Hey, look! Here’s one way to use those 30+ English muffins I found in the freezer the other day! I like that you can make a batch and then freeze them so that when you’re having a hankering for a breakfast pizza, all you have to do is pop one in the microwave.
How are your fruit trees coming along?
The citrus trees seem to be doing really well. We’re not really sure when we need to harvest the fruit from those trees, but Fred suggested that when the oranges are ready to be picked, we should pick the key limes as well. (I did not know until I saw a bag of them at the grocery store that key limes are tiny.) I’m hoping to make key lime curd this winter!
Here’s an interesting note: the leaves of the key lime tree? SMELL LIKE LIME. How cool is that?
Fred got a small bowl full of tiny peaches last month. According to him, they were really good. I don’t think we got any plums, and only a handful of apples and a couple of pears. Seriously, our “orchard” is letting us down. I guess it takes a few years for the trees to get established and start bearing fruit for real. Hopefully some day I’ll be able to make peach-habanero jam from our own peaches!
I LOVE Hoarders (A & E). Will watch “Hoarding: Buried Alive” (TLC) in a pinch–the pacing is just Not Right on that show. We tend to fast forward through Hoarding, while watching every cat shit-laden minute of Hoarders. We even sat through two straight hours last week, including Sir What’s His Name (who was really sweet, and reminded me of something out of “Arsenic & Old Lace” or “Harvey.”). Also, “Hoarding” makes me feel like jumping up & cleaning afterwards, while “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” not so much. And I love the guy on Hoarders who shows up with the Got Junk crew and gets very, very cranky after awhile…
(If you don’t toss those English muffins, they may send the other Robin out to “counsel” you–my husband calls her “The Hair.”)
(In the interests of accuracy, I should report that we watched the second Hoarders last night, & I realized I was wrong. He calls her “Dr. Hair.”)
I agree that the pacing on Hoarding: Buried Alive isn’t right (and how dumb am I that I didn’t realize ’til I read your comment that they’re on different stations? DUH.). Buried Alive seems to be kind of “Let us meet some hoarders and see how they deal with their hoarding lifestyle!”, whereas Hoarders is more “Let us meet some hoarders and give them tools to figure out their shit.”
LOVE LOVE LOVE the guy who shows up with the Got Junk crew (Matt? I’m thinking that’s his name), and I LOVE the fact that he gets cranky and he doesn’t bother to hide it.
Dr. Robin Zasio (I always yell “ZAZZZZZZZZIOOOOOOOO!” when she comes on the screen.) has got herself some crazy, twirling eyes, doesn’t she? I love it when the cleaning-out process starts, and the hoarder is going all gangbusters, and then they run across some scrap of paper from 1978 that stops them dead cold, and Dr. Zasio starts gently trying to coax them into talking about how they’re feeling, but you can just SEE from her eyes that she’s dying to haul off and start throwing everything into the dumpster.
The shows that get me the most are the ones where peoples’ homes are chock-full of garbage. I cannot stand the thought of how their homes must SMELL. Too much stuff? I get that. Garbage rotting on the floor and animal feces everywhere? I do not. Homes with nonfunctioning bathrooms and NO running water? GAH. The lady with the used adult diapers everywhere? NIGHTMARES.
The creepiest episode (we saw several) featured a family of four: Abusive father, hoarding mother, and two middle-aged kids who never moved out or got lives outside the filthy, dysfunctional house. What made me really mad is that the county gave them their cats back (after discovering the cats living in horrible conditions).
YES. And didn’t they say that the house was structurally unsound and they were going to have to condemn it, and the father was super-pissed and blaming everyone else?
What KIND of english muffins?
Thomas english muffins, of course! Is there any other kind?
I wouldn’t dither over a rotten cantaloupe, but just yesterday I pulled the sticker off one of those round cup-like containers of gum after we chewed the last piece of gum, because “I could wash it out and use it to… store things in.” I don’t know what things, mind you, I just know that at some point, soon, I’m going to think to myself, “I wish I had a container about *yea* big and *so* round to put these ____ into – if only I hadn’t thrown away that empty gum container!”
I’m sitting on the top of the hoarder slide, holding onto the sides, looking down and yelling about being scared, but the kids coming up the ladder behind me are getting impatient so I’m going to push off any moment now…
Oh god, the “This container seems like it would be REALLY useful!” disease! I totally have that. At one point, I had something like 40 baby food jars, because don’t those TOTALLY seem they would be useful for….something? Cottage cheese containers! I had almost 30 of them because they seem like they would be SO HANDY. I finally recycled all but 5 of them (because if I need to take a kitty poo sample to the vet, that is the PERFECT size), but every time I rinse one out, I clutch it to my bosom frantically and think “You would be SO USEFUL!” before I recycle it. The buckets that Fresh Step used to come in! I have a pile of them – but in my defense, they really DO get used.
You are not alone, Elayne. I know we’re not the only ones who look at a container and think “Oh, that looks SO handy! I can’t possibly toss it!”
The rest of you, fess up. What containers are you hoarding in the back of your cupboards because you absolutely KNOW they’ll come in handy some day?
There’s liquid bandage you can buy too for paper cuts etc. Works the same as super glue, but is perhaps less toxic?
