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.

I fear.....

This is what I fear IF we ever decide to put in a pool.....LOL. I feel like Stephen Colbert (he has a bear phobia).

Bears....really!

If you know where we live, then you know that we are surrounded by 19 or so acres of pine trees. And when the weather is nice, we like to walk out there. Bruce keeps a clear path cut all around the perimeter, and it makes a nice place to take a stroll. But....we have bear. Is "bear" also plural? Or is it "bears"? I don't know, but whatever. We have black bear all over around this part of the state. People see them all the time right here around our house. And yesterday when I took a nice little stroll all by myself I got to the very back of the property, as far from our house, or civilization, as I could possibly be, where nobody could hear me scream (well, maybe....maybe not, but it IS way back there and its really isolated)...and suddenly I heard a loud crashing through the trees like something quite large was spooked and running away from me. It could have been a deer. We have loads of those too. But a few seconds later I came upon a huge, um, well a ginormous pile O' poop. And it was NOT from any deer, of that I am certain. Nor was it from the multitudes of bunnies we see all over the place. It looked more like an elephant had done its business there at the edge of the woods. I didn't imagine it. Bruce took a walk back there this evening and came back talking about the huge "pile" he saw on the path, too.

And now, I am spooked. Its where I like to walk. But is it safe? I mean, I realize there could be anything or anybody (thinking murderous axe wielding maniacs because I watch WAY too many scary movies) out there hiding in the trees. But the bear thing is NOT my imagination running away with me. They are real and they are out there. I am just trying to guesstimate the risk factor right now. I stay on the path, out of the trees. I walk in daylight. I read that black bears are people-shy and rarely attack humans. And still I am feeling nervous about being back there, especially by myself. Sometimes Bruce walks with me, but not always.......What would you do? I think I need to find a new place to walk.

ETA: After doing a web search of what bear... um, poop actually looks like (yes, I know its such an exciting way to spend an evening, right?), we have decided that it is definitely bear droppings. Or, as I learned tonight, known also as bear scat. Yay! I am already phobic of snakes. At this rate I might never leave my house again.

Allergies are killing me

I wrote a post and then it disappeared. Stupid blogger. Ok, so its been a while since I have gotten any glitches so maybe it is getting better than it used to be. But whatever....

The gist of it is that I am having a fit with allergies right now. Pollen is everywhere outside. There is a yellowish powdery coating on everything. I am so stuffy with itchy eyes, sore throat and these awful sneezing fits that go on forever.
The worst is when I am driving....yikes. Well, thats not necessarily when the worst attacks occur....but it IS the worst most inconvenient time/place to have a sneeze-fest. So scary. I have been taking Claritin for days now but its not doing much. Benadryl at night seems to help me sleep but I can't take it during the day. That stuff knocks me out cold. I am going to pick up some OTC Zyrtec or Allegra today and see if that works any better for me.

I did a web search on allergy medication reviews. Its so confusing because the results are pretty evenly split between Claritin, Zyrtec, and Allegra. It seems to depend on the person. What works for one person just may not work as well for someone else. I guess its going to be a trial and error thing to find the right one for me. I am fairly sure that Claritin is not it though. I can't even tell that I am taking anything. Ugh....this is so not fun. Any suggestions? Anything work really well for you? I am feeling a bit desperate so any help would be appreciated!