The Yard

Oh, the yard. Oh, the humanity. Oh, Oh...

If you've spoken to me in the past two months, the conversation has probably been dominated by my griping about or dreaming of plans for my yard. If it wasn't the removal of the juniper, it was complaining about the texture of the soil (you could make a terracotta army out of gumbys) (ha, ha, ha) - or it was wondering if I had enough sun for this or that plant. Well, with the unusually glum weather comes a big sign of spring - Saturday's high is 60s and sunny - so now's as good a time as any to do the "before" part of a "before and after" montage, as well as introduce you to some new non-flora and fauna residents of the front yard.

Let's meet the newbies first.

Mom was here last weekend, and we visited the Nashville Flea Market. Since I'm the most spoiled child ever, I threw a fit for and received this awesome peacock. Before she left, we'd named him Mike - after Mike the Tiger - primarily to annoy Paul. Paul rolled with it - but later suggested a better name - Joseph, since he has many colors! Paul also thinks people are going to fall on him, so he is also casually known as Joseph the Impaler. We have to differentiate, though...

...because we have another Joseph, Saint Joseph, Patron of Fathers, Workers, Craftsmen, Unborn Children/Expectant Mothers, Families... and a lot of other stuff. He's obviously a VERY welcome addition!

Now, on to the not so exciting part. This is the part where you find out that my yard looks like a horses' butt.

Here it is from the sidewalk. You can really see how much faith I put in water hoses. The irrigation system using soaker hoses really benefits the flower boxes, though. I can turn them on in the mornings, brush my teeth, and turn them off and they are happy. The yard is terrible. I know this. We'll maybe price some sod or just re-seed, but that will probably need to wait until the fall. This is going to be a busy spring, as you can tell since, oh, I DON'T HAVE ANY FOUNDATION PLANTS.

Here's a closer look of the carnage:


I have been, by reviewing these just now, newly inspired to do a post showing off what I WANT to do in these spaces where you just see dirt. So maybe a "before, after and idealized" set of postings?

Here's what you do if you don't know what you're ultimately going to do:

plant bulbs. I've since decided to put a Limelight Hydrangea there, so I'll lose some of those bulbs in the short term - but I'll bury them around the hydrangea so, before it re-blooms later next spring we'll have some of this to tide us over as well. You can see what a fantastic job that mulch does with weed control, too. /sarcasm


Danya gave me this (indeterminate) rose after she had it in a planter last year. I didn't think it would survive, but it seems to be thriving. I don't know what to do with it. I guess trellis it and see what happens. I can always move it next year if it doesn't continue to make. This is why gardening is awesome - it's perfect procrastination - it's always "next year". Of course, that finds you checking weather.gov like a crackhead to see when the next pretty, springy day is to plant!

Now for some pretty pictures of the flower boxes and a particularly nice planter of Hens and Chicks we've got going on. I'll change the pansies out probably first of May in favor of some petunias, but the 'goldilocks' will stay. I've also been tempted by this (also called 'goldilocks'!) - so it may go in and provide a nice contrast depending on which direction I go with the petunias. As you may know, Bugs' 8th birthday is next week and her new name is, therefore, 'oldilocks' - we're nothing if not original.


This picture is about as artsy as I get.


Right...

...and left.

Let's see if I have the energy or interest still to make a post about my ideas.

The ugliest a bracket can be...

with the final four still intact.

Well, maybe not quite, but close. Click to make it bigger - I don't know why it's so tiny!

The New Brew

Such a clever post title! We're trying an IPA this time, using this kit. IPAs, we've heard, are more difficult - so we'll see! This is a great time to brew, since we'll be able to enjoy the beer at Easter!


The carboy being sanitized, getting ready! The numbers indicate gallons - for those of you who may be a bit perceptionally challenged (like me!)

Bringing the water to a boil, and soaking the malt extract in warm water so it will come out easily. It tasted like sorghum.


Here's another picture.

Then it boiled for an hour of constant stirring, with hops for the majority of the time.

Yeah, those hops. The flavoring hops went in five minutes after the boil started, and other, aromatic hops went in with five minutes remaining.

Here's the wort brewing up.

Once the hour passes, you take it off the heat and let it cool to 85 (I think... Paul can confirm)(or not). A good way to speed this is to put it in an ice bath in your sink (the side of the sink not full of StarSan for continuous soaking of your sterile things).

