Vikki's Random Ramblings

Jason and Mara's 2011 Scrapbook

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:47:00 +0000

Click here to view this photo book larger

Here is the book that we made for Jason and Mara this past Christmas

Marty and Cindy's 2010 Scrapbook

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:15:00 +0000

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books are the new way to preserve your memories. Create your own today.

This is the book that Adam and I made for Marty and Cindy's family last year. We just finished making one for Jason and Mara. I'll try to remember to post it after the new year....after they have received it. =)

This is how the Hughes Family does spices

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:30:00 +0000

Earlier this year our family got a HUGE order of spices....for free. WOOT! I won't go into the details as to how we got these for free ( 'Cuz I don't want to get anyone into any trouble) but needless to say, it was a HUGE value! Everything was delivered to our house and I split everything up amongst the families according to what spices people wanted and the size of their family. A lot of sneezing was involved and our dustbuster still reeks of cumin but...that's ok. =)

The big brown box is full of cumin, BTW. Heh heh.
Adam is allergic to sesame. These are his containers of death.

Turning 38

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:05:00 +0000

OK...so this should have been posted on my birthday, July 11th but....well....it wasn't. =)
Above are my fun Sci-Fi gifts that I received. Woot! I love me some Sci-Fi! The Tardis Cookie Jar is from my brother. When the lid is opened, or the light on top is pressed, it makes the whirring Tardis noise. NICE!
The Babylon 5 DVDs are from Adam. Like the geek that I am, it was the only thing that I could think of that I wanted at the time.
It was nice having the family out here for my birthday...even though I am getting old. BOO

Me with Adrienne, my sister-in-law, and my mom.
Me with Adam, the cake I couldn't eat and a non-frosted vegan cupcake that I made so that I could eat something. =)

Soundcheck for Dudu Fisher's Jerusalem

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:01:00 +0000

Tuesday I had the honor of attending Dudu Fisher's Soundcheck. When I say "honor", I MEAN honor. He was amazing! If you missed how this came about, click here.

I have never had a chance to go inside the Tri-Lakes Center. WOWZA! Huge theatre! I got there while the band was still setting up their sound. It was definitely a different experience than with our show. Our show's soundchecks are usually a tad louder with a stray child running across the stage, a diaper change, crying baby, etc. =)

Adam was able to join me after the actual sound check started. I was blown away by Dudu's voice. I have only heard his CDs and seen videos so I wasn't completely prepared to hear his voice in person. You know how you can listen to a CD and then you see someone in person and they don't sound quite a good due to editing? NOT the case here. His voice has even more power and emotion in person....and the singing? Spot on. I am hoping that he will be coming back to Branson so that I can see the actual show because I know he had to hold back since he was performing a show right after the sound check. If I was already impressed by what I heard...those high notes are bound to be fantastic!

Adam's parents were able to attend the show and they absolutely loved it. They were moved by his voice and the show. The stories that were shared in the show really added to the show. They said that Dudu had people literally dancing in the aisles at one point. Her favorite "tee hee" moment was when he explained his nickname and how he got it. For those of you that saw the show, it was the comment that the little girl made. I told her that I've always wanted to see him perform "Bring Him Home" in person (they didn't get to that song during the sound check). She loved the way Dudu introduced the song and tied it into his show. I have heard from several people that there wasn't a dry eye in the audience. *sigh* Someday I will hear it. =)
They were shocked when he was thanking all of his staff, family, friends and those that helped him with the show because...well, after those thank yous he thanked our family and introduced the two of them. They weren't expecting that. HA!

I want to thank Dudu and Ilan for giving me the opportunity to come to the soundcheck....again. I will never forget that experience. Thank you also for being so kind and generous. Best Wishes to the both of you and your families.

I won a cookbook!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 05:42:00 +0000

WAHOOO!!! I am so excited that I won this book from @ChubbyVeganMom on Twitter. She is a fellow Vegan and is always posting fun tweets that will make you smile. Several of the tweets are about her blog posts. If you have never seen her blog, go check it out. It is full of yummy recipes....complete with pictures.

