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Tuesday, 08 June 2010

It's Raining Snakes!

So late yesterday afternoon we found out that flying squirrels hang out in our trees in the back yard. We didn't figure this out because we saw the cute little guys scurrying around, though. I was hanging out on our papasan swing that we had just "installed" on one of the water oak trees outside when we heard something in the branches above. John watched as something crashed through the branches and landed right at his feet. I was still in the swing. I got out of the swing when he said, "Oh my god, that's a snake." I don't know if you know this, but I love snakes. So I got out of the swing and there was a Texas Rat Snake on the ground with a fuzzy little flying squirrel in his grasp. With all the excitement of falling over 20 feet out of a tree and its discovery by two humans, a dog, and a cat, the snake quickly abandoned its meal and started slithering away. I didn't want it to climb up the same tree that we swing from (John hates snakes) so I apprehended the squirrel killer.
Here is the abandoned meal just as John is about to bury it in the yard.

Pretty small for a rat snake. It probably needed that meal...

Small but pretty.

I like it when they have that ruddy color showing between the scales.

I put him up against another water oak tree in the yard and he climbed up and disappeared (not quite as quickly as he appeared, though.) Anyway, it made for a pretty spectacular ending to an afternoon of planting flowers. (And I thought I'd be able to relax on that papasan swing!)

Monday, 07 June 2010

Birthday Cake!

Yeah, so all these super duper awesome fantabulous cake shows on TV made me want to try something special for John's birthday cake. He's been talking about Futurama lately (new episodes start June 24 on Comedy Central) so I thought I would try the Planet Express ship. Here is how it was done (with the help of my awesome amiga Miche)...

First, made some cake:

Then, stacked and shaped said cake into something blocky that resembled something that we thought we could surely later decorate and make look like Planet Express ship...

Then, we frosted. But we forgot to glaze first. So the frosting ended up picking up chunky chocolate cake. Big mess. Lesson learned.

I was going to make my own fondant. But then I thought that maybe I shouldn't risk it because I really had no idea what I was doing at all. So I broke down and bought the yucky store kind. I figure no one really ever eats fondant anyway. I think we all just peel it off before eating the cake. (You know, like with a banana.) Here is our little work area:

We rolled out the fondant and draped it over the cake.

We smoothed it out pretty much the best we could and then started decorating...
Here's M attaching a peanut butter cup to the back for the engine:

Here I'm adding the red stripe

Here we are making the little window-porthole thingies...

That's a peanut butter cup on top covered in fondant. Later, it will turn into one of the ship's guns.

And this is the final product after we wiped off all of the powdered sugar. We used tons of fondant, some of it we dyed (red), some of it was pre-dyed that we mixed to form the green. Those are lifesavers stuck on with black icing out of a squeeze thingie (windows), the windshield is white fondant lined with black icing, the "wings" are made out of paper, and the gun is made out of part of a chocolate bar covered in fondant. Miche made that... so she's the one who subconsciously put a phallus on top of the ship. All in all, I was satisfied with out first try. I've learned a lot and I have something even better planned for next year. :)

Woo!

Wednesday, 02 June 2010

Check out our plants!!! Episode 1

I've decided that I am going to blog about our plants now and again. Because I am proud of them. And because we are awesome.
Today, the focus is on our awesome vegetable garden:
We have an eggplant! There's the flower and the fruit. :-p

We also planted some flamboya seeds from a pod that we brought back from the RGV. We didn't think they would do well here at all but here's a start! Not a vegetable, but I wanted to include it anyway. :)

It also looks like our potatoes are about ready...

And overall, our vegetable garden is looking pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. We planted artichoke, black beans, cucumber, zucchini, potatoes, red onions, corn, eggplant, jalapenos, watermelon, lettuce, spinach, and bell peppers. We have marigolds planted here and there along the perimeter. Those are all looking great. The jalapenos and eggplant that we planted with seeds haven't come up, but the ones we transplanted are doing great. Also MIA are the lettuce, spinach, artichoke, and bell peppers. Everything else is looking really good. I'm really disappointed about the artichoke, though. Here's a full view of our veggie garden:

Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Quote

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings. Pearl S. Buck

Thursday, 03 December 2009

Goals for 2010

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. It's hard not to; it seems that every blog I follow is written by an extremely goal-oriented, passionate, and satisfied person.  (I guess you really need all of those traits to keep up a blog...) On top of that, one of the issues we've been discussing in my counseling sessions is my lack of true ambition.
So. I've made a decision. For the first time EVER, I am going to set some resolutions (goals, really) for the new year. Twenty-five of them to be exact, to make up for the twenty-five years of my life in which I made absolutely no effort to improve myself for the new year.
Luckily, I had a little help with ideas from some of the other blogs I've read.
1.   Run 50 miles per month
2.   Swim 5 miles per month
3.   Take 10 minutes out of every day to just relax, stretch, and meditate
4.   Write a song or a poem
5.   Write an RIS blog once a month (for as long as I am in RIS)
6.   In addition to the RIS blog, blog once per week
7.   Finish a short story
8.   Sing karaoke in public
9.   Never sleep in past 11am
10. Consume no carbonated beverages with the exception of alcoholic beverages (Let's be real)
11. Read 18 books
12. Take one awesome photo of John and me at least once a month
13. Master a standard clarinet concerto
14. Paint a picture
15. Plant something (a plant) into the ground
16. Visit three friends out of town
17. Go on a romantic weekend get-away
18. Eat more fruit
19. Bake something new and delicious each month
20. Try 25 new (non-baking) recipes
21. Blow up one of my photographs to poster size to hang up on the wall
22. Organize my photos
23. Play more tennis!
24. Be able to compliment myself about something at the end of each day
25. Come up with 100 goals for the year 2011
Come January, I'll start keeping everyone abreast of my progress.