Jam On It...

Recently, I gave one of my rec center swimming friends a jar of Lorne's apricot-habanero jelly. She loved it and asked if she bought the ingredients could we make her some with strawberries instead.

I asked Lorne if he would try the substitution. He agreed, but the "HE" became "WE" and I had to help. There was also a second substitution. Instead of habanero peppers we used jalapenos, since our garden hasn't produced enough of the more potent pepper to date.

My first task was to cut the jalapenos. I asked Lorne if we should include the seeds. After all, jalapenos aren't as hot as their cousin habanero. He told me to taste the pepper for heat intensity, and I figured no biggie and bit off a piece. It was freaking hot and set my lips a blaze.

I dashed to the sink and began rubbing cold water on my lips and face before I realized I hadn't watched my hands with soap. When I did, it was too late. I has smeared what capsaicin from the peppers into my cheeks and chin. To counteract the increased facial burning, I reached for milk from the fridge and splashed about a half-a-gallon onto my face. Somehow, this spread the jalapeno residue from my fingers to my eyes. Now, my frantic screaming intensified.

Lucy led me to the bathroom where I let the cold water flush my eyes for about ten minutes. As I stood there, I washed my hands, and not wanting to waste water I lathered up the rest of me. OMG, bad mistake. The el diablo juice only mixed with the suds and when I was drying off I couldn't figure out why my pits and hooch felt a little heat too, which lingered throughout the night.

For the next few days my eyes were puffy (puffier than normal) and cheeks had a nice day-in-the-sun glow. I wasn't happy.

Fruits of my labor.

Shovel this...

To encourage and foster a love of gardening, Lorne bough Lucy a present. 

He even personalized it.

  

Yeah, I got one too. Lucky me!

Benefits of Blogging

There are many benefits to blogging. Just Google benefits to blogging and pages of articles and information is at your fingertips. Most of them have to do with business, marketing, and promotion. In a way, that's true for writers' too. Aren't we trying to market ourselves?

Dictionary.com defines blog as follows:  A Website containing a writer's [or group of writers'] own experiences, observations, opinions etc., and often having images and links to other websites.

At first, I had a hard time believing what I have to say is of any importance. I started my blog as a diary-like log of my experiences with our move to Texas and the adventures we have here. It is a creative outlet; one that makes me think, draw upon things I've learned, and lets me sprinkle in a little humor on top--or at least I try to.

But according to a feature story on UT Austin's website titled Writing to Heal there are health benefits too.

In the article, Vive' Griffith highlights Dr. James Pennebaker's, a professor at UT Austin, ideas on the benefits of writing.

Making a story out of a messy, complicated experience may make the experience more manageable. Linguistically, Pennebaker looks for words that are associated with more complex thinking, including certain propositions such as "except," "without" and "exclude" and casual words such as "cause," "effect" and "rationale." An increase in these types of words over the writing process suggests that the experience is becoming clearer and more narrative. 

So, why do I blog the mundane narrative events in my life? Maybe it's to make sense out of complicated experiences and make them more manageable. Or maybe because I'm a narcissistic writer with a story to tell anyone foolish enough to happen upon my entries. Or maybe I use the blog as space to upload photos and crap so I have more room on my computer's hard drive.

To quote Tootsie Pop's 1970's How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Center of A Tootsie Pop commercial, "The world may never know."

Ice, Ice Baby

Here in Texas there are free standing ice vendors, and since we don't have an ice maker, we visit this one frequently.

On Veterans Day, I went to purchase ice and the owner of the vending machine had set the machine to give free ice in honor of what the day means to him. I was taken back and humbled by his financial sacrifice, so I called the owner to say thank you for my ice. I wasn't a veteran, as I'm sure many other potential customers weren't either. It made me wonder what can I do to let our military know I'm grateful too.

Onion Breath

Onions and garlic raised, square-foot-garden-bed.

 The onion, garlic harvest.

Baby onions in a sweet brine. First time we've (meaning Lorne) canned them. 

Fruits of Our (Lorne's) Labor

Amazingly, the fifteen inches of rain that us Dallas Texans have endured during the month of May, hasn't drowned out our little garden. Our cucumber plants produced enough to can two jars of dill pickles.




Cucumbers are growing up the trellis.
Jalapeno, habanero, and ghost peppers in front.

Dill Pickles 

Sweet and Spicy made special for Lorne's Uncle Doug's birthday.

Eat Crow

On one of the few rain free days last month, I ran to the store for some groceries. On my way out, I picked up a hungry hitchhiker. Look to the left side of the cart. 

The bird is a Grackle. The whistle sound they make is alarming and annoying, but I got used to it. I wasn't expecting one to hop in my grocery cart and start pecking at my grocery bags. 

  Grackle whistle courtesy of YouTube.