Happy Holidays

• Thanksgiving morning, I jumped out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning.
• I spent half the day cooking a yummy applesauce spice cake (didn't have applesauce, so I made some!), cream cheese frosting, brownies, the most DELICIOUS cornbread I've ever had in my life, and some creamy cream cheese corn.
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• The corn was fantabulous. You use one bag of frozen corn (1.5 lbs. appx), some butter, and 4 oz. of cream cheese. Heat corn, add butter, add cream cheese, and try to keep your tongue in your mouth because one little taste will have you salivating the rest of the day.
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• The recipe for the cornbread:
  
  
  CORNBREAD RECIPE
  Note this substitution: I omitted the cayenne and used Pepper Jack cheese in place of the chedder. MMMMMmmm. Goood. It wasn't peppery-tasting, but gave it a great flavor.
  
• MIL made the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. It was all so yummy. We're still eating it three days later!
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• We put up our Christmas tree. I bought a cozy tree skirt on Etsy.com.
• I bought some pretty jewel-toned sequin and snowflake ornaments from Target, along with a little multi-colored, old-fashioned tree topper. I love my tree. I bought the tree from Home Depot. It's small, but not too small, and can fit on a tabletop to keep away from the cats and dogs. It's so twinkly and pretty.
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• The last two years, I was trying to work with a "tuxedo tree," which is basically a black tree with white lights. I bought it at Marshall's and thought I could do something cool with it. Didn't work. It was a like a little black hole and it did funny things to my eyes. The feathery bird ornaments I got for it were cool though!
• My birthday is in just a couple weeks and R wanted me to have the sewing machine of my dreams. I am now the proud owner of a Baby Lock Ellure Plus, which is far more than my dreams have ever taken me. It's unbelievable and more than I could ever have dreamed.
  SEWING MACHINE
  Now I just have to figure out how to work it!
  
• I feel so blessed. This just feels so much better than every other holiday season. Changing my job was the best thing I ever did for myself and those around me. Next week I will meet a friend from CA for the first time since I met her over three years ago on a blog site. I don't have the stress I had last year about work. In January, I'm getting a raise for my office position. R is home for a while, and that makes me happy.
• I love my life right now.
• My apple pie is in the oven and the timer just let me know it's ready to come out! Gotta love pie.

November

It IS November, right? Sometimes I have to remind myself. The weather has been so screwey this year, and it's hard to keep track of what is supposed to be happening. I read about snow in other parts of the country and R got stuck in the bad storm up in Wyoming, but here in the mid-south, we are having pretty darn good weather. The rain has given us a break, and the sun is just lovely!

We're having a great autumn with beautiful trees and colored leaves. Last year we didn't have the seasonal color we're getting this year. Makes me so happy to have signs of changing seasons.

I've started a project this week. I should really say I'm finishing a project. I started priming the living room quite a long time ago, and this week I finally decided to dive in and see if I can finish it. So far so good. I'm following a plan of action and just trying to paint the light at the end of the dark redecorated tunnel.

Rain

I just realized how long it's been since I've had anything to say!

Fall has crept up real fast, and there have been a few days where I wondered if fall forgot us and winter came early. It seems we've settled into a rainy, sloppy, sludgey mess. More rain that is possibly imaginable.

My garden was left to fend for itself through the rain, and as of a few days ago, there are some eggplants persistently hanging on. I was impressed by their ability to grow themselves without any help from me (egads!), but I'm sure the rain is helping. I'll have to make another pot of gumbo or make some eggplant lasagne for Thanksgiving.

R left town a few weeks ago, and it's been quiet and lonely without him. It's taken three weeks, but I'm finally finding a routine in his absence.

My quilting inspiration hasn't been with me for quite some time, but with the change in seasons and the cuddling with puppies during the storms, my motivation to sew is surfacing from every pore. So what's stopping me? Well, I need a project that motivates me enough to get on with it! I think I'll check out the patterns this weekend and get something ready.

The weather has kept me in "soup" mode, and I've made some terrific soups that last few weeks. Chicken noodle was my favorite so far.

• Saute medium chopped onion, chopped celery, and chopped carrots in small amount of oil in dutch oven or stock pot for appx. 5-10 mins.
• Add low-sodium chicken broth and simmer.
• Add egg noodles.
• Add chicken meat from precooked rotissere chicken.
• Season with poultry seasoning, thyme, sage, and bay leaf.
• Let simmer until noodles cook.

