Garden Update, 7 Things and Imma Schmooze!

I really am cooking.. it's not all salads and chicken breasts, really. In fact, last night's dinner was SO GOOD, but that's coming in a later post (as well as what promises to be the most decadent cake I've ever had the displeasure of trying to make - look for the next installment of Kitchen Disasters soon as well! :D ). But this post is all about our lil garden that is bursting at the seams, a meme I was tagged for by The Cooking Ninja (Thanks!!) and holy hell.. I've been given an award - a Schmooze award! hahahhaaaaa! We'll start this off with a pictorial - My lovely and dear friend Sara who has been keeping us updated on her very organized and awesome garden, has asked us to show her our gardens and how they've progressed. At first I almost hesitated for a second because showing ya'll our garden would totally "out us". You see.. where we spend hours each week making our flower beds look totally smashing, our garden doesn't usually get as much care and well ohmygod you are going to see all of our weeds. *blush* I feel so dirty. But, having opened up to the blogging world just this week by presenting to you such a loverly and charming picture of moi, the dainty flower that I am, I figured ya'll would be able to handle the shock of seeing our dirty lil garden secret. DO NOT JUDGE US!! Shall we get started? :) Clicking on any of the photos will bring you to my Flickr account where you can see bigger versions if you so desire. These would be photos of the "East Wing" where our Zucchini and Cucumbers are threatening to take over the whole area, as well as our tomatoes vying for a shot to do the same.. and our poor bell peppers stuck in the middle with no way of escaping. On the left is my grape tomatoes. But I think I've been hornswoggled. Yes, hornswoggled. I've never seen grape tomatoes get so fakkin long and big - so I can't help but to wonder if some jackass wrongfully labeled them? Gah. They are tasty though! We've actually harvested FIVE of them. Woo. On the right is a lil beefsteak mater, I'd say in it's teenage years? We've got a while before those are ready. Our really rather huge yellow bell peppers - although they haven't turned yet. And from what I remember of our yellow bells last year, they were at least starting to turn by the time they got this huge - the fakking, hornswoggling bastard probably labeled these wrong too. Gah. And yeah.. I hate green bells. Go figger. On the left is just one of the ELEVENTY BILLION burpless cukes that are in that nest of leaves and vines. This one has another day or two before it should be picked. On the right are some cute zucchini flowers getting ready to open up. I couldn't get a shot of any zucchini on the plants because we picked the easily seen ones before I realized I should be taking pictures. Doh. Here is yesterday's harvest.. 2 big zukes and 3 rather oddly shaped cukes. Rather oddly? The middle of our garden was host to a HUGE patch of leaf lettuce. Unfortunately, the first harvest was chock full of lil squishy slugs. Needless to say, as I was washing it and discovering the lil fakkers I was completely squicked out. So squicked, in fact, that I couldn't fathom eating it.. so we dug it up and then planted seeds in a container hoping to avoid the nasties - so far so good! :D The "West Wing" holds 4 finally forming heads of cabbage. As you can see, it looks more like Swiss cheese. We're not sure if we're going to win the battle against whatever is eating it. *sigh* On the right is our Swiss Chard - avert your eyes to the pretty yellow and red lined leaves.. DO NOT make eye contact with the weeds!! Gah. And saving the best for last... Can you see it?? squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Just THE cutest baby Eggplant EVER!!! I am so excited about this as I've never grown my own eggplant and didn't know how the plant would fare.. this lil beauty is just one of FOUR. heeee!!!!!!! So there you have it.. our garden. Definitely the best harvest of 90% of everything we've planted this summer. Only 2 failures - the radishes weren't happy and all but one bush bean plant took - I was too embarrassed to get a shot of it with it's wrinkly lil beans hanging off it all pathetic like. We prolly should have pulled it to put it out of it's misery. Moving on to a meme that I was tagged for by the very talented cook, The Cooking Ninja! This one is titled "7 Random Things About Me" - well, that's kinda hard as I've already listed 100 random things about me.. But here goes: 1- Over the past few years, I've suddenly developed a terrifying fear of heights. Just the thought of being somewhere high up now makes my heart pound. Which blows me away as I've always been the first in line for the tallest roller coasters at Cedar Point and standing out on the deck over looking The Grand Canyon was never a problem. I think it might have something to do with a reoccuring nightmare I've been having.. which I'm not going to get into here - but it involves a cruise ship and Nigel. *shudder* 2- Bugs. Motherfakking nasty-ass bugs. I HATE them with a Burning! Searing! Passion! I refer to spiders as "Monsters" and even the tiniest one is always met with me yelling for Hubbs to KILL THE MONSTER. Ants? Terrified. The common housefly? Sends shivers down my spine. Butterflies? As long as they aren't near me, I can handle - but if the lil bastards start fluttering my way, I'll take cover. I won't even tell you what kind of reaction I have to bees, wasps and other stingy-bitey mofo's - you might think me weird. :P 3- I'm a habitual locker upper of doors. I can't sleep at night if I've forgotten to "make the rounds" and locking up the front and back doors. It's so bad, that when I come in from the back yard, I unconsciously lock the slider behind me.. which pisses Hubbs off to no end when he's a few steps behind and walks into it or wrenches his shoulder as he tries to pull it open. hee. 4- I firmly believe that my bitch-cat could possibly be my father. Or someone