite grocery stores. I thought, "Hey ya never know what these yellow citrus acid filled balls of tartness could come in handy for!"

Tonight I put them (and myself) through the ringer! I started off making candied lemon peels later to be used for family Easter gifts. Recipe found at Candied Lemon Peels. I saved the lemon juice for a later project and the lemon innerds were tossed into the garbage disposal (Citrus, but especially lemons can be used as dissinfectants as well as deodorizers).
I saved the boiled sugar water (now infuzed with lemon after 2 hours of simmering) to make lemon aid. I have plans to freeze the rest of the yummy liquid in icecube trays to be later used to make shaved lemon ice. YUM!!!
I froze the juice that was squeezed from the lemon directly into icecube trays (I must have some weird fettish with frozen cubes! Seriously, I have chicken/pork/beef stock cubes, and parsley cubes! Hans says he has to watch what he grabs as ice to chill his drinks with) to be easily popped out and tossed into whatever I'm cooking.
So, not only do I have about 2 cups of candied peels, I have a lemon scented sink, lemon cooking cubes, lemon shaved ice wanna be's, and a nice tall glass of lemonaid!

So do you have any tart ideas you'd like to share? (Get it?! Tart...because lemons are tart)

Help! Our Neighbor Keeps Eating Her Yard!

Got your attention huh?!
I must confess- I am a yard eater...and I want you to become one also.
I am about to embark on stage #2 of my edible landscaping project which will be BIGGER and BETTER than stage #1. Do you see that cute little picture of peas above? Well, the little cutie was popped right off a vine growing in one of my planters in our front walkway. The 'green' term for this new endevour of mine is called 'Edible Landscaping'.

What is this 'Edible Landscaping' you may be asking (or maybe you're not and you just want to finish reading this post so you can grab another chocolate bar. Who knows!) , and so I shall tell you!
Edible Landscaping pretty much means what it sounds like- it is the idea that you would plant your planters/beds/classy frontyard toilet planter/hanging baskets/etc. with edible plants (fruits, veggies, herbs, and even some edible flowers) instead of landscaping with whatever Lowe's or WalMart has to offer.

My reason for eating my front yard: Besides wanting to give my neighbors a bit of entertainment and something else to talk about I just really enjoy gardening. Always have. My mom can make anything grow! As a little girl I would watch how she made garden beds and walkways and needless to say around our playhouse (you know the one: yellow, pink door, plastic, bluegreen roof) I had the FINEST looking weed bed! Also, my husband and I live in a townhouse that is blessed with a deck and a backyard, yet the backyard hardly gets sun. We are living the poor-but-happy newlywed life and growing what foods we can helps us to save money. Edible landscaping is a perfect idea for people who do not have room or time for a full garden-like us! Also, not much gardening knowledge is needed  to start either. Have I sold you on the idea yet???? If yes- proceed to next paragraph. If no- still proceed because the chocolate can wait! (I <3 chocolate btw)

Stage #1 Ups and Downs:

Before you embark on my same journey (because I know that all of you reading this are thinking that this is the greatest idea ever and can't wait for my next AMAZING post to come out...one can dream!) here is what I've noted so far.
Pick plants that are season appropriate. You may be an awesome person but unless you live in Africa tomatoes will not grow in your pots in the middle of winter. Also, monitor your weather because if you're having an unusually warm winter like I am you may be able to grow some un-season plants.

Water! I have about 3 pretty painted pots ( I totally rock the illiteration) that line our walkway. Unfortunately, they don't water themselves so I must. Anything that is not directly in the ground tends to dry out quickly. You'll probably have to water everyday or every other day. You can always do the technical touch-the-dirt-and-if-it-feels-dry-then-water-it test. :)

Try Seeds- Seeds= less expensive than more mature plants (See, maturity is not always a good thing!) Empty egg cartons filled with dirt make great starter planters. However, I would use the styrofoam cartons because the water cartons tend to get mooshy...GROSH!
Try, Try Again- My plants didn't do so well this season because the weather was SO warm. My poor lil brocoli plant got a tan! Do I despair? NOPE! I try again- thus....

Stage #2:
This stage has me thinking- really thinking! And you can think too!...if you try edible landscaping! (I guess otherwise you wouldn't think....hmm maybe time for coffee and CHOCOLATE for me!) My frontyard gets almost a full day's worth of sun and tomatoes love sun, so large weeping tomato plants with red fruit coming out of my pots would look nice against my baby blue townhouse. Also, I have a corner in my backyard that gets a pretty good amount of sun and something tall would look nice, so I'm thinking corn! You can also think like me! What the idea of edible landscaping will make you do is look at edible plants in a new way. As you walk through the garden section look at the aestheticly pleasing qualities each edible plant has and whether or not that would look good in your landscaping.

If you truly are interested I would also look into companion planting (what plants grow best by each other. Some plants actually act as bug repellants for eachother).

So, if you're ready to be called a 'yard-eating hippie' then edible landscaping is for you! Are you in? Or do you already eat your yard? What have been your garden experiences? LET ME KNOW

Here are some helpful links:
edible planting help/ideas
companion planting info

Perfect Perfectionism Isn't Always Peachy

"I think I want to write blogs like that." I kinda wistfully said to The Hans Man (aka the ever-supportive husband) after reading one of my favorite blogs the other night. He then said, "Why don't you?".....

Hmm....I had tossed around the idea before but everytime my little perfectionist self would battle that thought right down to the ground in my little brain. And here comes the point of my first post:

Perfect Perfectionism Isn't Always Peachy!

I can just hear my momma giggle as she sees me associate myself with any sort of perfectionism (I think my bed at home still looks like ground zero!). Truth is I think we all battle with some sort of ideal image that we believe we should fit ourselves to just like Playdough in a mold. I know I do! I MUST be the BEST wife, the BEST employee my boss has ever worked Legos with, and my house should be spotless and one speck of laundry not folded on the day that I do my monthly shopping-cook-clean entire house-go to work-entertain company= FAILURE! I should be able to get ALL of my list of things to do finished by the alloted time I have so chosen or...=FAILURE!

I blame college for. Some could blame their poor lil mommas, or how many spankings they received, or what they ate that day (ya never know!)
Don't get me wrong I ABSOLUTELY LOVED COLLEGE! Some of the best 4 years came from college life. But what college brought out in me was the need to have everything scheduled and completed on time and if this didn't occur then something (activity, paper, lesson plan, quality family time, etc.) got kicked to the curb. Was less then my ideal idea = I failed somewhere.

This brings me to why I waited to create a blog. 'What if I can't write like the other blogs I read?' 'What if it's less than my ideal image?'
But ya know what I have come to realize (besides the fact that I'm kinda nuts and I like chocolate way to much!) is that God doesn't expect perfection from me. He expects me to lean on His strength and empowerment. His wisdom with how to order my days and His daily provision/empowerment is what got me through college. Truth is it is what gets me through each day since college and ever before college. We re supposed to do tasks to our BEST, but if our BEST makes us look down upon ourselves (God's beautiful and wonderfully made creations) and run around like a chicken with its head cut off holding laundry and a pot of boiling water- then possible perfection is not what we're accomplishing.

What are your thoughts?