As for the book.... I Can't wait to try some of these recipes. They look YUMMY! This will make a great addition to my HUGE cookbook collection. I'll try to remember to post when I try out recipes from the book. I am sure they will be great from all the reviews that I have read about this book.

Thanks again @ChubbyVeganMom!!!!!

Dudu Fisher performing in Branson!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:52:00 +0000

I am SO excited that Dudu Fisher will be performing in Branson! I received an email from a friend of his, Ilan Sharon, informing me about his one night performance in Branson. BRANSON! The man has 5 shows listed for his performance dates and he is coming here of all places. Argentina, Jerusalem, Brazil, New Jersey and..ummmm, Branson.

For those of you who have no idea who Dudu Fisher is, please read my last post about him.

When I first heard about his performance, I knew I would have to attend....then I realized that it was on a Tuesday night. ACK! We have a show on Tuesday nights. Not good. I went through all of the numbers (in my head) that I was in to see if I could somehow get out of the show that night. I could get all of the parts covered except for one, Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat. Argg. It's one of the many new songs that we just added to the Broadway section of our show. Unfortunately there is no way that I can miss that number. I even tried talking to Jason about just missing that number...uhhh, cutting that section for that night? No dice. If that number gets cut, 2 others will have to get cut along with that one, due to costume changes. Needless to say, I was a tad depressed that I would have to miss it... but then something great happened!

I asked Ilan if there was any way at all that I might be able to see a sound check since I couldn't make it to the performance. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. I knew that there might be others in my family interested too. He later emailed saying that yes, Dudu Fisher said that we could! Wahooo!!

SO! If anyone else wants to see this amazing performer. GO! This is your chance to see him. He will be performing for 1 night only, September the 20th at 7:30 PM. I am attaching a video that has the location and pricing. I encourage you to go see it. Uh, don't let my family know that I said that since I should be encouraging you to see OUR show that night. So Ummm, Go to our show the day before. =)

The venue also has information about Dudu Fisher on their website.

Hwang Family 2011 Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:51:00 +0000

This summer we FINALLY took pictures with our entire family (last time Brian was missing). Once again we had Jared and Joanna take our pictures AND......once again...they are beautiful! You can see more of their work on their website. If you live near me and need any family portraits, wedding photos, etc., give them a call!

These pictures were taken at the Wilderness Trail off of Fall Creek Road. You have to hike a little ways but the view is gorgeous out there. There are several trails including one that is made up of a gazillion steps that lead down to the lake. One day Adam and I plan to go down that trail a little after it rains; apparently there is a natural waterfall....but only when there is runoff. Hmmm, maybe we can go this winter after the snow starts to melt. Hmmmm.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from that day. Enjoy!

Watermelon Harvest of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 06:51:00 +0000

Our watermelon harvest wasn't quite as impressive this year when compared to past years. We were hoping to have our usual 30-40 pound melons but.....it didn't happen. I believe it was due to the insanely hot weather that we had this summer. The vines just kept withering and the fruit just didn't grow as large. On average these melons weighed between 15-20 pounds. =(
Unfortunately, they weren't as sweet either. Normally, about 1 week before we harvest, we stop watering so that the sugars can store up, thus making the melon sweeter. I tried doing that for 1 day but the vines started dying from the heat. Some of them could have used a few more days on the vine but we wanted to pick all of them because some of them had literally split open from the heat. Ah well.....hopefully next year will be better.
Check out our huge hostas in the background.
Sad little watermelons
Prepping the fruit to pass out to the family
Jason and Mara's family
Ryan and Carina's kids
Andy and Becky's kids
Dad
Marty with the kids (Cindy took the pic)

The Gluttonous Bee

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:35:00 +0000

I would like to introduce you to our gluttonous bee. I took this picture about 1.5 months ago when our garden was a happy garden. It was healthy and full of squash blossoms each morning. Now.....it's a sad pest-filled garden, but...that's another story.

