Eggs!

Chopped Chipotles, mayo, and a few secret ingredients

Yum!

Finished product

Sooooooooooo good!

My newest deal is making chipotle deviled eggs, they're a huge hit and SUPER yummy! Here are the ones I made for the True Blood party for the premiere!

Garden Week Seven

Sooo, I totally forgot to post this last week! I saved it until I got more photos, but that didn't work.. I have more photos, but I'm just going to go ahead and post these since I have no clue when I'll have a chance later.

Lemongrass

All of it

Big ol' Cayenne and the first one to turn red

First red one

Giant bell

Mystery plant

Basil

Basil and mystery plants

Mystery plants

Tomatillo bud

Tomatillo flower

Pea vine

Pea vine

Currants

Mystery plant

Golden bell

Golden bell

Currants

Golden bell

Golden bell

Golden bell

Grill!

Pea vine

Pea flowers

The peas look fantastic! We're also really excited that the cayennes have started to turn and will be nice and edible soon. The banana peppers at camp have started growing in as well, and I'm hoping the tomatillos somewhere start growing in-- I'm dying to make either salsa verde or salsa perpurpa!

More pictures as soon as I can come up with some time!

Day One

Gotta start somewhere right?

Today I did the 15 minute pilates workout (which is actually a 20 minute one, but I didn't do any of the standing stuff because I want to get my hip back in the proper place first), and my goal is to do the 15 minutes a day every day for the next week. Then, next Sunday I'll do the full 20 minute workout every day for a week. Week after that, I'll do the full 45 minute workout on Sunday, the 20 minutes during the week, and the 45 minute one on Saturday. While my ultimate goal is to do the 45 minute (full) one more often than the 20 minute (express) workout, I'd like to put my minimum at three times a week, so maybe full workouts on the weekends and Wednesdays maybe. I just really need to stay on top of it this time around. I started last summer when I moved in with Jan and Marc, and I guess because I didn't have a regular schedule post-airline, the whole thing fell through. Now, though, I'm trying to eat better and drink less soda (I've only had two sodas in the last four days! A Sprite and a Coke!), drink more tea. Cutting sodas out is kind of a concession for my beer drinking because, let's face it, beer geeks drink some pretty heavy beer. It's the kind of beer that doesn't actually have nutrition facts on the back!

I say that and it sounds like I'm an alcoholic; really, I only drink on the weekends and it's only like a few drinks a night MAX. Once a month, maybe Meg and I will go crazy and have a couple margaritas instead, but none of us are in that party mode-- that was pretty much over with after college. Plus, when we're drinking beer, we're eating things like fresh salsa, crudite "pizza", hummus, and beans and rice; not heavy on the queso dip and bar food you find with cheap beer! I totally geeked out at Whole Foods last night-- their beer section makes me feel like I've died and gone to heaven. It's bad news, too, because it's right next to the cheese and olives, and then the bakery! I found one of the rarer beers from the Allagash brewery, called Curieaux, and bought the last two bottles. I also made friends with the beer guy who said if I had any special requests, he'd be glad to put them in for me or hold something I wanted! Whoooooo-- gotta love the small town touch to a chain grocery! That's why I love Whole Foods!

Speaking of fresh salsa, my first pepper is FINALLY starting to push out! I'm SO excited-- I'll finally find out what kind of peppers I'm growing! I'm also going to find a place to plant some corn and chianti sunflowers (the red ones, they are super pretty), and I've got small pots to plant basil and other herbs in that we can keep around the apartment when we move. Mom's landlord is really cool, though, and doesn't mind if I plant the bigger stuff like corn, collards, mesclun, and sunflowers in the back yard along the fence-- he thinks it's pretty cool, actually!

Anyway, I'm gonna do a few more ab rounds and then hit the showers. We had a dog food fiasco coming back from Target (the bag just split open and got all over mom's freshly cleaned car!), so I'm going to take that back along with some other stuff that I got last night but don't want as badly as an adorable cherry-blossom-and-Japanese-print apron that they have on clearance for $7, and some other kitchen towels and nice oven mitts. I think between the two of us we only have one or two oven mitts, and they're pretty old-- Target has some nice KitchenAid ones on sale for a few bucks each! After that, it's off to Rosebud for a Yelp! event; hopefully they'll let me in since Emily can't make it-- I'm on the list, and I've been to one before, and I'm meeting up with Sid and Wendy (the nice couple we met at the last event) to all go in together.

I also just spotted my copy of "Walter the Farting Dog" that Martha gave me-- I will have to find this book for Julian. He will be immensely amused.

TGIF?

(this was supposed to go up last night but the internet stopped working as soon as I was done with it!!)

Soo, back to my Memphis trip, which was more action-packed than I give it credit for... and Friday it is!

