I wanna pick a pepper!

I think there are two peppers in our garden that are ready to be picked :) I've been eying them for a few days, and I think today's the day. I'll have to wait on Britt to come home though...I would be sad if he picked our first veggie without him, so I'll wait. In the meantime, I wonder how I could use the pepper in our dinner tonight? It's a banana pepper, so we may just put it on a salad or something. I bought some fish yesterday while I was in Birmingham, so I think that's what's for dinner tonight. Last night we did grilled tuna steaks...yum.

I'm still looking for a job for next year...but it's not looking good right now :( There just aren't a lot (or any) schools looking for an English teacher. There is one school that I've been talking with, but it's still 45 minutes away from here. I would kill to have a job in my town! (not really kill...but you know what I mean). I keep telling myself that there's a plan for next year, I just don't know what it is yet. I've applied to all secondary schools close by, so now all I can do is sit back and wait. If I don't have a job next year, the plan is for me to continue subbing every day. As long as my car doesn't go kaput, that will work out fine.

The pups went to the vet on Monday for their annual check up and vaccines. Chloe was a sport like always and Tonka was afraid of everything...the scale, the table, the vet, everything except the treat at the end!

Some pictures from the garden:

Yummo

Seriously, I don't really like it when Rachel Ray says, "yummo" but I couldn't help myself :)

Yesterday afternoon, I made blueberry cobbler....with blueberries from our YARD! How cool is that? They are much smaller than grocery store blueberries and Britt says it's probably because they're not hyped up on fertilizer, etc. Nonetheless, about midway into the cobbler-making process, Britt decided to Google "poison berry pictures" for comparison. Nothing resembled our berries, so we ate it. All of it. In one night (and breakfast). Anyways, we're still alive.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Our garden is growing :) Earlier this week, Britt and I put in an hour or so weeding the garden. I was so excited because there are baby tomatoes and baby peppers (banana). Everything else is flowering, so I know more veggies are to come. Here are some pictures.

Messy Things

Ok, so I've been back from the beach for three days. The beach trip was wonderful :) I had so much fun catching up with all of my sweet girls. I don't think we've (8 AOII alums) have been together at one time since the year Andrea and Barbi went alum. It was so neat to see how our personalities and lives have changed over the years. We decided to make it an annual get together. It's fun to think about what next year might bring. Engagements, weddings, babies?? ok so maybe not babies quite yet. At least not for me...I think, anyways. Anywho...

So like I was saying, I've been back for 3 days and my house is a disaster. I don't even have the words to describe how messy and dirty it is right now. I can never seem to keep the floors clean with the pups and Ruby (and Britt). Most nights, Britt and I are so exhausted from working in the yard or just working that we rarely do the dishes after dinner (gross, right?!) My suitcase is laying open on our bathroom floor and it looks like it puked up my closet. I don't even know what's clean and what's dirty, so I'll probably have to wash everything. Our guest bedroom looks like my classrooms exploded in it. I don't have anywhere to put all of my resources, books, etc. All of this, and more, sent me to the internet today looking for a basic cleaning schedule (Ashley is probably dieing laughing at this...she was so neat in college. Even today I can call her and she will be cleaning her bathroom for like the 3rd time this week!) What I found was this website FlyLady and as cheesy as it is, I LOVE it. I'm still reading through a lot of the material, but I think the basic premise is that you start with Beginner BabySteps that eventually build on each other to become the habits of a clean lady :) So today, I shined my sink, Step 1. I skipped ahead a few steps (I was an eager FlyBaby today) and Britt is already laughing at my post it notes on the mirror. I'll keep you posted on how this works out for us.

Speaking of us...I don't know how in the world Britt puts up with my messes. I mean, don't get me wrong, he has messes of his own, but nothing compared to mine. I seriously don't know how I got so lucky to find such a sweet husband. Do you know he does our laundry? Mine is folded in a basket by my dresser. Last night, I was nodding off on the couch when he finished folding. He said, "You don't have to do it tonight, but can you put these away? Before the end of the week?" So cute! :) So I have until Friday. Haha. I sound like a horrible wife. But I'm not. I promise. I make yummy dinners and eggs in the mornings. I do all the vacuuming. Speaking of dinner...it's ready. Hot dogs...yummy. We're trying to eat what we have before going back to the store.

Sweet Things

Britt and I were mega-blessed at all of our showers before our wedding. I think I have every cool kitchen gadget ever (minus the KitchenAid mixer, which I'm asking Santa for this year). Since there's not much to do around Guin (unless you want to sit with the teenagers in the Jacks parking lot or browse Freds or the hardware store) I've become pretty handy in the kitchen if I do say so myself. I have perfected the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookie (thanks to my awesome cookbook from Ashley), I'm pretty good at brownies, and have tried a ton of new dinner recipes. Along with all of my successes, however, come failures :(

On Britt's birthday (right after we got married) I tried to make a lemon pound cake from a friend's family recipe--gross. My cake was super-dry and stuck to the inside of my bundt pan. It was a disaster and Britt wanted Gingerbread men instead. Those were better :)

I tried a Grilled Tuna with Soy-Ginger Glaze--I don't know if the tuna was bad, or what...but it totally sucked. The coconut rice that went with it was decent though. I can make a yummy lasagna, wild mushroom risotto, a great orzo pasta salad, and some bomb asparagus with roasted garlic.

Britt's been pretty involved in the kitchen too. In fact, I think he is as addicted to Food Network as I am! We love Down Home with the Neely's and Giada's Weekend Getaways. Britt's been using our fry daddy..correction.. baby a lot...pork chops, potatoes, pickles (for me)!

Last weekend, I decided I'd try my hand at another cake. I decided to make a Chocolate Mound Cake--three layer yellow cake with marshmallow-coconut filling and homemade chocolate icing. All I can say is that the icing was yummy. Everything else...yuck. Again, my cake was way too dry. I had to pour milk on it just to taste the stupid thing. I guess the filling was too heavy too because it all but crumbled when Britt tried to cut it.

green things

In the spirit of Earth Week (and living in the country and trying to save some mulah), Britt and I planted a vegetable garden last week. We started everything (except the tomatoes) from seed in peat pellets in our garage about a month ago. Some things just didn't make it though. Luckily, however, most did. So after Britt used the tiller (thanks to our wedding Lowes giftcards) we put everything in the ground. He dug the holes, I filled them with a little miracle grow potting mix, and then we both planted the little veggies. Since then we've been watering like crazy and I've used some Miracle Grow once.

Here's what we're expecting to grace our kitchen in June/July:

6 Corn plants (although my kids at school say corn doesn't grow well around here...)

12 Cabbage plants (red and green)

18 Pepper plants (jalapeno, banana, and bell)

18 Tomato plants

6 Pea plants

6 Bean plants (Britt did the beans/peas and didn't label, so I'm not sure what type)

6 Okra plants

5 Carrot plants

? Eggplant (again, Britt didn't label, so we'll be surprised)

4 Cucumber plants

6 Squash plants

the pups and ruby