This is our cute and fuzzy gluttonous bee. Granted, we had a ton of bees at the time but this guy was different.
He spent several minutes inside of this flower and then moved to another. He was COVERED in pollen. He tried to fly away but kept sinking as he flew. I KID YOU NOT!
He finally gave up and landed on this leaf.
He then proceeded to rub off some of the pollen from his hind legs. You can see some of the pollen in the picture, as well as his legs at work.
Liftoff!!! I tried to get video of him flying off but it didn't come out. He looked like a drunk bee as he flew off. He kind of went side to side whilst dipping down a few inches from the weight of the pollen.

Vikki's Vegan Chunky Cookie Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

I've had a few requests for this recipe so here it is. Let me know how your turn out!

2 C quick cook oats
1 C all-purpose flour
1 C whole wheat flour ( I like white wheat as opposed to red wheat. I'm going to try 2 C wheat flour instead of doing the 1 Wheat, 1 white thing)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

2/3 C canola oil
2/3 C evaporated cane juice ( you can use regular sugar)
3/4 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C unsweetened soymilk ( you can use whatever milk you want)
1 T ground flax
1 t vanilla
2 C of your choice of filler. You can use nuts, fruit, chocolate chips, etc. I used a mix of raw peanuts & walnuts, dried dates, pineapple and papaya.
3/4 cup shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350. Line your cookie sheets with paper.

Mix the oats, flour, soda, powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

In a large bowl mix together oil, sugars, milk, flax and vanilla. I just use a rubber spatula for the entire recipe.

Add flour mixture and fold in. When combined add the coconut and your filling of choice.

I used my bigger cookie scoop and spaced them a few inches apart. The dough is a bit chunky so I had to shape them because they started to come apart after using the scoop for a while. Just get a little water on your fingers and shape them how you want them to look.

Bake until the edges are brown, about 15 minutes. Cool on the pan for a few minutes so that they hold their shape and then transfer them to a cooling rack. ENJOY!

Name that lettuce

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:38:00 +0000

I finally started harvesting our lettuce yesterday. Honestly, I have no idea what some of the names are because it was a mix. I tried to make a lettuce bouquet in the picture above but I ran out of room in the bowl. The following pictures are just some of the varieties that we grew this year.

Video of our Backyard and Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:06:00 +0000

This is just a short video of our yard so that you can get an idea of the layout. It's a bit shaky because I was filming with my phone...not the best quality, sorry about that.
Hope you enjoy our yard.

Another turtle

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 18:26:00 +0000

This past week we looked out our dining room and we saw this....a poor turtle had somehow found there way into our yard and managed to flip itself over. To top things off, it was roasting hot outside. This is the second big turtle in our yard that we have found, the first one was in our pond.
We flipped him over and he went on his merry way. He moved pretty quickly into the bushes. Hopefully he won't come back and go into the pond like the last one.

6/1/2011 Garden Update

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 17:22:00 +0000

This is a view of our backyard facing our house. The upper deck that you see in the distance is where I normally stand to take several pics of our garden.
Our tomatoes are doing fairly well. Some of them are doing great however, some of them have been attacked by aphids this year. A couple of plants may need to be replaced because they may not come back. =(
This is a picture of the Rocky Top Salad Mix. I tried to see if I could find a list of the various lettuces that are in the mix but couldn't find one. All I know is....it looks pretty cool in person. I love the different colors and textures. Hopefully this mix will taste as good as it looks.
On the left is the spinach. It is slowly starting to bolt because the weather is going up. I have already put 1 pound in the freezer and am planning on doing the rest in the following week. I think the spinach from our garden will be great with our tomatoes in a lasagna this summer.

