Blogging Is Good

I mentally wrote a post earlier today and then discovered a mind-blowing coincidence. I could take this post from exactly one year ago today, copy, and paste it. It would PERFECTLY describe today. A different source of water was involved, but the mood was the same. Apparently I need to make a note in my calendar that says ALEXIS WILL BE MISERABLE AS SHE GROWS LIKE A WEED all across June of 2013.

See? This is why blogging is good. It can help you find trends and such.

And it can lead to very interesting discoveries.

If it weren't for the fact that I needed to write a blog post, I wouldn't have turned the sprinkler on a couple of hours ago. If I hadn't turned the sprinkler on a couple of hours ago, I wouldn't have ran outside after dark. (Barefoot--you'll figure out why that matters in a minute, but do me a favor and never speak of it again. I'm trying to pretend I don't know what I know.) If I hadn't ran outside after dark, I wouldn't have noticed some weird shadows on the front porch on my way back into the house. If I hadn't noticed some weird shadows on the front porch on my way back into the house, I wouldn't have turned on the porch light. If I hadn't turned on the porch light, I wouldn't have solved the greatest mystery in my life.

You guys. The centipedes. I FIGURED IT OUT.

When I turned on the porch light and peered through the doorway, I immediately realized the strange shadows were moving. HUNDREDS OF THEM WERE MOVING. ON THE PORCH. If centipedes were pre-pubescent girls, it would have been like they heard there was a free Justin Bieber concert on the porch. They were crawling around EVERYWHERE in hopes of getting a little Biebs action.

Our front porch is concrete, but there were issues with getting it up high enough to meet the doorway. The resolution was to pour the concrete porch on top of some concrete blocks. So. SO. There is a sort of "cave" under our porch.

Guess where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of garden centipedes were living.

Apparently those little effers have been emerging from their cold, dark hiding place at night and crawling around all over the porch. Apparently they are still there at 4:30 am when the husband gets up. Apparently when he lets the dogs out through the front door, those effin little creepers with too many legs manage to hitch a ride aboard the furry train known as Penny.

I suspect that the effin little creepers with too many legs have hitchhiked their way into the house more than once, but usually end up dying before Alexis and I bother to rise and shine for the day. There must have been a day when they managed to survive just a bit longer and that is what led to Centipede-a-palooza.

Which won't be happening again, just for the record.

It took me all of two seconds to run to our garage, grab the Very Serious Bug Killer Stuff, and douse the hell out of every square inch of EVERYTHING IN OUR ENTIRE FRONT YARD OMG.

So long, suckers. I hope your deaths were as miserable as the thought that I just walked across that porch without shoes.

And now I'm going to go amputate my feet while I watch some centipedes die. Ahem.

 

Grilled Veggie Kabobs

I was very close to breaking up with our friendly neighborhood Subway because they were absolutely everything except friendly. Each and every time Alexis would order her bun with lettuce and tomato on it, the guy would glare at her across the counter and then shoot me his Judgey Eyes.

I don't like being judged for what my kid likes to eat. It's weird, but she's happy. If she's happy, I'm happy.

I was starting to rip up the Last Straw when we were there a few weeks ago. The Judgey Eyes came my way and I was all, "That's it. I'm done with you." But, uh, I kind of have a thing. I kind of have a thing where words fall out of my mouth without me being able to stop them.

"Do you really need to give her that look every single time she orders her sub?" I blurted out to the guy with the Judgey Eyes.

"She's the only kid I've ever seen not order nothing but meat and cheese. She gets veggies. That's the opposite of what I usually see!"

Well, then. I guess that guys Judgey Eyes could also be considered Amazed Eyes. WHOOPS.

So shoot me. My kid likes veggies. A LOT. That's how it is that we end up with Veggie Kabobs from time-to-time. I often make her some with faux pepperoni, cherry tomatoes, and black olives for lunch, but this time we went big. This time we got all wild and crazy and threw some Veggie Kabobs on the grill.

 

I KNOW. We lead such exciting lives!

The goal of the veggie kabob mission was to get tofu involved in the mix. We all three happen to love tofu. A lot. Like, if ever it were to be legal to marry tofu, we'd end up fighting for her undying love.

Tofu, of course, has to be marinated if you want it to taste like much of anything. I tried a simple marinade (recipe below!) and left the tofu to soak it all up overnight.

It worked out pretty nicely, thank you very much.

Once the tofu had marinated, it was joined by an array of vegetables. There were peppers, mushrooms, onion, tomato, and zucchini. All of my favorites, of course.

By the way, you may have noticed that I didn't mix and match the veggies and tofu onto individual kabobs. Tofu needs a long time to grill. Tomatoes do not. If you put them on the same skewer, somebody isn't going to be happy. Doing full kabobs of each vegetable alone helps maintain a level of world peace that I find comforting. No overdone veggies are going on my plate, thank you very much.

