Happy Easter 2011

I hope everybody has a wonderful Easter weekend. Its not the same without little kids and easter baskets and chocolate bunnies and egg hunts and all of that fun stuff. Still, we went with Dad and Barb down to Morehead City and had a really delicious lunch at the Sanitary Fish Market. My shrimp and scallops were amazing. And we got to meet friends of Barbs, Tommy and Carol. They are a really nice couple who have a home down there near the beach. Barb hadn't seen them since Stephen and Hannia got married 3 years ago. We hit a couple of the cute little shops there, and rode around and took a "home tour" of the gorgeous houses on the waterfront in Beaufort. It was a nice day.

Tomorrow we have reservations for the special Easter brunch at Chef's 505. The one time we did that, it was really good. I hope it doesn't disappoint. They only do a buffet brunch twice a year....Easter and Mother's Day. I managed to get our reservations, but the guy on the phone said the spots were filling up quickly. I think Dad and Barb are driving back to Danville tomorrow afternoon. No eggs or chocolate bunnies for us though. It makes me a little sad........

A lesson in futility

I have a little Easter centerpiece decoration for our dining room table. I fix it, put the little tree back up with all its tiny spring decorations, put the candles back upright, and make sure they are straight. And no matter how many times I do this, within a few hours I come back to find this:



And THIS is my suspected culprit.



See? She even looks guilty, doesn't she????

We survived the storms....

We survived the storms that tore through our state (NC). I swear we were so lucky. We had tornadoes touching down all around us....in Raleigh, Wilson, Farmville, and Kinston. A lot more hit further north. There was tornadic rotation over Greenville, we could see it from our house, but I don't think it ever touched down. We had high wind and the clouds were churning like mad. We barely even got rain here. A few brief downpours that lasted only a couple of minutes here and there. I read that Kinston, or was it Vanceboro? had hail that was an inch and a half in diameter. No hail here thankfully.

The whole thing lasted about 2 hours. Several storms moved through one right after the other. But we managed to stay in this safe little path as they passed over just east or west of us. Bruce spent a good part of the evening outside just watching how crazy the sky looked. I ran in and out but the wind was chilly and I just wasn't into it enough to stay out there for long at a time.



This is one of the pictures we took of the tornado passing over Greenville. You can see the darker patches that reach down from the bank of storm clouds. It was so loud outside. There was a long rumbling of thunder that never seemed to stop. It just kept growling and roaring with no breaks in the sound. Crazy.



Because we were directly in between 2 separate storm cells, getting the outskirts of the action, we would occasionally catch of glimpse of blue sky in the midst of an angry rolling bank of clouds. It didn't last for long. A glimpse here and there and then it would disappear as quickly as we saw it.

Anyway, having seen a lot of coverage of how awful it was for so many people I am just so thankful we were spared the worst of it. I know its crazy, but I kept thinking about our cats and what in the world would we do if our house was flattened.
How could I keep them from running away scared into the storm? And where in the world would we stay while our home was rebuilt (or repaired)?? I don't know many hotels that welcome 4 pets for an extended visit. I have no idea what we would do, but we would need to stay around here to work, and to supervise the rebuild and all.
Bruce suggested that I get the cats in to the vet to be microchipped. You just never know, living here in tornado/hurricane country when a disaster might rip through and pets get out and run away. I mean, we DID have a huge pecan tree fall through the house once....and that was one night I would never want to repeat again in my life.

Storm

This deadly storm that killed 16 people so far is on its way to us right now. Within an hour or 2 of hitting. We have gotten stuff out of the yard, flowerpots off of the porch, and so forth and so on. I hope my little garden plants survive the wind. They are just too small to stake up yet. Also? I hope we have no loss of electricity. The power can go out for next to nothing here....although I will say that it has gotten better in the past few years. I have loads and loads of laundry to do (stripping beds and stuff), so I just want to be able to be done with it.

Anyway, the approaching storm is cramping my style this weekend...LOL. Can't be outside (well, Bruce did do some yardwork earlier this morning, but its growing darker and the winds are really picking up), don't want to shop or run errands and get caught in a downpour, so I am just hanging out catching up on house stuff. Boring for a Saturday that I actually have OFF. Ok, I am not going to complain anymore. I am thankful to NOT be out there working when it starts. Hoping that the Greenville carriers all make it back in safe and sound before the s@$t hits the fan, so to speak. Be careful ya'll. And yes I definitely said "Ya'll". I'm a southern girl and am entitled.

Its time for a....uh....garden, or whatever

I'm not the gardening type. I don't like dirt, or bugs, or being outside once the temps get above 80 or so. I definitely despise to sweat. And given all of that, gardening has never been a hobby of mine. But this year, driven by the high costs of tomatoes, we decided to plant just a few things. A very few, but its way more than I usually do, which is nada, zip, zero.

Bruce decided that container gardening would make it easier. No weeding, fewer soil-based diseases and fungus. But he also thought it would be best to submerge them mostly underground to keep roots from scorching in this brutal heat we have every summer. And hopefully it will keep moisture from evaporating as fast as it might if the containers were just sitting outside on a porch or something.



Note that we (meaning Bruce) decided that it was best to plant INSIDE the fence, because seriously we have a gazillion deer rampaging the countryside, eating every tender green thing that they can find. He also plans to use the fence for staking the tomatoes, so it serves a double purpose.

We got the plants in yesterday. Like I said, not a lot. 4 Better Boy tomato plants, 2 cherry tomatos, and 4 bell peppers in green, red, and yellow. I also planted some catnip in the cats enclosed area....and basil inside. The basil is so I can continue my Margherita pizza addiction.