On the right is the Red Romaine, onion dividers, scalloped squashes and the Rocky Top Mix.
We purchased 4 more whisky barrels for our deck this year. I am trying strawberries and cucumbers for the first time, as well as 4 tomatoes. The small pots in the back have my herbs: Thyme, Rosemary, Basil, Oregano, Cilantro and something else I can't think of at the moment.
A close-up of the snow peas. If you look closely, there are sugar snap peas in the back.
The arched trellis we made for the peas. I am waiting for these to die so that I can plant my beans. The snow peas are already on their way out due to the high temps we have been having.
Butternut Squash and Blue Hubbard
We transplanted the cabbage into pots because they were in the way of the other things we planted.
This is a close-up of one of the scallop squashes.

We planted zucchini in our pots this year. Hopefully these ones won't be attacked by borers this year.
More squash on the side of the house.
We have a few bean plants coming back from last year. Unfortunately there is squash planted there so....we may need to pull them out.
I thought I would include a picture of our hostas in the front yard. They are HUGE! We keep forgetting to separate them each year so they are a bit bunched up.

DIY Tomato cages

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 02:48:00 +0000

This year we decided to not tie up our tomato plants like we have for the past 8 years....we're doing tomato cages. Eek! I' m hoping that things will work out because we put a tad bit of effort into making them. Adam had to remove the wood slats that he had attached to the top of our tomato garden before we could do anything else. We are seriously hoping we made the right decision.

Now....if we were going to try cages were going to do it properly. None of that flimsy tomato cage stuff for us. I wanted nice sturdy cages that would hold the 8 foot plants that we normally grow. I'm thinking they won't be reaching those heights since the cages are only 5 feet. *sigh*

We started off with the concrete reinforcement wire that you see above. They are nice and rusty when you buy them so be prepared. We also purchased some snippers to cut through the stuff.

Yes, I realize that I forgot to take the tag off of the clippers before we took this picture. (I finally cut the thing off after cutting the wire for 5 cages.) I'm not the strongest person in the world so cutting the cages took a bit of effort on my part. I believe the wire is 5 feet high and I cut enough for 13 cages.
For the tomato cages in the garden I counted 12 squares and then cut in the middle of the 13th square. For the cages that are in the whisky barrels, I counted 10 squares and then cut the 11th.
Oh, I also cut the top edge off so that the wire is exposed on one end. That is the part that you shove into the ground.

Adam had the fun job of bending the wire of the cut edges over each other. This creates the circle and hold the cage together. Lots of fun on the hands. =)

This is what they look like when they are done. We should be able to use these for several years. The only bad thing is the fact that they don't stack like the store bought cages. I think we will need to just leave them in the beds each year. The cages are perfect to hold the groundcloth in place. We also cut the leftover edge pieces into little sections so that Adam could bend them in half. We used those as "staples" to hold down other areas of the groundcloth. Much cheaper than buying the ones from the store. He also arched a few so that they would fit over our soaker hoses. I'm hoping that we can install a drip line next year. =)

This is the finished product. We have 8 plants in the garden. I'll try to post pics of the 5 plants on our deck soon.

Ginormous egg

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:02:00 +0000

This is a seriously huge egg! There is a wonderful Amish Store in Branson that I love going to for my spices and eggs. The prices are great, especially the spices. Much cheaper than the grocery store and I like the quality better. I recently started buying brown and green eggs from them. They raise their own chickens and one certain chicken made this HUGE 3" egg. Apparently, every other day, they find one huge egg. They don't know which chicken is laying these over-sized eggs but...sheesh...that is one tough chicken!

