Summer weather is upon us!

Hi all!!  Hope you are having a fabulous Memorial Day Weekend!  Dan just got back from Providence, RI on Thursday, and then he's jet-setting again tomorrow to Iceland for a summer of 75 degree field work and unending daylight!  I'll take him and three other faculty members from UA to the airport tomorrow morning  for a day of traveling, then they'll arrive in Iceland Tuesday around 6am.  No additional worries from Grimsvotn, Iceland's latest erupting volcano, so travel should be rather smooth.

No great American BBQs this weekend - we mostly stayed off the radar since Dan didn't have much time at home in between trips.  Dan made a tasty pizza topped with our garden squash and basil, I made a big batch of sweet potato and kidney bean burrito filling based off of a recipe I found on the internets...It was pretty great with tortilla chips and salsa as well!!

The heat has been melting us whenever we attempt to go outdoors.  We are thankful for A/C and I wonder how anyone ever survived out here without it.  The summer heat has brought a greater appreciation for cold brew coffee, AND popsicles!  We spent some time out in the garden yesterday and our treat upon completion of work was a tasty coconut popsicle.  There is something about that coconut creamy flavor that makes everything A-OK.  I think that might be the next DIY project...one of many!

Oh yes, our soap has finally cured and we just started using it!  The coffee is VERY exfoliating, which Dan and I enjoy, but may be a little harsh for some.  It moisturizes quite well and is nice that it's unscented, so all in all, a success!

A few more garden pics, what else do I take pictures of?

xo
  

Egads, Mother Nature scares me...

More deadly tornadoes?  Another erupting volcano in Iceland?  Tsunamis and earthquakes in Japan?  Floods in the Missisipp' (I drop the "i" now since I live in the South)?  "Macho Man" Randy Savage passes away???  WHAT is going on now?  I just don't know anymore, but I guess I should just be thankful everyday there isn't a natural disaster where I live...yikes...

Things like this make me go into list mode and be thankful for the things that we have...Little things like the heat, humidity, lack of good espresso, and the invertebrate pests of the South have been preoccupying me of late and bumming me out...I think with everything going on in the world I need to appreciate the South a bit more and stop my whining...
1) The summer heat giveth amazing produce - peaches and tomatoes and the like...
2) The summer heat also means amazing thunderstorms that fill up our rain barrel quite nicely
3) Mosquitoes feed bats, we like bats...other creepy crawlies feed...birds I guess?  Ticks are just plain awful and I can't find a particular reason to stop disliking them, although Kerri thinks their life cycle is interesting, so I guess I should applaud evolution for that?
4) Whilst the espresso market is quite barren here, I need to appreciate that the finest BBQ and biscuits are easily a stone throw away from where we live and that in itself is a rarity...it's a super stretch, but it helps that now that I'm back on cold-brewing coffee...
5) I found a horse stable today that will give me free horse poo...does that happen often in life?  I'm hoping the tomatoes embrace it as much as Hannah will...

this is only a partial list that I will be continually adding onto..this post turned odd no?  This is what happens when Dan leaves and I have a blank canvas that is the interwebs....

More garden pics that you just can't get enough of...

Morning shorts...

Tuscaloosa made the cover of Sports Illustrated last week, read the article here.  It's a few tornado stories from the perspective of student athletes...

Last week a few of us girls got together and made some soap!  Fight Club style!!  Well, not with human liposuction remains, but my neighbor and I did an all vegetable fat soap and mixed in some coffee grinds.  Here are pictures of us cutting it with dental floss.  Now it has to "cure" for 10-14 days....

We did not add any scents, so it mostly just smells like oil.  We used olive oil, canola oil, and coconut oil - heat all of these to about 100 degrees F, mix lye with water carefully (the lye is what burned Ed Norton's arm in Fight Club) with proper protective gear - gloves, goggles, long sleeved shirt.  Wait until the lye cools down to about 90-95 degrees F (Just mixing lye with water heats it up to about 140 degrees F!), mix the two mixtures together with a spoon and immersion blender, pour into a mold (2 pyrex baking pans lined with wax paper) and wait 24 hours until it sets, then cut the bars and let them sit for 2 weeks!

There is so much literature out there about soap that it is overwhelming, but once I broke it down in my mind as these few easy steps it was much easier to grapple with...Now I am inspired to make my own chapstick which includes no corrosive liquids - just melt 2 tablespoons each of beeswax, coconut oil, and shea butter in a microwave and then pour into chapstick tubes!

This DIY spirit will last another week then peter out...

Today is the Preakness!  I've been trying to find it online but I may have to settle for replays afterwards.  The neighbors are coming over in a little bit and we will be enjoying the backyard by having some cocktails, working in the garden, and grilling some brats - A nice weekend day all around...

Dan leaves for Providence, RI for a few days..There's a NABS conference there that he'll be attending with his lab.  It should be fun!  Especially since he doesn't have to present a talk/poster!

xo

ted leo in atlanta and hiking in bankhead...

So..Dan, Hannah and I drove up to Bankhead National Forest (about 1.5 hours North of us) today for a nice little nature hike.  While driving Hannah had a bit of an "incident"..it happens to everyone....riding in the back seat of a car, windy roads...upset stomach...well...of course this happened in Dan's car....and I happened to get some video of it...you may want to stop it in the last few seconds if you're eating...but for some reason I find it kind of hilarious (However, Dan does not...which I can understand after seeing him clean up dog puke off the side of his car...).  I meant to take a picture of Hannah enjoying the car ride, because she rarely sticks her noggin' out the window....then we got another surprise....at least now we know what to look for before Hannah gets car sick.  1) Frothing at the mouth, 2) jowls stretched thin, 3) dry heaving that soon becomes not dry....