And one more thing that makes me happy? He set up a rain barrel for watering. I like it because it makes me feel like I am being a little bit earth friendly by conserving water. Bruce says its way better to water plants with non-chlorinated, non fluorinated water.



So wish me luck. I am sure you long-time, experienced gardeners are laughing at my tiny little container garden, but its a start. I just hope it does well. My mouth is watering for fresh tomatoes and peppers right this minute. LOL.

Coupons

I was just watching that new show "Extreme Coupons" Or couponing (is that a verb?). I have read about people who can scavenge coupons plus store deals and buy 500 dollars worth of groceries for 5 bucks, or something. This show proves one thing to me....I don't have the patience for it. People put more time and effort into it than a full time job. Hours a day finding coupons, researching lowest store prices, driving all over town at all hours of the day and night, and this one couple spent 5 hours in one store. 5 HOURS!!! Just shoot me. As much as I hate grocery shopping there is NO WAY in hell that I would spend 5 hours in there. Not even for amazing savings.

The other part of the couponing scene that I don't like....all of these people have massive stockpiles of surplus stuff that they don't need, can't possibly use up or eat up before expiration dates. Almost everything has an expiration date on it. I check our canned goods fairly regularly and I try to put the stuff with the closest expiration dates up front so we can be sure to use them first. I don't want piles of crap. Not anywhere. Not in my pantry or garage or basement (we don't actually have a basement but if I did, I wouldn't want it full of unnecessary stuff). These people looked like hoarders. Although the few we saw on this one show, the only show we have watched and probably ever will watch, had tons of extra storage shelving units to hold all of the crap. It was organized hoarding. I suppose that if I had nothing else in my whole entire life to do (like THAT is ever gonna happen) I might attempt this once in a while and then take the excess over to the homeless shelter/food bank. That way I wouldn't be storing stuff just to throw it away when it goes bad. But still.....no matter what, I don't think I could stand to be in a grocery store for 5 hours.

Also? Bruce was pointing out that not only do the cashiers probably find these people to be annoying bitches (and bastards, cuz some of them were men).....I would be feeling positively homicidal if I got behind one of them in the check out line. Oh well, these folks seemed to approach it as a game. See how much crap I can get for the least amount of money. And really, this one couple did walk out with almost 600 dollars worth of stuff for about 25 dollars. But they had to be at the store BEFORE 6am, and they also had to call 5 of their friends and beg them to come down to the store to help them get the full discount. I don't know why exactly because I was starting to feel annoyed with the whole thing, but I imagine that it was some kind of limit per customer or something. And if one of my friends had the audacity to call and ask me to randomly run down to the grocery store before 7 in the morning just to score a few bucks off of some product that they probably had dozens of others just like it on their hoarder shelves....? Well, I would have to reconsider that friendship. Or at the very least, never answer a call from them ever again. Leave a message and if its not stupid I might call you back. At a reasonable hour.

Can you tell this thing got on my nerves? And that it is highly unlikely that I will ever get my jollies doing this competitive coupon thing. And you can bet your entire bank account safely on the odds that I will NEVER be in a grocery store for 5 hours. Half an hour makes me start to feel kind of overwhelmed and anxiety ridden. Too much stuff, too many choices.....I am about to hyperventilate just thinking about it. Funny but I really do get stressed about shopping for food. But when faced with several full FLOORS of shoes at the mother Macy's store in NYC...? I thought I had died and gone to heaven. If there were extreme couponing for shoes.....well, I would have to rethink this entire post.

Margherita Pizza

Hands down this is my favorite pizza of all. And I really do love pizza. The Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple runs a close second. I finally attempted to make it at home this week, and it was so delicious we ended up making it twice. Monday AND Friday. Well, I had all of this fresh basil left over so it just called for a repeat pizza night. LOL.

Friday evening Erica called while I was making the pizza. I hadn't talked to her in almost a week so I was happy to hear from her. Apparently I have trouble multi-tasking. I talked on the phone and put together the pizza, getting it ready to put in the oven. As I was sliding it in onto the pizza stone it occurred to me that something wasn't quite right, but I was still talking to Erica so I closed the oven door and didn't give it a second. Until about 2 minutes before the timer went off to tell me that the pizza was done. I made the whole thing and totally FORGOT the basil. Thats the most important part....lots and lots of fresh basil!!!! I took it out of the oven and sprinkled it heavily with chopped basil and stuck it back in, hoping for the best. And actually? It was delicious. The basil melted in the cheese and you wouldn't have been able to tell that I screwed it up....Ha.

Anyway, if you are interested here is a quick synopsis of the recipe. You don't have to be exact with it. Thats the beauty of pizza, you can be creative. It is best on a thin crust. Stephen and Hannia make their own crusts. We have attempted that, but find that the thin crust at the grocery store by "Mia" is the best. Not to mention that its infinitely quicker and easier.

Sauce: 1/4 cup of olive oil
Chopped fresh garlic (don't be stingy, the more the better)
1/8 tsp. of salt
a roma tomato chopped really finely

Let the sauce sit for about 30 minutes to let the flavors mingle, then spread it over the thin crust. Cover that with shredded mozerella cheese. Add thin slices of Roma tomatoes (as many as you can fit on there. It took me about 3 or so.). Cover the whole thing liberally with chopped fresh basil, again don't be stingy. The more the better. I sprinkle a tad more salt over the whole thing for good measure. Not much, I am stingy with the salt. I sprinkle a little more cheese on top to seal the deal and then cook at 450 degrees until the cheese is browned and bubbly. It takes about 4 roma tomatoes and 8 ounces of mozerella total. And it is OMG delicious. In fact, I am craving it again now.