Wouter Weylandt Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sun, 22 May 2011 23:34:00 +0000

Here is a tiny follow-up to Part 1.
I got my awesome Road ID in the mail today and absolutely love it. Road ID is donating all proceeds of these bands to Wouter Weylandt's family. If you would like to order one or make a donation to the family, please go to Road ID.
You will also get a nifty little keepsake box. =)
For those of you who aren't familiar with Road ID, I urge you to look at their website. They carry various bands that you can customize with your contact information. This is especially great for athletes because there may come a time where you will need help and you are unable to speak for yourself. Whether you are a cyclist that has been run off the road or a runner that has collapsed, your ID will speak for you. Personally I think these are great for children too, in case they get lost. You can either choose to have the information imprinted on the metal plate OR you can make it available online or over the phone. The band will just show the website and a 1-800 number that people can call to get the information....this is great in case you aren't comfortable to with everyone seeing your personal info.

If you are interested in ordering in the next 28 days or so, you can use this coupon code to save $1 on your order: ThanksVikki5704390.

Wouter Weylandt Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Wed, 11 May 2011 06:28:00 +0000

Honestly, I can't quite explain why I have been so affected by the tragic accident that happened in Stage 3 at the Giro D'Italia this past Monday. I am feeling saddened and heart-broken for the family and friends of Wouter Weylandt. Sorry and full of sorrow at this life that was cut short so unexpectedly. I have been following cycling for over a decade and there have been losses before this one, but for some reason this one has touched me much deeper.

I have been moved by the out-pouring of love and support that everyone in the cycling community has had for the family, friends and teammates of Wouter. Through this time of mourning one is able to see the raw emotion that people are feeling, which has been heart-wrenching. The tribute ride during Stage 4 was difficult to watch because of emotion that was felt as you watched, from the Bugle playing to that image of Team Leopard and Tyler Farrar crossing the finish line together. Seeing Tyler's face at that moment just broke my heart and wrecked me.

It doesn't make sense because I am simply a fan. I am not related, have never met him and did not follow his career as closely as I have followed other riders. Why does his death seem to tug at my heart-strings and bring me to tears so easily?

The only explanation I can think of is the sense of family that cycling seems to have. I have met fellow fans both in person and over the internet. I have also had the wonderful opportunity to meet several riders, which has been amazing! In the US it's kind of like our own special club because there aren't as many fans as say....basketball or American Football.

I do think that social media, such as Twitter and Facebook have enabled me to form my own group of friends who understand my need to follow this sport. That overwhelming need to wake up at insane hours to watch a race online or read race reports as reported by teams and riders on Twitter. Giggling as I read Tweets that riders make to each other and seeing the respect and support that they have for one another. Twitter has made the riders much more accessible, including pictures of some pretty harsh injuries, road rash and surgeries. Ya gotta love it!

I'm not quite sure why I'm even writing this but....there it is.
RIP Wouter Weylandt. Love and hugs to all those that knew him and to anyone else who has been affected by his death.

Mother's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:49:00 +0000

Happy Mother's to all the women out there! I hope everyone had a wonderful day today!
I got this nifty little gadget for Mother's Day. I was eyeing it in the Brookstone Catalog and saw it in pink on Amazon so...seeing as it was in pink....it HAD to be added to my wishlist. =)
The Boogie Board is basically a glorified White Board....ummmm, except that it's black. I love it! I wish you could save files and erase specific things as opposed to the entire page , however, I knew it's capabilities ahead of time so I'm happy. I mean c'mon! It's a gadget and it's pink, what's not to love?
This is the case. Works great so far.
For Mother's Day our family went to Mom and Dad Hughes' house for dessert. I decided to make vegan cupcakes. UNHEALTHY yummy vegan cupcakes. It took me twice as long because I accidentally forgot the sugar in the first batch. DOH! I seem to have a problem with leaving out ingredients lately, salt in bread and sugar in cupcakes. They actually didn't taste too bad...basically fluffy biscuits. Because the frosting was made with powdered sugar and orange juice, it was sweet enough to put on the "biscuits". I packed 20 normal cupcakes and 4 frosted fluffy biscuits.

Isn't my carrier cool? We bought it a few years back in a breast cancer awareness display.
NOM!

