Seed Bank 2013

Here's all my seeds ready for planting for next year.

I have pie pumpkin and jack pumpkin seeds left over that I didn't use this year.  I'm going to try again but I won't put them outside.  I will leave them inside to grow.  :)

Here's seeds from my red bell peppers and my petite yellow bell seeds.

Here's seeds from peppers I got at the farmers market.  Red bell, green bell and purple bell pepper seeds.

I also save a few seeds from my first meyer lemon.  :)

If you would like some seeds to try growing something of your own let me know and I will get them to you.

Garden Update: Day 247

Well today I decided to clean up my garden.  The deck now sits empty with just a little bit of a container ring left.  That will go away after the rains wash it.

I dumped the grape tomatoes and the marigolds into my compost pile.  The container in the left of the picture is busted and will be taken to the trash dump.

I cleaned up the shed and put all my watering jugs neatly on a shelf.  I also stacked all the pots and closed up my potting soil bag.  I then swept out the shed.  :)  The pot on the table is drying in the sun.

I never took a picture of my pumpkins I got this year from Snead's Farm.  Here they are.  :)

I moved my peppers that are inside at my sunniest window.  I brought my lemon tree inside a few nights ago b/c we got frost.  Lemon trees don't like cold so I figured I better bring it in.  So, I made room and I also brought in my little rose plant.  I added some fresh soil to the peppers and to the lemon tree.  They all needed a little bit more.

I have several petite peppers turning yellow.  :)

My little rose bush is doing well.  :)  It's a very happy plant.

Ben and Katie's Engagement Party

My cousin, Ben is getting married to the lovely Katie.  She's from Nottingham and the wedding is set for July next year in England.  My Aunt Karen, and cousin Lora through them an engagement party yesterday.  The party was up in Fairfax at the Clubhouse of my cousin Lora's place.

This sign was hanging up on the front door.

Here's Ben and Katie.

This is the food table.  Lots of yummy apps.  There was also bbq that was catered in from Shawn's BBQ.  It's really good food!  :)

There was fally decor all about.  I loved all the pumpkins!

Some candy dishes too.

Another table with veggies, dip, cheese, crackers and fruit.

Some of the mums and other fally decor on the porch.

Here's Ben and Katie loading up their plates with BBQ.

Katie and some of Aunt Karen's friends talking.

I provided the Music and I took pictures.  This is the sound system I borrowed from Nate's dad.  It's such a simple set up and it's perfect for parties.

Here's the playlist Nate help me make for the party.

My Aunt made some tattoos.  Here's one that my cousin Heather's daughter is showing off.  

SHE SAID YES

Here's my cousin Heather's daughter with my cousin Lora's daughter.  They are splitting images of their mothers.  :)

The cake

Ben and Katie practicing the cake slicing.  :)

It was a nice day.  It was great to see some family members I haven't seen in years.  

On the way home we stopped off at IKEA.  We walked around and had dinner there.  I spent $8 on 2 cutting boards, some red mini Christmas baubles and some baking cupcake liners with Christmas baubles.

Garden update: Day 239

It's been a while since I last blogged about my garden.  Last week, we had a ton of rain here.  I was worried for my plants but they are actually doing okay.  I had to go out several times and dump out some of the excess water in the pots.  Looks like that helped them from getting too much water.

This is what I have left in my patio garden.  Marigolds, rose bush and my lemon tree.

Speaking of my lemon tree.......my lemon is yellow!!!!

Beautiful.  :)

I wanted to keep the lemon on the tree for a little longer since there was still some green towards the top but when I touched it to see if it was ripened it came right off.  :(  I read you can sit it in a sunny window to get some more sunlight to ripen a little more.  I'm gonna try that.  Then I gotta decide what to make with it.  :)

Look at the little baby lemons....

I can't wait to see these turn into big lemons.  :)

Lemon trees don't like the cold and we're getting some chilly nights so I'm gonna have to bring this little guy in soon.  I'll probably do that tomorrow or early in the week.

