Heimlich, Red, Water Balloons, And Much More

Heimlich, Red, Water Balloons, And Much More

Welcome to the May 6th version of Thursday Thunks!
(which we always seem to post on Wednesday)
Where we make you think a little bit before you blog!

We pick a subject, and your job is to interpret it anyway you want.
Write about it on your blog... simple as that.
Maybe you can interpret it as a picture - we don't care!
Please only leave a link if you have written a Thursday Thunks post.
Please mention us in your post, and link back to the blog here.
Don't forget to go visit the other participants' blogs.
Read and comment about all their Thursday Thunks responses!
That's what all this is about after all, isn't it?
We'll have so much fun and become lifelong friends....

The TT questions are brought to you by Kimber, the color of Wednesday's eyes and the number 5.

1. Have you ever performed the Heimlich Maneuver on someone or had it performed on you?No, but there are a few people I wouldn't mind practicing with ;P

2. Do you have a red room in your home? (Either painted red or red curtains etc.)  My bedroom is that dark dark red - the curtains, bed, cushions - with antique gold trim and a dark antique gold paint on the walls.

3. Have you ever felt like banging your head against the wall? Lately almost every day.  Although recently I've been thinking it would hurt less to bash someone else's head through the wals....

4. Reports came out this week that Michael Jackson was gay. Are you shocked, don't believe it, don't care or felt he was all along? I really, really just wish the media would let the guy RIP.  Seriously, he's dead - let it go.


5. What's the dumbest thing you have done after a breakup with a S/O? Called his house when I knew he wouldn't be home, and in my sweetest Southern accent, left a msg with his mom that I'd only be visiting for the weekend and if he wanted to spend time with the baby he should let me know.  His mom met him at the door with a frying pan. hee hee hee.
 
6. If Berleen and Bud are standing on the roof of a one story building and decide to throw water balloons at Kimber walking down below on the sidewalk, what color balloon hits her first? OMG!  Seriously still with the throwing stuff off the roof??  By now if Kimber is smarter than a stump, she'll be staying inside!


7. What are the wildest, craziest pajamas you own? PJ's ... nope... sorry can't help you there.
 
8. Have you ever ridden in a sidecar on a motorcycle? Let me explain something.  I have serious control and trust issues.  It is hard for me to ride in a vehicle that someone else is driving.  A side car - wouldn't happen.  Ok maybe Mikey - but he won't even ride with a passenger in back.
 

9. Do/did you go party on Cinco De Mayo, and if so what color was the bartender's shirt? I believe, sad that without getting up and going to look in the hamper, I'm not sure, but I believe I was wearing green yesterday.  Here's a question for you.. if Americans eat Mexican food on May 5th - what do Mexican's eat?
 
10. Why does a hat have a bill? Not all hat's have bills.  And now on a serious not - since I started sometimes wearing glasses, I have discovered that wearing glasses in the rain is a PIA, so I either take them off or wear a hat with a bill.
 
11. If you were a WWE professional wrestler, what would your stage name be? I think we should ask Thom.  This sounds like one of his quizzes.  ( hmf I didn't know there were 2 z's in quizzes.)

12. How many keys do you have on your keyring? 5
 
13. What is the oldest picture you currently have in your home? What year was it taken and who/what is the photo of?  I believe that it would be this one.  It is of my great, great grandparents.  Taken sometime in the late 1800's - I could find out exactly from my cousin Norm, but I think it's close enough.

On  my mom's side I'm not sure which of these two is older, on is of my grandparents, one is of my great grandmother and my mom.  I'm guessing that's the older one- circa 1936 or 37.

 

 

Sensational Haiku Wednesday

Welcome to “Sensational Haiku Wednesday!”

Click here for info and background on this weekly event!

The basics:
Haiku is simple! It is 3 non-rhyming lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively (a great way to use your fingers!)

This week’s theme is: Steam

 

Totally pissed off

Want to rip someones head off

Steam out of my ears!

Not my recipe!

I've had a lot of requests for the lemon bar recipe I sent in to the teachers lunch yesterday.  It's part of a 4 part recipe that's super easy.  So for lemon or lime bars, use lemon cake, for orange or cherry bars use orange cake.

So all you need is a box of cake mix - see above for appropriate flavor
a box of jello - either lemon, lime, orange or cherry
a package of those gel fruit slices ( comes in half circles, yellow, green orange and red)  My friend always makes 4 batches (obviously only does for bake sales or a crowd) and identifies the flavor with the appropriate slice, I just throw the slices on "willy nilly" as Dee says.
3 eggs, at room temp
1 stick of butter at room temp
2 packs of cream cheese at room temp
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon vanilla
optional - 2 teaspoon dried California lemon peel or valencia orange peel ( mccormicks makes the bottles I buy)
powdered sugar

and a 9 x 13 pan, wax paper and butter for the wax paper.

To prep the pan , butter the pan - put parchment paper in coming up the 2 short sides to make it easier to remove, then butter the parchment paper.

Set oven to 350.

With mixer or food processor, cream butter, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, one teaspoon of the peel and one egg.  Add entire box of cake mix.  Will be the consistency of crumbly cookie dough.  Press this into the bottom of the pan covering thoroughly.

Beat together the cream cheese, jello, sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, one teaspoon of peel and 2 eggs until smooth.  Spread over top of the dough.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until top begins to brown and center sets.

Let cool for 1 hour, using parchment paper, slide onto cookie sheet w/o sides to finish cooling 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and fruit gel slice.

My friend Dee  got this recipe from her sister in law, who got it from a friend at work, and who knows where she got it.  it is super easy, putting it together is super quick, and really you can do other things during the bake and cool times so it really doesn't take much of your time.  I've made them 2 days ahead and kept them in the fridge - although when I do that i sugar and garnish right before serving.  And they are so yummy they won't last longer than 2 days anyway!