Other than that, the only real key to veggie kabobs is to make sure that you brush a little olive oil onto the vegetables to keep them from sticking to the grill (nonstick grill spray works, too). Since I had marinade around that contained olive oil, I used it as my anti-stick weapon of choice.

And then there was the tofu. Have I mentioned that I love tofu? Because I do.

Grilled Tofu Kabobs

1 block extra firm tofu, well-pressed
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice from one lime (approximately 2 tablespoons)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
2 teaspoons chili powder
Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Thoroughly press the tofu to remove excess moisture and then cut it into cubes.

2. Place the tofu in a large resealable food storage bag.

3. Toss in the other ingredients, close the zipper, and shake, shake, shake.

4. Shake some more.

5. Allow the tofu to marinade at least 6 hours. Overnight is even better.

6. Stab a skewer through the tofu before throwing it on the grill. Turn occasionally. Cooking times will vary based on the temperature of your grill, but ours took about 20 minutes to get that crispy crusty stuff that we love so much.

And now that I've written all about a super healthy recipe, I think I need to recreate balance in the universe with a little bit of ice cream,

There Are Even More Fairies Living In The Garden

There's a very real chance that I'm standing on the tracks about to be plowed over by the Fairy Garden Crazy Train. If that's the case, I hope it slows down enough for me to jump aboard. We only have two fairy gardens right now, but I'm ready to go ALL IN.

I have been on a quest to add a couple more fairy gardens for a while now, but managed to get delayed a bit as we needed to make one to give as a gift. Alexis' bus driver was the most fantastic bus driver anyone could ever ask for. Alexis was absolutely positive that a fairy garden would be The Perfect Gift for her at the end of the school year. I thought it was the greatest idea any 6-year old has ever had, so we ran out to get some supplies.

We started with a galvanized aluminum tub, which was the hardest thing to find. We checked EVERYWHERE before finding one that was the exact right size at Garden Ridge. After the fact, I found some even better ones at a local tractor supply store, but Alexis liked this one just fine.

I filled the bottom with about two inches of gravel to help with drainage. I have a ton of the rocks in that picture in our yard, so I used them instead of spending money on "real" gravel.

Then Alexis filled the tub up with a good quality potting soil. I told her to stop about four inches from the top.

Then I let Alexis lay out the fairy garden using plants she had already picked out at Bedner's. (I had her stop with the potting soil four inches from the top because that made it easy to set the plants in container and all. That made it easy to arrange and rearrange.)

She picked Scottish Moss for the "grass."

A dwarf tree was tucked into the back.

There was some lobelia and some alyssum.

And dianthus rounded us out.

We used a "stand-in" fairy house to set things up because the real one was still being painted.

That stand-in house is going to eventually be part of an epic fairy garden project. It's not every day that I lay itty bitty tile all over an itty bitty house, so it *has* to find a very special home. Eventually.

Once we knew where everything was going to go, we planted away and finished filling the tub with potting soil. Then we started creating a little path for the fairies. First Alexis set down some bigger rocks.

Then I added some tiny fencing (we found it at JoAnn's).

And then Alexis finished filling in the path using super small rocks.

Once we added the properly painted and decorated fairy house, it was mostly done. We had to add a few accessories, though.

Alexis made a patio out of some slightly larger flat rocks. Then she placed a tiny flower pot (JoAnn's), bench (Brenckle's), and garden tools (Amazon) on the patio.

There is even a wheelbarrow (Amazon) tucked in there.

It turned out pretty much perfect.

The fairy house roof has pinecone shingles. I'd tell you how I managed that, but I'm thinking that anyone who is crazy enough to actually attempt it will figure it out.

Best gift ever? BEST GIFT EVER. In fact, I wouldn't cry if someone were to make me one or ten. Now that we've delivered the cute little purple fairy garden to Alexis' bus driver, the fairy garden in the corner of our patio seems lonely.

Cute, but lonely.

By the way, that fairy garden is over a year old. It has held up very well, in no small part because I sprayed a sealant all over that house. It's pretty much waterproof at this point.

Oh, and did I mention that the fairy garden with the castle that I plopped into the middle of my garden is starting to fill in quite nicely? Because it is.

I have slowly managed to collect miniature garden accessories that have helped to make it a fantastic little place.

The Irish Moss that makes up the "grass" is actually from the first fairy garden we made. That stuff spreads really fast, so I've had to divide it more than a few times. I *LOVE* that I've managed to seed a whole other "yard" for free.

I actually need to divide it again as the path to the castle door is starting to grow over.

(The tiny lanterns! OMG!) (I found them at Reilly's Seat Farm.)

I'm kind of addicted to the little details in this garden.

And I'm obsessed with playing with the focus points on my camera.

Next I get to figure out the extra special space that will be the final resting place for the tiny tiled fairy house. I think there's going to be a waterfall involved.

Toot! Toot! All aboard the Fairy Garden Crazy Train! ;-)