My grape tomatoes have just about had it.  There's a few green ones but I'm thinking that this is going to the compost pile soon.  I have a few tomatoes in my kitchen sill that I picked the other day.  I'm going to save the seeds from them to plant next year.  :)

Inside my pepper plants are still growing like crazy.  I have so many peppers on each plant.

This the little yellow petite pepper plant.  It's LOADED with peppers.  It's only a matter of time before they change to yellow.

My red bell pepper plant has a bunch of peppers too.  Here's just a few close up.  :)

As always thanks for reading.  :)

Work Food Swap

I organized a food swap at work.  I had about 12 people sign up for it and some that wanted to do it but wasn't able to make it.  

I decided for this first work food swap to make my homemade chocolate chip cookies and give a bottle of my homemade vanilla extract with each package of cookies.

I made some cute flyers with details on the event and how it works and hung them around work at various places.  One of my co-workers also had a good idea to make some individual flyers to personally hand out with some candy.  I made the flyers and her and her daughter passed them out.  :)

Here's the flyer I made to hang on the door of the radio conference room where we held the food swap.

Here's the set up.  Everyone bringing their goodies.  :)  Sam is setting up her yummy cheese dip.

We had 10 ppl participate.  Sharon D, Stacy, Hilary, Sam, Sue, Deirde, Gayle, Allie, Jane and myself.

I used the same template that the RVA Swappers uses for the swapping forms.  My list filled up pretty quickly.  We all sort of stuck with the list and traded with who signed on the lists.

I got cupcakes, cheesecakes, apple butter, muffins, and salsa verde.  I also snagged some leftover cheeseball and crackers to bring home.  :)

Here's the salsa verde.  Very good.  We've eaten it on top of some chicken breasts 2x this week.  :)

Here's the mini cheesecakes.  They were awesome.  They have a pineapple topping with a mandarin orange.

Here's the cupcakes.  I loved the frosting.  MMMMMM

We had a great time.  Everyone walked away with a ton of goodies that were all homemade.  We are going to do another one sometime in December.  :)

Later that evening, I saw the RVA Swappers article published in the Times Dispatch.  :)  Read it here.  I'm going to another RVA swap next weekend.  I just have to decide what I'm going to make.

Mexican Orzo SKillet

Last night, I made a dish that was inspired by this, Mexican Orzo Salad.

I'm calling mine Mexican Orzo Skillet.  Orzo is delicious.  I've made orzo a few times with other dishes.  Like my Sausage Orzo Skillet and my Parmesan Orzo with Asparagus and Bacon.

It turned out great and this is something I will be making again.  I might add some homemade taco seasoning to the mixture to make it have more zing.  We'll see...it's good without too.

You will need:

Orzo

Red onion

Chicken breasts

1 can light red kidney beans (drained)

1 can black beans (drained)

1 can corn (no salt added and drained)

1 bell pepper (red or green)

pico de gallo

lime juice

olive oil

minced garlic

salt and pepper

First, I washed and cooked up 2 chicken breasts.  While the chicken was cooking I drained my beans and corn and then added them to a bowl.  I boiled water for my orzo and cooked it.  I cut up a red onion and added it to the bowl.  I added the pico de gallo and sliced up bell pepper to the bowl with some lime juice, salt and pepper and then mixed it all together.  The colors are awesome.  It was like a rainbow.  I wished I'd taken a picture.  Maybe next time?  Once the chicken was done I cut it up into bite size pieces.  To my skillet, I added olive oil and minced garlic and then added the bowl of corn, beans, onion and pico to the skillet and cooked it up for a few minutes.  I then added the chicken and once the orzo was done I added that to the skillet too.  I added a little water and mixed everything real good and let it cook up.  I also added a little more lime juice to give it some more moisture.  Nate loved this and I found it very filling.  Yummy!  :)

Run for your lives Zombie 5k

Last year, Nate and I signed up to be Zombies in the Run for your lives Zombies 5k.  Our day ended up being canceled due to a Hurricane that came through.  But we were allowed to sign up again this year for another race and our tickets would transfer.  