Lest you think this phased her, she was a trooper and galloped to and fro throughout our little jaunt.   At one point she fell on her face...seriously.  AND I happened to get a picture of that...but I really was just taking a picture of her galloping about and I didn't WANT her to fall on her face...but she bounced back...and it ends up being a decent picture...so...a win win for everyone really...the link is a the end of this post...

Also, earlier in the week we went to Atlanta to see Ted Leo play at the Drunken Unicorn.  The DU is almost impossible to find unless you are in the "know"...We were not in the said "know", but we managed to spot some hipsters that looked like the Ted Leo type and BAM! we were led to the bar/club that is the Drunken Unicorn.  From their website we read that they have no sign, and have no phone...so if you forgot to write down explicit directions like I did, you are pretty much screwed.  TL played an AWESOME setlist with plenty of his great stage banter...a lot of old mixed in with newer songs and totally brand new songs.  One of those brand spankin' new songs was called "the little smug supper club" which is pretty perfect because Dan and I just started a supper club this past week as I posted about earlier!  It was a pretty great song and I spent most of the show video taping from my camera.  They ended up turning out pretty decent sound wise, not so much video wise....I will try to post one, but I realized afterwards that the mic on the camera faces me...which means there are a lot of clips with me singing along to songs I clearly a) do not know all the words to, and b) have no business singing because I am a god-awful singer...
Warning, as a proper Irish Catholic Boy, Ted drinks whiskey, and occasionally curses..if you start the video at 15 seconds, you'll skip the expletive...

link to pics from the Ted Leo show and our hiking bonanza...

Hi!!

link!  Actual veggies and then some!  I put this up last night on the shortcut menu but forgot to include it in the post...It's hot here!! up to the 90s!!  good for the veggies, bad for the humans...at least it makes me want to go to work to take advantage of the A/C!  Tomorrow Dan and I host a supper club of sorts at our place.  We're making Chicken Biryani and having a few friends over to partake in each other's company potluck style.  Hopefully it starts a trend and we can do this weekly or at least monthly.  I'm hoping we get some interest in a little board game playing as well tomorrow night...

cheers!

Another post!

Here are a few pics my brother Simon just sent me of his little one, Luella...she's got that Tran cute goin' on....

What a good little pho eater:

Cute!

hola!

Here's a link to a few more pics from the week.

Darick's art show was great!  Here is a link to his blog and specifically to his gallery page.  It was a lot of fun to see his art up at the Kentuck!  As a very generous "thank you" for helping put frames together the neighbors gifted me with "Shimmering Shoals"  which is beautifully framed and now hanging along the staircase in the house - I'l upload a pic of it soon but it is also on his blog gallery!  Emily and I made brownies, cookies, and pickles wrapped in cream cheese and ham for the opening the night before and that was a lot of fun.  you may not think the pickle appetizer is all that tasty sounding, but it is!  They went like hotcakes the night of the opening!  It was a great night to spend outside drinking with friends, nibbling on snacks, and looking at art...

In a few days Dan, Hannah, and I will go to Atlanta for an overnight trip.  Seeing Ted Leo at the Drunken Unicorn is the main impetus for the trip, but we'll also head to REI and Trader Joe's for supplies (coffee!! nuts!! dried fruit!!).  Dan will be able to pick up a few things for his upcoming summer Iceland trip, gotta spend that dividend!

Mocking birds have been disrupting our quiet household.  Namely their choice to procreate means they are aggressive as al get out.  Each of us have been dive bombed repeatedly, mostly Hannah.  The poor girl doesn't know what to make of it aside from the fact that the outdoors is now scary.  So now Dan and I protect her with a tennis racket as she relieves herself in the backyard...Sigh...
 

Hi all!

A few pics of the garden taken last weekend after I returned from the field.  Dan took mighty good care of the garden while I was gone, watering diligently and checking for pests.  I'm amazed how much they've grown in the few days I was gone.  The rest of this week looks to be good weather - which will be good for garden work!  I have a load of rocks from Coweeta to distribute, some concrete blocks to place as the start of our compost bin, and the rest of the grass to dig up in the back and newspaper/sawdust to lay down.  Should be great fun so get ready for another total change in the garden (fingers crossed!).  Tomorrow is very exciting because it's the art opening for our neighbor's show at the Kentuck Gallery in town.  I helped him build and finish frames for his 22 pieces and the frames are rock solid!  They are going to looks super great and I'm very excited to se the art in the gallery setting.  I'll try to remember to take many pictures.  Art night this month is coupled by a blues fest and with free cake from the local bakery that is uber delish!!  It should be a nice break from all things tornado...

speaking of that, it's been nutty being back from the field.  Dan and I took a drive around the major intersection in town where the tornado hit.  Totally unrecognizable.  It's hard to remember that things are totally wiped out while here in our neighborhood, things couldn't be more normal.  It's reassuring to hear about so many hopeful stories and see such an outpouring of help from the community.  Volunteers round the clock, local businesses donating free meals everywhere.  For all the bad publicity it may get, the South does indeed pull together in times of adversity and it warms the heart greatly...

xo for now

Everything's going to be just fine....

Here's the link to the story...