Wordless Wednesday - It's all in the lighting

How old are you in Chocolate Years?

My friend Stephanie sent this to me... it is TOO GOOD to not share with you!

Don't tell me your age; you'd probably lie anyway-but the Hershey Man will know!

YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH

This is pretty neat.

DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!
It takes less than a minute.
Work this out as you read.
Be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out!
This is not one of those waste-of-time things, it's fun.

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)

3. Add 5

4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1760 .
If you haven't, add 1759.

6.. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number

The first digit of this was your original number
(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).

The next two numbers are

YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!)

THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2010) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS.

Fun Monday - Staying Dry

Gattina is our host for this week and wants to know:

Do you use an umbrella against the rain or too much sunshine ? Even if you don't you certainly have at least one in your house I suppose. Take a picture and show us the one or once you use (or not)

Living in Florida, we have lots of sunshine. What you don't know is that usually, we also have lots of rain. When I was growing up, you could count on a half-hour rainshower between 2 and 5 every afternoon. It is not like that now. These days the climate is different. We had nearly 20 years of drought, where most of our rains seemed to come in the form of hurricanes. The rest of the time, there wasn't much. Things seem to be settling down again. We still don't see the daily shower, but at least once a week, we seem to get a pretty good rainstorm...

These are our umbrellas. For a while there, we were buying one-use umbrellas (cheap), and once I bought a fancy, enormous golf umbrella - but they broke or disappeared. For some reason, these two have stuck around for several years.



I rather like them. They have a little personality; they are sturdy; and they fit into my very large purse! There used to be a yellow one too, but that one disappeared shortly after we got it.

FUN MONDAY UPDATE
Last week, we were wondering if Fun Monday was going to fade away to nothing. After asking participants, the consensus was to continue, but to go back to its roots - making FM a mostly photo post and... FUN! So for now, we shall continue - but we need volunteers to host! Please, if you play, host from time to time... otherwise, Fun Monday will become just like every other Monday.

Sign up with the host of the week. I keep a place in the sidebar that tells who is hosting and what the topic is, so if you're ever lost, feel free to visit and check out my sidebar!

Veggies Today

The gardening madness continutes...

A few weeks ago, my blogbuddy Florida Cracker offered some heritage datil pepper seeds to his readers. I wrote to him and asked for some. They came but weather and everyday busy-ness kept me from doing anything with them... Until today!

The bug has bitten me this year. Ive decided to make another go at the container gardening. I think I may have it planned out a little differently - so perhaps I can have a little success this year. These are the tomato seeds from the Upsy/Downsy tomato planter Darling Man gave me for my birthday:

These are squash and cucumber. I'm experimenting a little. I'd bought what I thought was a mini greenhouse to start my seeds, but it turns out that it was just refills for the real thing. Since I don't want to go back to buy the real little greenhouse thing, I put them in the soil of some of these pots and in the water catch underneath with seeds. We'll see if they sprout better with those than without them.

I cleared off the side deck, what we never seem to use. Two huge garbage bags full of leaves! I brought a rainbarrel home from Red Dragon Farm after our visit, cleaned it out and set it up in the corner. I still need to build a screen cap for it so I can keep out the leaves, twigs and suicidal squirrels.

I put the planting pots up on little tables and stools for easy reach. They have dirt in them, but not plants as yet.

This is a fish pond that we've been using to wash the dogs in. The dogs aren't dumb though - when they see this thing come out, they go hide. So DM came up with an easier way to wash the dogs and this has been under the porch ever since. I'm going to ask him if I can put holes in the bottom and use this as a planter as well.

I'm really hoping this works. Not only will I actually enjoy doing the gardening, but perhaps we can eat our homegrown, organic vegetables without having to pay through the nose for them at the grocery store!

Excellent day

Spring has definitely arrived in Tallahassee. If yesterday's post didn't give you a hint, perhaps the fact that I spent much of the morning and early afternoon today raking oak leaves and blowing pollen off the back porch (and everything in the vicinity) would clue you in.

We're not just talking about yellow dust, but big ol' CHUNKS of pollen!

It's hell on the sensitive respiratory system. I have had such a respiratory system for the last two years, but this year it doesn't seem to be bothering me as much. That side deck is going to become my container garden area. We never use it for anything as it's right there next to the neighbor's side porch and but for a boxwood hedge between it and the road, not terribly private. But I stumbled on using it for my containers, which didn't quite work out in the main thoroughfare of our back yard last year. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully I will spend some time tomorrow starting seeds and getting stuff arranged out there.

But this afternoon was spent away from home... I took Z and his friend William out to Red Dragon Farm today. The trip had several goals. One of which was to meet my newest niece - Odie!

Isn't she gorgeous? She's nine months old and crawls, pulls up, but doesn't walk just yet.



My brother John asked our family friend (and professional photographer) Eric to come take some pictures. Odie is quite enamored of the flash. It makes her giggle.

John is quite adept at the fatherly duties. I love this diaper-changing attachment for the portable crib - wish such a thing existed 10 years ago when my own kid was still having HIS diapers changed!

The other reason we were at the farm was to celebrate this guy: Walker turned 16!

He got an awesome birthday gift from John. They drove down to Orlando and he got to go "skydiving" in a wind tube. They got a dvd of the whole thing and it looked like so much FUN! Most excellent birthday present ever, according to Walker.

And what would be a birthday without cake and ice cream? I had the ice cream, but skipped the cake. One more day to Easter....

After a good nap (and the party), Odie was dressed in a gorgeous little blue dress and had her picture taken by Eric.

While the picture-taking was going on, Dad introduced Darling Man to this hat. A real, Russian fur hat. That thing is so warm, it could boil your brain, according to Dad. DM tried it on anyway. Said he had the genetic makeup to withstand the heat. I think that's code for "thick skull"... Looks like he's going to demand my papers any minute!