I don't have any pictures of funnelling it in the carboy, nor do I have any pictures of it chilling in the big closet. But both those things happened. Imagine these pictures with a lighter, blonde-colored beer. Again, it looks like beer, but this time we are a bit worried that the yeast didn't get to where it needed to be. So we could be set up for our first failure, but let's hope not.

This seemed a lot easier than the first time - maybe because I was a lot more hands on with it. It went really quickly, too. Maybe we could do this for fun and profit... yeah, right.

Annie's Third Birthday

I only have a couple of [poor, iPhone] pictures from Annie's third birthday party in February - a Fancy Nancy theme. Rest assured it was as cute as cute could be, though!

Sarah Beth had a captive audience reading to all the guests!


The party table...


Our princesses... who didn't make it to the party but demanded to be included in the blog post.

Well, that beer did get bottled...

...and it turns out it was pretty good! We both thought it was a little watery, but everyone else found it very drinkable and a very worthy first effort! I know you were all waiting with bated breath to hear how it went, right? Well, here it is, in pictures, during Lent. Fail all around.


The master brewers and their mascot!


Of course, the sterlization theme continues - the bottle caps had to be boiled for a good long while.




The siphon really had to be sanitized quite well, as you can imagine. If you're wondering, we're using something called StarSan to ensure it's all good... because here's what happened next!





it happened REALLY quickly, and we didn't have much left in the bottom at all, maybe one extra beer - but we never really lost suction, which was something Paul was kind of worried about.


Bottling the beer - Amanda's found a new line of work!


Then capping - which took a minute to get the kinks worked out and ensure the seal was tight, but once we were set it worked like a dream!

Of course, what you don't have pictures of are the two weeks we waited before drinking it... and what you'll see later are pictures of us, emboldened, making a fresh batch last night! An IPA this time. Stay tuned!

Tagine Fever!

So, Paul's birthday was a couple weeks ago. His parents, my in-laws, brought over his gift - then we watched the Vanderbilt game and went to McCabe. I'm so sorry everyone can't have the Mother-in-Law experience I do. She's seriously one of my best friends.

After they gifted Paul, there was a large Williams-Sonoma box they said was for me - they'd found it while walking in the mall. It was a TAGINE! I don't remember if we'd registered for it or not, but it was very welcome nonetheless because I've definitely considered one over the years. Additionally, there was tagine spice and an apricot sauce, both from W-S. We were surprised - and all set :)

So last night we got around to trying it out. I bought a whole chicken (which meant we had it for dinner last night, lunch today and Joannie had it for lunch today, too) and prepared it according to the instructions on the aforementioned sauce. Sorry if the pictures are a little bright (I'm no Pioneer Woman!) but trust me, they looked and WERE delicious!

So here we are - in four pictures that you'd have to smell to believe!


brown the seasoned chicken (in batches) first...


then pour the sauce over it...



doin' it's thing... for an impossibly long hour and a half! Luckily, we had this to tide us over.



...and the finished product - serve with toasted almonds and basmati rice, and you've got dinner! Thanks again, y'all! :)

The BEST Super Bowl Ad!

Father had an awesome homily yesterday (based on, as usual, the day's Gospel reading) about how many commercials during the game will be inundating us with messages of who they think we are or should be - a discerning consumer (e.g., TV selection), too much (weight loss/working out), too little (restaurants), etc.
He exhorted us all to remember that Jesus said we ARE salt -
we ARE light - not that you will be or could be or if you only had enough x or y it'll happen - but that WE ARE. Just so wonderful.

But we watched the ads anyway, if for nothing more than we like ads. I'd like to think we're not swayed by them. Paul would disagree, but then again, he does have to corral me at the "impulse" stations in the checkout lane at any store we go to. Paul also had a great observation last night that the cost of making one ad and paying its airtime would feed the entire nation of Eritrea for a year. And he's probably right.

The ads weren't that great this year. I think the latter half of the game made up for it. The football was better then, and we made these (I'd NEVER had a sloppy joe. These were excellent!)
Thankfully, too I missed Christina Aguilera's flub earlier in the broadcast because I was at the grocery store.

But this ad was the greatest, and lo and behold there's actually a fantastic story to accompany it. It's cut off for some reason; you may have to click it to see the full screen.

Here's the story. The child, who is simply adorable under his Vader gear, is actually a heart patient at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles.