Wolfhound

Allie loves playing with the big dogs at daycare, but today she finally met her match.  Not one, but TWO Irish Wolfhounds awaited her arrival at daycare and scared the $&%@ out of her.

Allie is bigger than the little white dog pictured, but you get the idea.  For the first time in many months she was back in the small dog playroom.

I don't blame her one bit.

Fashion Sneak Peek

I've been asked to model in a charity fashion show this weekend and had my fittings today.  Here's a sneak peek at what I'll be wearing.

Outfit #1: This will be paired with a matching jacket and a pink Kentucky Derby style hat.

Outfit #2: This will be paired with a black Kentucky Derby style hat.

Outfit #3: Almost looks like a maxi skirt in the photo, but these are pants.

Outfit #4: This is an additional outfit in case there's a gap during the show.  It can easily be thrown on, zipped up, and fill some time.

I bought dress #4 because I thought it would be the perfect little black dress to have on hand.  Plus, I'm a sucker for dresses with pockets.

Veggies

Our first veggies are growing!

cucumbers

peppers

tomatoes

We didn't grill home-grown veggies this weekend (hopefully soon!), but we had a nice Memorial Day cookout.  Here's the grill master at work.

The fresh corn was our favorite part - delicious!

Bubbles, Bubbles, Everywhere

Allie's daycare has FLAVORED bubbles and today was bubble day!

Are there flavored bubbles for humans?!

Holy Water

You know you work for a church when...

... the staff fridge contains holy water (next to the coffee creamer, of course).

Three Weeks Later...

It's been three weeks since we planted our herbs and veggies.  Here's what they looked like just after planting.

And here they are today!

Here's a breakdown of their progress.

• Tomato: The first tomato is nearly ready to be picked and a second isn't far behind.  There are also many, many more blossoms on the plant.
• Basil: This plant is growing like crazy!  It's about quadruple its original size.
• Rosemary: Not much growth but the plant seems to be healthy.
• Chive: This is the first herb we used.  We snipped some up to have on top of baked potatoes and it was delicious!
• Boxwood Basil:  One of the three original bunches on the plant died shortly after planting, but the two that are left continue to grow well.
• Parsley: This is growing like mad!  I might need to snip some for garnishes soon before it takes over the planter.
• Oregano: Slowly but surely growing and filling up the pot it's in.
• Peppers: One teenie weenie pepper just started to grow and two more blossoms are just starting to bloom.
• Cucumber: This plant is becoming a monster!  It just started growing some blossoms so we'll hopefully have some little cucumbers soon.  The plant is about to climb off the table in the meantime. 

Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I really enjoy the satisfaction of walking out on the patio while dinner is cooking and snipping a few herbs to use.  And, take note everyone, I haven't killed anything yet!

(knocks on wood)

Click and Clack

A couple of months ago there was a caller on Car Talk who lived in a cold climate and drove a Mazda Miata.  Not surprisingly, her Miata handles terribly in snow so she was asking for suggestions of how she could improve handling during winter.

Of course, Click and Clack had a great time talking about the process of getting a set of snow tires from the caller's house to the tire shop since the only car she owns is a Miata.  Basically, they mentioned driving one snow tire at a time to the shop since there is NO room inside the car and then driving each of the regular tires back home one at a time.

I had to laugh recently when I saw this Corvette outside a tire shop on my way to work.  They must be Car Talk fans who figured out a better way to get four new tires to the shop! 

One tire goes in the passenger seat (hanging out the window), two get tied onto the trunk, and a fourth goes... well, I couldn't figure out where the fourth was exactly.  The trunk?  Under the driver?  Other guesses?

This message brought to you by Bea Esser, the Car Talk PR Director.

MDW

Happy Mother's Day weekend to the Moms of J + A.

We love you both very much!

Retirement Tea

Each year our church hosts a really heartwarming retirement tea for those in our congregation who are retired as well as those from local retirement homes.  Twelve different volunteers each decorate and serve as a host/hostess for one of the tables and many others volunteer to make and serve food.

One of the couples in attendance was celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary (they were so cute together) and door prizes went to the oldest woman (98), oldest man (92), and person with the most grandchildren (19).

All of the tables were so beautiful that I thought I'd share a photo of each.

For entertainment the children from our church's preschool sang a song, a college music major home for the summer sang two songs, there was a handbell performance, and there were two handbell songs that everyone participated in by ringing chimes.  And as filler between performances there were many "old jokes" told.

It was so sweet to see how much fun those in attendance were having.  I hope someone will do this sort of thing for J and me in 50 years.

Just Because

Just because these photos made me laugh, a few of the other dogs at Allie's doggie fiesta.



The sombrero and seriousness crack me up.

So happy and derpy.

Somebody get this dog a modeling contract!

Fiesta

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Allie partied hard at her daycare's doggie fiesta.

Ole!

Book

A: "Should I be concerned that my doctor has this book in the exam room?"

J: "Only if there are pages marked for reference."

Ole!

Monday is Cinco de Mayo, so we started the celebration early by having chicken enchilada casserole for dinner last night.

We used local tomatoes from this week's produce delivery and a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.  Super easy!

Soon we'll be using our own home-grown tomatoes in our recipes.

But for now we only have enough for a tiny hamster sized portion.

Aww.