More picture-taking happened in the back yard, where Odie was feeling the effects of our amazingly generous pollen bloom this year. Her poor little nose! Running and sore. Every wipe was probably torture.

I think she did pretty well with all the strangers and loud voices... and the pollen. Welcome to the family, Odie!

And happy, happy birthday, Walker!

Hoping to Grow a Green Thumb

I have always loved the idea of gardening. It seems so calming and productive. When we moved into this house, the front flowerbed was lovely. As time went by, the previous owner's plantings died off and we started planting no-brainer plants - aloe, grasses and various other cactus.

Last year, I attacked the boxwood hedge, taking out all but three of them. I had always wanted to plant flowers in that bed, but never got around to it. Last week, I walked out into the yard and decided it was time to do what I have always wanted to do with the front of the house.

Since Darling Man and ZBoy were going camping Thursday night and I would have Kylee on Friday, I decided to enlist her aid and we would spend Friday gardening!

First, we went to the bank, then to Lowes to pick out flowers and mulch. I also got her a pair of gardening gloves because none of mine would fit her. Then we went home and fueled our bodies for the task at hand with scrambled egg and cheese taquitos!

Kylee picked out the flowers... I think she did a lovely job! We had two flats of impatiens and eight petunias:

As I explained to her, before you can put flowers in, you have to pull the weeds out and make the ground ready so the flowers will be able to grow. So we spent the first couple of hours pulling weeds - both in the lawn and in the lower flower bed (I'd already weeded the other bed).

After a while, we took a break from weeding and planted my birthday roses and the petunias. It's always a little sad how droopy they look after being planted.

After planting the higher bed, we went back to weeding the lower one (were are A LOT of weeds). We'd been at it for a short time when the Bruce and Derrick Show started.

The house across the street from us is a rental. The owners are quite choosy about who lives there and who works on the house. We've been wondering about the house lately, as the cars for the people who live there only show up about once a week. We were thinking that perhaps they're in the process of moving out. The owners always take the unoccupied time to do lots of work on the place, so when two guys showed up and went into the garage, it wasn't an unusual occurrence. What was unusual was how loud and coarse they were. Let's just say that while their vocabulary was limited, it was extremely colorful. So colorful that I finally had to send Kylee inside because they just never stopped. Well, they did get quiet briefly when I walked over to the street and wrote down their tag number, but it didn't last long. They yelled each other's names everytime they cursed each other which is how I know that they were Bruce (an older guy) and Derrick (a younger guy). Apparently Bruce is worried for Derrick's soul because Derrick rather loudly stated that he hated God. And in that oh-so-lovely language, they argued about salvation, souls, and how Bruce was putting the piece on the wrong f***ing way. Somewhat ironic two days before Easter. They finally left and Kylee came back out so we could finish up.

Everything does look a bit droopy and small, but impatiens grow very fast and well here so in no time at all, I should have lots of color (no thanks to Bruce and Derrick) in my front yard! I did go back and clean the concrete off and added my gnome under the boxwood. And everything perked up a lot overnight, so this morning I got to see how lovely the whole thing turned out!

Today? Container vegetable gardening in the back yard!

Swamp Gravy

My birthday was a week ago and I'm still glowing.

My mother came up with an amazing experience. She bought tickets to "Swamp Gravy" in Colquitt, Georgia. I had no idea what that was, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

The evening began with a special buffet dinner at the Tarrer Inn. I didn't get a picture of the outside, but the inside was decorated a bit like a Civil War era sitting room.

The buffet was set up in a hallway. One side had okra, mashed potatoes, roast beef, fried chicken, baked chicken, fried green beans, rolls, swamp gravy and a vegetable medley. The other side featured a lovely salad bar with soup. I was actually pretty good diet-wise. Baked chicken, small serving of mashed potatoes, vegetable medley and salad bar. Delicious!

There was a challenge waiting at the end of the meal. My knees nearly went out from under me at the sight - and this lovely array was on BOTH sides of the hall! Pecan pie, key lime, chocolate, cheesecake and (not pictured) red velvet cake. Absolutely NONE of these are on my Lenten diet - but I lucked out... there was a blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream. I had the fruit part and ice cream for dessert. Mmmmm....

We were joined by visiting cousins Carol and Ed who'd come down from New York State and were making the rounds of Florida family and a cruise. I can't even remember when I saw them last - it was an additional treat to have them with us that evening.

After dinner, we had some time to kill before the show, so we wandered around Colquitt. Most of the buildings have some kind of mural painted on it. These are just a small sampling:

ZBoy's favorite babysitter and my parents' goddaughter went with us too!

The lobby of the theatre was set up like a little town. And there was quilt art everywhere.

In addition to the quilts covering tables, there was one in progress at the end of the hall.

The woman on the right is 91 years old. You should have seen how fast she whipped that needle around and how adept with that thimble! I always feel so awkward with a thimble on my finger.

Finally we were ushered into the theatre. It's a permanent installation and a horseshoe audience. It was a fairly small space and the seats were low and close together. Great for kids, but a little difficult for the tall and somewhat decrepit to manage. The highest row was plain old chairs lined up against the wall, and half our party wound up sitting there instead of in their assigned seats.

The play itself was very interesting. "Swamp Gravy" is a yearly offering by the town of Colquitt. The actors are not professional, but culled from the citizenry. The play is different every year, also written by locals who have gathered family stories from the other locals and woven them into a single story every year. This year's followed the life of a preacher who's life had been marked by fire not once, but several times over, and the events in the lives of his congregation. It was excellent!

When it was all over, I felt it was an evening well spent. This has been a most satisfying birthday!