Yeah, we have a bottle of that stuff around here somewhere. I couldn’t find it, though, so I had to resort to super glue! How toxic is the super glue, anyway? Am I going to develop super powers?
Oh. And I don’t know what it’s called when you remove the corn, but the tool we have to do it, I call a “corner” and crack myself up. I = easily amused.
I am also easily amused – I cackled when I read this!
*snort* I’m a geek, but when you were talking about the chickens with the ? over their heads, I could not help think of this: http://warcraftpets.com/guides/images/chicken/prairie_chicken.jpg. It’s a quest in World of Warcraft called Cluck! You go to a farm where there are some chickens running around, and you buy a bag of chicken feed from the farmer. Then you go up to one of the chickens and proceed to “cluck” at it while waggling your arms like wings. You do that a couple dozen times and then the chicken gives you this quest, and gets the ? over it’s head, you give it the feed. When you’ve completed the quest, the chicken lays an egg, which you pick up and open to receive a tiny pet chicken 🙂
You will not sucker me in to playing WOW, Aimee. Will NOT! 😛
I’ve never heard of cob jelly. What is this stuff? 😉
Jelly made from corn cobs, of course!
I saw the recipe over at Suzanne McMinn’s site, and I thought “Hmm. I have lots of corn on the cob!” and decided to give it a try. What really made me interested was that she said it tastes like honey.
So I made it, I tasted it, and I don’t know that it tastes like honey, but it’s not bad. Fred doesn’t like it, because he says it tastes like corn. It does NOT, but I don’t know how quickly I’ll end up using the three half-pints of jelly I ended up with. Was interesting to make, but I doubt I’ll do it again.
Growing up, we always called sweet cornbread “city” cornbread. So you’re not a Yankee, you’re just high falutin’ cityfied.
I always suspected I was born to be high falutin’. 🙂
“Every morning for the past three days, he picks up the skunk – which somehow ends up upstairs every evening – and he carries it from my bedroom upstairs, down the hallway, down the stairs, down the downstairs hallway, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. The entire length of his journey, he keens at the top of his lungs as though he’s caught and killed a real skunk, and he’s coming to show me his “kill”.”
I was wondering if any of your cats do this! We have an extra large furry mouse (which is in very bad shape, no tail and gobby fur) and Buddy will actually carry it upstairs and then come back down meowing at the top of his lungs, wander through the first floor, and arrive in the living room caterwauling the whole way. Drop toy, jump on lap, fall asleep as if nothing happened.
It’s kind of funny except he drowns out the TV when he does it, and he’s also been known to come into the bedroom 2 or 3 times in the wee hours in spite of “Buddah shaddap I’m tryna sleep!”
This is fairly new behavior on Jake’s part – but Miz Poo has done it for years. She loves to do it in the middle of the night, and she ALWAYS starts at the farthest point possible and ends up in my bedroom. I’m pretty sure I yell “MIZ! POO! SHUT! UP!” in my sleep when she does it these days. She also doesn’t drop it and go on with her day once she’s arrived at her destination. She drops it, and then she makes these little chirpy noises like “Did you see what I caught? You see what I got, there? I caught that my own self! I am such the good hunter! Go, me!”
Yaaaay!!! Bitchypoo appeared in my rss feed this morning. The link’s been broken for weeks, and I’ve had to come to your site manually (HORRORS!!!!).
Whatever you did, thank you!
While I’d like to take credit, I don’t think it was anything I did. Maybe someone kicked a tire and the internet fixed itself.
Just rename your Strawberry-habanero jam, Strawberry-habanero syrup and sell it that way. 😉 Some people might like hot syrup for their pancakes.
I very well may have to end up doing that! I processed it a second time yesterday (it was as runny as water when I dumped it from the jars into the pot) and it’s slightly thicker now, but still not at the point where I’d call it jam. I’m going to give it a few days to gel, and if it doesn’t, I’m going to give up and call it syrup!
Can one hoard cats? Just askin’!
I don’t get where you’re going with this completely out of the blue question. What are you implying?
(Shaddup, you.)
My million dollar idea is a reality show called “I Will Throw All Your Shit Away.” I will let you be on the show with me – we’ll throw everyone’s shit away!
DREAM JOB! I accept your job offer and will pack my bags post-haste.
I adore this picture. Martin is clearly thinking “WTF?”
I was outside picking cherry tomatoes, and Maxi came over to see what I was doing. On the other side of the fence (in the back yard), Corbett did the same. Maxi apparently felt that Corby was in her space, and did some hissing and smacking.
What cracked me up is that Maxi didn’t even stick her paw through the fence to smack Corby, and he still fell over like she’d made contact. I guess he knows who’s in charge around these parts.
Previously
2009: “In a world where human babies are abandoned and allowed to die on the street because they were born female, I’m having a hard time mustering up too much sympathy for male chickens.”
2008: The Godfather Catmother
2007: I don’t know what you do to surprise your husband – lingerie, or a gift from the local “adult” store, perhaps – but I know the direct way to Fred’s heart, and mowing the lawn so he was free to come home and work on his shed instead of having to mow the lawn made him one happy man.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: How’d you like to wake up in the dark and see the Baldwin noggin coming toward you? I bet your life would flash in front of your eyes.
2003: “Freakass freak” is two words.
2002: As I pointed out to Fred this afternoon, it makes me uncomfortable when Dr. Phil is nice.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.