Friday morning I was supposed to go see Amy (Career Services) to look over my extended resume and pare it down so that I could go see Sandi on Monday and start looking for jobs. Since the lights had come on in my car the night before, I decided to cancel the appointment until I'd talked to Jeremy or Marc about what could have gone wrong. I kinda figured it might be the belts since I knew they were getting worn, and Jeremy confirmed my suspicions so I took the car up to Jiffy Lube where they were shocked and awed that I was able to make it there because apparently it was the belt that connects to the alternator that had been ripped. to. shreds. Now, as much as I like this Jiffy Lube in Southaven, I'm a little irritated that nobody mentioned that I might want to charge up the battery as it had taken a SEVERE draining getting me the last mile home and the five miles up to the Jiffy Lube for reasons that will come up later...

After that, I went back to the house and tried to get organized a little bit, then ended up leaving late for Heather's birthday dinner so I just met them up there. We ended up going to Majestic Grille downtown, and it was really good! I met some girls I hadn't yet, and met one in particular who was... very unique. Melissa, you know who I'm talking about. I sat with Melissa and Allie, I hadn't met Allie except for a couple of Facebook messages about the Strikeout Shirt I ordered-- she rocks my face off. She's SO funny and outgoing! Yay for new AOIIs! Well, she's not a "new" AOII, but I haven't met her so she's new to me ;)

Melissa and I split the calamari, which was a totally new take on it to me. They have a cornmeal breading and fry it up with jalapenos! It furthered my spicy food kick for the weekend, which started with Buffalo Wild Wings and finished with salsa at Los Compadres! But, I'm getting ahead of myself... I had a bacon bleu cheese burger and it. was. aaaaweeesome. Highly recommend it. Everyone else seemed pretty happy with their dinner, and the only complaint I had was that the waitress seemed like she'd never had a big party. She did her best, and the unique girl gave her a little bit of trouble (for which she got put in her place by a waitress who also happens to be someone she needs to respect a little bit more), but things were a little slow and two plates had to be sent back to be re-made which weren't delivered until we were all ready to go. Probably better to go in a smaller group.

Afterwards, I ran Melissa by Joe's in Midtown to pick up a bottle of wine for Heather (they sell McWilliams, our tier 1 wine at work!) and pick up something for myself for going to Ashely's (which proved difficult as Memphis liquor laws say that you can't sell anything under 5% alcohol in the same store, thus nixing my usual search for the elusive 420) and when I got back out to the car.... it wouldn't start!!

Ugh.

So, I'm thinking who I can call at this time of night (as it was after 10p at this point) and I remembered that Ashley (who was going to meet me for a drink and instead had some friends over and invited me to come out) told me that Wayne was at her place, so I called Wayne to come give me a jump and see if we could get it all together. Heather came and picked Melissa up to head back for Rites, and I waited. Wayne showed up, hooked up the jumper cables and everything lit right up! Of course, as soon as we took the jumper cables off... not so much.

There was a minor panic attack.

Oh, and my phone died.

And there was a big theory floating around that it was the alternator. After I'd spent $130 on the starter. And $140 on the belts.

Then there was another minor panic attack.

I managed to have a little fun. And another minor panic attack (regarding our roadside assistance program which, by the way, DOESN'T COVER ME apparently). Ashley's friends were a lot of fun, and even though we have differing political views, we're all very moderate and open to discussion so it didn't turn in to a hate fest which is the whole reason I stay away from political discussions these days in the first place. It evolved in to a trivia contest regarding presidential knowledge and the parallels between the Lincoln and Kennedy assasinations. There are quite a few and they are all pretty creepy, look it up. We stayed up way too late and I fell exhaustedly asleep at Ashley's since I didn't have a way to get back to Southaven. Thankfully, one of her friends had a compatible charger so my phone was sufficiently charged for me to try for a tow, talk to Jeremy, talk to Marc, and get everything set to get the car back down to Southaven.

The good news is that it was just the battery, in case you haven't figured that out yet. Marc charged up my battery and replaced the leads and it worked good as new and just in time for me to hit up the hockey game!

The Kings played a great first period, but after that they totally wussed out. They did, however, beat OKC in the next game and so they're on their way to the semifinals! They actually don't even play until the end of the month, so if it looks like there are two games in a row I may go back. I forgot how much I miss the games, and the other off ice officials-- they're my own crazy little family!

I went right home and talked to Jeremy for a while, then went to bed! I'd intended to get up and go to church with Marc and Jan; while I'm not much on church, I know they'd like me to come meet everyone. However, I was so exhausted from Friday and Saturday that I slept in waaay late.

That's all for Saturday, and in to Sunday-- coming up, I get another hamburger, Sophia and I go to Target, and I practice public speaking.