5/6/2011 Garden Update

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Sat, 07 May 2011 05:45:00 +0000

We have finally started to plant things in our garden this year. YAY! It all started with my stalking Starbuck's for their coffee grounds. I now have a nice supply to use for our garden this year. I'm hoping that it will help boost our plants this year. We can't make our own compost in Pointe Royale so I am mixing the Coffee grounds with egg shells in 2 small tubs to later use as fertilizer. Mushroom Compost is still our staple that we use for our squash and tomato plants.
As some of you have heard, we had several major storms in our area, which caused a lot of flooding. The second bed in the picture is the one that has our spinach and lettuce. We lost a lot of the spinach and 5 out of 6 of my cabbage plants. Grrrrr
This is the size of the remaining spinach plants as of now. I'm hoping that they will start taking off now that the sun is finally coming out.
Here is a picture of the Mizuna lettuce. It is doing great! This has a slightly bitter taste so I'm not quite sure how we will be using it. I got this as a sample seed and decided to plant it to see how well it would grow. AMAZING how easy it is to grow.
So...this is how the sugar snap peas and the snow peas looked after a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the rabbits decided to snack on half of the plants. A lot of the plants were eaten down to the ground. I don't think those ones are going to make it. We have since put up chicken wire around the outside of the plants to keep them out.

SO...the plan was to plant everything from seed this year, including the tomatoes. However, the tomatoes will be from Home Depot this year. The seedlings were doing great. Granted, I was 2 weeks behind schedule....but they were growing well. Too bad Kahlan decided that she wanted to taste them. As you can see, she decimated them all. Argggg. Not cool.
This is the Rocky Top Salad Mix. I am loving the variety in this packet. I think we will be harvesting this in the next couple of weeks.
This was a nice surprise that I found today. Apparently my basil seeded from last year! So far the biggest leaves are almost 1/4 inch.

We are planting the tomatoes, squash and herbs tomorrow.

George's Mustache

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 05:56:00 +0000

Meet George, one of my many nephews out here in Branson. He is 3 years old and so adorable. This was filmed after our night show tonight. He was telling us about his mustache and shaving. When he refers to James...that is our new brother-in-law. Ya gotta love kids. =)

Oh...I had about 5 little kids behind me making comments throughout the entire thing. His Mom, Mara, is the other voice you hear. She's the one that asks him to show us his push-ups.

Finally starting our 2011 Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:23:00 +0000

We have finally started working on our garden. YAY! This year we are changing a few things around....again. It's always fun to try a few new things. If you look closely at the picture at the top, you can see some wire arches. We used cattle panels for that. We decided to hold them in place by using stakes as opposed to concreting them in place, just in case we change our minds later. The plan is to plant Sugar Snap Peas and Snow peas next to the trellis until things heat up in the summer. When those start to die back I am going to replace them with the Chinese Red Long Beans that I planted last year, and a green Asparagus Bean that is also a long bean. I'm hoping that the arched trellis will work because it will look better than the trellis that we had leaning against the house.

As for the 3 beds next to the trellis, I will number them starting from right to left...the first being the structure.

1. Tomatoes
The plan is to remove the chicken wire from the structure. We initially put that on there to keep out any animals. Well, the only critters that seem to steal the tomatoes are the birds and the squirrels. Seeing as they can still get in through the top....no need for the chicken wire. We are also going to remove the structure itself, except for the vertical posts; those are concreted in.
We purchased some flexible wire to make cages. The cages will be 5' tall and around 2.5' in diameter. I am hoping to start the seedlings soon. As for the types of tomatoes, I finally narrowed it down to 8 varieties: Aunt Ruby's German Green, Kellogg's Breakfast, Ozark Pink, Black Cherry, Old Italian, Riesentraube, White Tomesol and Yellow Mortgage Lifter.

2. Spinach, Leeks, Celery and Daikon Radish
Because our beds are all 8' x 12' we are splitting this one in half. It's always better to not stomp on the soil so....we are going to prevent that this year. We still need to go to Home Depot to pick out a simple stone to make a path down the middle of the box, lengthwise. Half of the bed will have Spinach: Giant Noble and Bloomsdale Longstanding. The other half will have the Leeks, Celery and Daikon. Of course, after I had already ordered the celery, I read about the planting instructions. The first article that I read stated that homegrown celery doesn't taste much different from store-bought and it is really hard to grow. They also said that most gardeners just plant it as a challenge. Looovely. JUST what I wanted. Arggg

3. Squash
We are going to plant Butternut Rogosa and Blue Hubbard Squash. I'm hoping that we can keep them nice and healthy and that the vines and fruit will take over the box. The other hope it that we won't have any problem with borers as per usual.

On our deck we have 2 big planters. I will be planting Carbon Tomatoes in one and the other will have herbs again.

Our watermelon crop will be limited to 3 types this year. We planted quite a few last year but there were definite favorites as far as flavor. I have so many types of watermelon seeds in my collection so only doing 3 is killing me. We both love the Crimson Sweet and the Missouri Heirloom Yellow Flesh. This Year we will be trying the Cream of Saskatchewan. It has a cream colored flesh! How cool is that? Hopefully it will taste yummy!

Normally we try planting cantaloupes or cucumbers next to the melons. This year we will be doing a Long of Naples Squash plant.

There are 2 other types of squash that I want to plant: Lebanese White Bush Marrow and Benning's Green Tint Scallop. I am trying to decide between 2 locations. One is where we planted the radishes last year and the other is the planter that is below the watermelons. I'll let you know what we decide.

I realize I keep interchanging "we" and "I" as I type this. It's a little hard to keep track of. Adam is the manual labor for the most part. I try to help when I can but hey, I'm not as strong and can't last as long. I do love planting the seeds though so I usually do that. =)

Here are a few pictures of our nephews helping us clean out the garden. My allergies started attacking me that night.

Getting rid of the tomato vines that I removed from the structure.

The Netbook Story comes to an end

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 06:47:00 +0000

Well, it's finally over. The Netbook is gone. Here is what has transpired as of January.

A few weeks later my Netbook, once again, had to be brought in. All of a sudden it would not power up. I believe it was my 5th time using it since I had gotten it back from Best Buy.

When I got to the Geek Squad desk I was greeted and asked how things were going with the Netbook. By this point most of the Geek Squad recognized me from my previous trips. They said that they thought it was the motherboard and had to send it in to be fixed.

A week or so later I got a call saying that they would do a "junk-out"....very telling phrase, "junk-out". Yes, you did sell me a piece of junk. They told me that I could get another Netbook that was the same cost. Of course, they don't normally carry that model so....I was told I could trade it for something comparable. I asked if I would have to pay anything additional since I had only used it a whopping 5 times since Black Friday because it has been in their possession most of the time. I was assured that I wouldn't have to pay as long as it was basically the same model. I was told to wait for the salesman so I did....for literally 35 minutes. Apparently the only guy in the computer department was also working the customer service desk. Thank goodness for Netflix on my iPhone. Woot! He showed me three models that I could choose from and helped me decide. We got to the paperwork part and then I was told that I owed $109. Ummm, huh? I thought I wouldn't have to pay anything additional. Sorry, not paying around $300 for a Netbook when I already have a laptop, desktop and iPhone. I was ok spending $170 + tax but not another $109 for something that I really didn't need. It was more of a convenience so...I got store credit instead.

With that credit I decided to get a Kindle to add to my eBook reader collection. I still have credit left to spend but I think I'll just hang on to it for now.

Pictures of our frozen/defrosting pond

noreply@blogger.com (Vikki) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:33:00 +0000

Here are a few pictures that we took of our pond while it was frozen and also when it was slowly defrosting. Some of the pictures were taken with our phones so please excuse the quality.
It was kind of neat watching the pond defrost because the icy layer would remain intact, almost suspended in air, while the water level lowered beneath.
If you look closely you can see one of our fish.