Yesterday was the big day.  We drove an hour to the part of Maryland where the event was taking place.

We parked for free with our Zombie parking pass.  Once we parked we walked down to where buses were loading people to take to the area.

Here we are in line to get on the bus.

After the bus dropped us off we walked our way down to the event tents to check in.  Walking by we saw the first runners and first zombie horde on the course.  It was awesome.  I was hoping we would be in this area b/c then we wouldn't have to walk too far to our zone.

This girl zombie was a chaser and she did a good job chasing.

After we signed our waiver we checked in at the zombie tent.  This is where we found out that we were zone 2.  We didn't really know what that meant because the people there really didn't explain it.  It would be nice if they explained things better.  I guess they assume everyone has done this?

I saw the tent for where we had to go next.  Zombie transformation tent.  I got in line and Nate went to find a bathroom.  While in line I took a picture of runners just walking around.

We dropped off our bags at the Zombie baggage tent and then waited in line some more.  You could tell who's been a zombie before b/c they knew exactly what to do.  These zombies were getting their clothes shredded.  Nate and I skipped this part b/c I didn't want to take my clothes off right there and stand in my underwear.  LOL

We skipped the shredded and then waited in the line for the make up and then blood.

Here we are.  :)

Of course, this is before we had COLD blood splashed on us.  Nate looks like he just ate someone.  LOL

Here's some blood.

Nate

Me

This guy is getting blood thrown on him.  I wanted to take a picture of us all bloody but we were extremely bloody and I needed the blood to dry before I could take the camera out of my pocket.  I did have several ppl stop me to take my picture so hopefully someone will post my picture so I can see what I looked like drenched in the blood.  LOL

Here's some runners on the course.

More blood being thrown on the zombies.  Nate and I had enough blood so we didn't get a refill.  haha

Here's my fellow zombies.  The areas are broken up in 10 zones.  My zone (2) was in the exact area I was hoping for.  YEY!  The superman kid was awesome.  He was a good chaser.  He got so many flags.

Between runners groups we would get a little break to sit in the shade.  It was so hot outside.  We forgot to put sunscreen on before the makeup and I could feel the burn.  :(

After a while I moved from where I first stood so I was standing in some shade and so when we got our next break I didn't have to walk for to sit down and rest.  

Here's some runners going through some muddy water.  We were only allowed to grab flags on runners that had 3 or more flags that way the runners flags aren't all gone so early on.

Once our 3 hours was up we quickly got back to the Zombie tent so we could get our zombie perks.  Shirt, medal and beer ticket.  We could have hit the showers but we forgot to bring towels so we left with our makeup on and scared people on the way home.  haha

Here's my medal and shirt.

I managed to pull 4 flags off runners.  I didn't get a lot of flags compared to other zombies near me.  It was hard to see how many flags some of the runners had.  It would be better if it was broken up into colors so each zone knows what color flag to go for.  The purple flags were flags the runners paid $10 extra to have an extra chance so those were like the precious flags.  I managed to get one.  LOL  

Some of the runners need to learn to not be so mean.  I had one guy smack my arm and I called him out on it and then he said sorry.  I had several girls try to smack my hand or arm.  I have a few words I would like to share with them.  LOL  Some of the runners are cheaters too.  They hide the flags or roll them up so we can't snatch them.  NOT FAIR!  Oh, I also had a crowd of runners coming towards me as I was stumbling around.  They were being chased by one of my fellow zombies and he ended up crashing into me.  It hurt but luckily I'm just bruised and not injured.  I was just glad that I didn't fall to the ground.  Otherwise, I would really be hurting.

I won't do this race again.  I'm checking it off the bucket list!  Don't get me wrong, it was fun but I saw too many runners fall and get hurt.  One runner that fell was trampled on by other runners and he screamed out in agony.  It wasn't fun seeing that.  And some of the runners are mean to the zombies.  WE ARE'NT REAL so CALM DOWN!!!!  The zombies get abused.