Enjoy!

You Are Flamboyant and Funky

You are a total extrovert, and you feed off of attention. You love to be noticed. You are very dramatic in every aspect of your life. No one ever forgets about you. You enjoy having an audience, and you are a natural performer. You know how to work a crowd. Sometimes you do or say things only for shock value. You like to get a rise out of people.

The Orchid Test

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything

      

Plant shopping!

I'm trying to hold off on buying too many veggie plants for 2 weeks ( although I've been looking for some elusive bush cucumbers).  The reason is Curt and I are taking a "field trip" to www.chileplants.com.  It turns out, they are located in NJ, near New Hope,PA.  They stock 500 kinds of hot and sweet peppers and 175 kinds of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes.  i was going to order from them this year, because all the nurseries have the same assortment it seems, and realistically starting from seed, when I only have room for 1 or maybe 2 of a variety on my balcony, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  i was kinda doubtful as to how they could possibly pack them so UPS or Fedex didn't kill them, but was willing to take a chance.  Then I found out where they were!  So in the meantime I headed out to Derings nursey in Succasunna yesterday ( seriously one of the best nurseries around in my opinion - I drive past 4 to get there, for both variety and quality of plants)  I took the princess, and we bought a lot of color.  She fell"in love" with a bunch of plants.  i am going to need a few more containers I think.  So today and tomorrow I need to pot these.  There is a purple pepper plant ( the only kind of non-hot pepper the princess eats - tastes the same , seriously, but you  know it's purple) a sweet 100 tomato, a grape tomato, some basil to plant over top of the tomatoes, some italian parsely, and some lemon thyme, and curry ( now curry as I eat it is a blend of spices, but this plant smells just like it, and according to the label can be used to seasin soups and stews.  Interesting.  it's the silvery looking plant)  The rest are flowers for the containers 0ut front.








 So have you had your breakfast yet?

You Are an Interesting Breakfast

You are a total non-conformist. You enjoy being different, and you appreciate eccentric people. You are sort of a weirdo, and that's totally fine with you. You are much more open minded and free spirited than most people. You are much more sophisticated than you let on. You don't like to brag about where you've been and what you know. You are a worldly person with worldly tastes. And if something hasn't crossed your path yet, it's likely you're dying to try it.

The Breakfast Test

Blogthings: We're Not Shrinks, But We Play Them On the Internet

         
 

MULCH

So I found out last nite that Curt had to bowl in the teams division of the county tournament today. ( In all fairness my father in law "forgot" to tell Curt until last night grrrrr)  So we got up early today, headed for the big orange box, and picked up 5 bags of black mulch and a purple calla lily.  I have decided that unlike my parents and uncles I like the shredded mulch better.  Especially since I use mostly perennials.  And I like the softer look.  Also I have decided I like black mulch better than the red mulch I grew up with.  I really think the black makes all the green "pop" and since our garden has a brick background, we have a lot of red - dragon's blood, stonecrop, huecha ( I think it's called)  So the red just fades those out.  We got back and Curt had to leave so I weeded ( took over an hour and a half) and mulched ( took longer than I anticipated as well)  not to mention - Min would be proud - in the 3 hours I was out there I drank 4 .5liter bottles of water, yes I drank water - and so far I haven't rusted.  ( Sorry mikey -- I may have drank water but didn't put on sunscreen -- didn't burn though ;P)

Besides looking pretty, mulch helps soooo much in preventing weed growth.  It also holds in the moisture so we don't have to water as often.  And the mulch acts as an insulator for the bulbs and roots in the winter.  But it is a pain in the bleep to spread around the the existing plants.

To show you the difference I took a picture of before mulch:

And in this picture you can see the cala lily

 So I weeded - lots of weeds ugh, then I planted the cala lily - which is a perennial so should come back next year, and in that hanging basket was last fall's mum growing back so I planted that with the rest of last fall's mums - and to think I used to rip them out after the frost killed them, I seriously never knew they'd come back .  Then I  mulched.





See how well the mulch shows off the dragon's blood ( the red/green creeping plant)?  

Then it was supposed to rain all day today, we had about 8 raindrops around 645, but that was it, so I had to water the urn on the steps and the lily, mum, the jacob's ladder I planted last weekend and the vertical garden.  So now that I watered it will obviously start raining soon!

Irritating Irony

Curt watches Swamp loggers.  I was knitting while he was watching after the race.  They are having issues with the mills not buying wood.  

Meanwhile, I am spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get red oak flooring in.  It's really scarce right now. The guy who "runs" the dept is freaking out about not being able to stay in stock - not because customers want it - but because he doesn't want to get in trouble for being out of stock.  This does happen periodically after bad weather, it takes months to go from a tree to a floor.  And so  we can't order it - it all goes by buyer allocations from Atlanta. And as soon as I get a unit in - a contractor buys it.  So even when I get it in - we are still out of stock.  As frustrated as these guys on tv are, I'm trying to get wood!  Ironic isn't it?  I made Curt go watch in the bedroom.

The Irony is Irritating me.

So I'm taking a cue from that old sitcom "Golden Girls" and asking - what kinda cheesecake ya want?

You Are a Caramel Cheesecake

You are a completely decadent person, and you're always willing to treat yourself to something delicious. You don't hold back in life. You don't believe in moderation, and if anything, you're likely to over do things a bit. You are very sweet, almost overwhelmingly so. You are also quite assertive... but only in the most charming way. You are grandiose and dramatic. You live large, and people notice you right away.

The Cheesecake Test

Blogthings: Take a Quiz. Annoy Your Friends.