I think that's all there is to it. I didn't really follow a recipe, but rather just got an idea from other recipes. Anyway, it was soooooo verrrryyyyyy yummmmy. I think I'll make it again this week.

:)

Wiped out!

The aphids have LEFT the building!

That's right, my friends. They are gone. And I have one lovely okra flower and about six eggplant flowers. I am not optimistic that they will turn into the cornucopia I envisioned for my garden, but after the aphid/whitefly nightmare, I never expected to see another flower.

What I did:

I saturated the plants with Ortho Ecosense for outdoor plants. And then it continued to rain for another week. Last weekend the bugs were still there, so clearly one week of rain wasn't enough to wash them out. However, after the second week of rain, they are gone! Gone!! Gone!!! I wish I knew if the Ortho did it or the rain did it. I think it might have been a combination of the two. I did see some dehydrated buggers on the underside of the leaves, and I feel like that would have come from the Ortho. The rain clearly took care of the rest.

My corn is obliterated. Something's been feasting on the remnants. Today might be a good day to go clean up the stalks and pull what's left. I did some MAJOR deadheading on the eggplants today. I cut all the damaged leaves off, and the plant actually looks fairly healthy now. Thin, but healthy. Shocker!!

I wanted to do my mosaic ladybug house today, but I think R is expecting me to do some actual housecleaning today. Bwahahaha! Today is my rest and relaxation day! It would be a good day to clean, though, since he's not here. Maybe after a nap ;)

Saturday surprises

Okra! Not sure how this happened admidst the bug frenzy and rain, but it was a lovely surprise.


Something ate the shit out of my corn after the rain flattened it.


Peek-a-boo! I'm going to get you!

Addition

This is an addition to the last post.

I started reading up on aphid remedies on the internet, and I came across lemon juice, garlic, and pepper.

So I got a bottle of lemon juice and drizzled some on a leaf... no reaction from the aphids. So I sprinkled garlic powder on a leaf and got some obvious irritation by the bugs. Third, I sprinkled the chili powder on a leaf, and the aphids went nutso. It looked like they were writhing in pain, and I can't say I felt sorry for them.

I sprinkled lots of garlic powder and chili powder all over my garden. Since it's clear that I'm not going to be harvesting anything other than tomatoes for the remainder of the season, I figured it's a perfect time to do some experimenting with the bugs.

Next season, I will get beneficial bugs and plant lots of garlic around my garden. I'll plant marigolds to deter the squirrels. There were a few other things I'd read about, but now I've forgotten them! I really need to keep a list and get this planned out.

Wouldn't it be great if the garlic powder and chili powder kill my infestation?! I doubt it will eliminate it completely, but I feel pretty sure some of those buggers will be gone tomorrow.

Slacker!

I've been slacking on my blog lately. The aphids have discouraged my efforts and I abandoned the plants for two days. This is what I found this morning after two days of neglect.

• I was a little frightened to be out there amidst the takeover, and I have no idea what I'm going to do now since the plants are actually still growing larger. The pictures above show my eggplant and my pepper plants.
  
  

My carrots are a little obscured by the slow-growing ornamental, but the leafy tops look nice, don't you think? I wonder if aphids will attack carrots?

Before the hostile takeover, I decided to pluck some of my veggies. I used most of this lot for a gumbo soup. It's a shame about the eggplants, though... there would have been so many more if not for the aphids.

My tomato plants haven't been aphid-affected. This is what I managed to harvest this morning after two days of neglect. I will let them fully ripen in a sunny window and find a delicious recipe to honor their success in surviving the squirrels.

• My plan for next year is to go with the beneficial bugs. I'm also going to start my plants from seed, rather than risk bringing in a plant that might already have bugs.
• I bought two ladybug houses on eBay. R and I are going to decorate them using mosaic tiling. I thought that would be a fun project for one of the days he's home.
• I've been keeping myself busy in the kitchen the last couple weeks. R likes mushroom crepes, so we decided it was time to pull out the crepe maker and experiment a little. The result was phenomenal. Sauteed mushrooms and onions folded into a crepe and topped with a cheesy bechamel sauce. Following that, I made a layered Nutella crepe dessert topped with whipped cream. It was sooo yummy. It never occurs to me to take a picture of this stuff. I'm always way too anxious to just eat it.
• Today I think I'm going to try stuffed shrimp wrapped in turkey bacon. Still haven't decided what I'm going to stuff it with. Found a recipe online that uses artichokes..... And oddly enough, I just now realized Giada from the Food Network is making something using artichokes and bacon. Perhaps I should pay closer attention to the show and get some ideas!