else we love that passed. Seriously. I'll try to keep this short (yeah right) - she showed up one day while I was still living with my mommie after my dad passed.. just outta the blue. She'd leave each night and show up again the next day. Then I started to feed her. Then my mom started to feed her. Then we started to let her in (my pooch Jiggles Lu had recently passed, so I think both of us were starving for 4 legged furry love) during the day. One day my mom decided to take a nap, so she gets in her bed, under the covers, when her feet touch something. She pulled off the sheets and comforter to find cat poo. UNDER THE BEDDING. Ohhh my lordie she was NOT a happy camper. She calls me at work (as if I could do anything being over an hour away) and screams at me that we're taking the F'n cat to the Humane Society the next day. I was against this.. she wasn't a kitten, so I didn't think she'd have a good chance of getting adopted and I did not want to put her to her death over mistaking my mom's bed for a litter box. hee. We went round and round about this for days until finally I told her I'd go with her so she'd shut the hell up. We put her in the cage we bought for her and got into my car. Car wouldn't start and I ended up flooding it. So we get out, cat included. Couple minutes later, I go back out to try it again and it starts right up. I go get my mom and the cat and when they get into the car, it doesn't stall out once I put it in gear - it just quits. And it won't start again. We looked at each other and she spoke first, "I'll pick up a litter box and food dishes after work today." I've had her ever since (about 7 years now). 5- I'm a movie freak fanatic. Each and every Tuesday when the new movies come out on DVD I am at the Blockbuster first thing. I never miss a Tuesday. I always rent all the new ones, regardless of how many came out that day and then I spend the rest of the week stressing myself out because I have to watch all of them. 6- I watch the Simple Life. (don't hate me) 7- I'm always cold. You'd think with my padding that I'd be nicely insulated, but that isn't the case. I do get hot in the summer and I'll kick on the central air, but just minutes later I'll be shivering and putting on a sweater. At work, my teeth actually chatter at times. I wear a sweater or jacket year round at my office. 'kay that hurt! Sorry if they were lame, but I kept checking the 100 list and finding that I'd already listed what I was going to include in this list! hahaha I guess I get to tag 7 more people.. and I think this lil meme has been out for a while, so if you've already been tagged, I apologize and if you haven't been tagged yet but hate memes, I apologize. :P 1- Gracie 2- Kelly - yes I know you've done the 8 Random thingies, but you haven't done any memes on Sass. And uhh.. I KNOW there are more than just 8 random thingies about you. :D 3- Morven 4- Sis 5- Cheryl 6- Marce 7- Sara And finally!! My dear, sweet friend, Kelly of Sass and Veracity AND Kellementology (a must read - is hilarious) has given me a Schmooze award. heeee! Apparently she thinks I've made a lil bleep on the surface of the blog reading world with my incessant chatter and fondness of leaving dorkie comments. HAR! No really, this award was created by Mike of Ordinary Folk and Danielle of Pink Reviews to "recognize people who have a positive influence on the blogging community by developing and nurturing relationships. You know — commenting on other’s blogs, joining in on and sustaining a “blogversation.”" I stole that quote from Kelly. shhh I thank you, my sweet girl, for thinking of me and awarding me this very cool award. I think I'm blushing. :D Better than receiving this award is actually getting to pass it on to some people who I feel are worthy of such a nice thing! There are SO MANY I wish I could give this too, but from taking a que from Kelly, it looks like I might only be able to give this to five people. =( Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups - Not only does this sweet lady make an effort to comment on all of her favorite blogs, but her comments are always so uplifting and supportive. Thank you, Tanna =) Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen - Patricia is another beautiful gal who you'll see commenting on many blogs with such sweet things to say. She always brings a smile to my face once I've read one of her comments. Thank you, Patricia =) Helene of Tartelette - Not only does Helene make a conscious effort to support all of her favorite blogger friends, but she also goes that extra step in trying to help anyone who has a baking question. Her advice is always spot on and I, for one, am quite grateful for all of her baking advice and tips. (Which I took advantage of, last night when I called her freaking out AGAIN. hee.) Thank you, Helene =) Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms - I've said this many times before - just thinking of Elle makes me smile. This gal can make you feel good about yourself on your worst days! I'm mighty grateful to have the pleasure of meeting her! Thank you, Elle =) And last but not least, Mary of The Sour Dough - I have a feeling that Mary might have been a cheerleader in her youth? You can guarantee that when Mary leaves you a comment (which she does often and everywhere) you'll feel as if you've just conquered your biggest fear and not just that fakkin' chocolate cake. Mary is a woman who, no matter how rough things might get, puts you and what you're going through in front of herself. She's definitely one of a kind. And Thank You, Mary =) Again, I wish this list could be longer because it'd include every gal up there who got tagged for the 7 Random Things meme as well as Ivonne, Brilynn, Jenny, Morv, Mary, Laura, Gilly, Meeta, Karen, Kelly-Jane, Gattina, Deborah, Kirsten and OHMYGOD So! Many! More!! This is a great community to be in - virtual or not, I count myself extremely lucky to be a part of it. Much love to you, everyone! :D OMG I'm so late for work.. heee! xoxo