New Swallowtail!!

I left home with a chrysalis on the counter and came home to...

Butterfly Garden - List of Plants - Zone 7

Here is a list of the plants currently in my butterfly garden:

• Butterfly bush (white)
• Bee balm
• Aster
• Salvia (variety)
• Marigolds
• Cosmos
• Hyssop
• Flat leaf parsley
• Dill
• Yarrow (yellow & peach)
• Confederate jasmine
• Lantana
• Verbena (tall leggy & purple)
• Coreopsis
• Climbing hydrangea (not doing well)
• Unknown shrubs (2)

I have noticed this year that the butterflies spend a lot of time in the tops of my photinia's and white pine. I think they like the dense canopy.

Butterfly's in the Garden!

I am so excited about and proud of my butterfly garden!  Here are a few of the visitors I've managed to capture on film this year.

Monarch on Buddlea (Butterfly Bush)

Horace's Duskywing Skipper on Salvia leaf

Lola & the Swallowtail (perched on cosmos)

Grey Hairstreak on purple Verbena

Green Lynx Spider at home on a Cosmo plant

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Butterfly Bush

The Madness of Oak leaf Hydrangea's!

Oak leaf hydrangea's, Maple, cast iron plants

My big Labor Day 2010 project was to plant 3 Oak leaf hydrangea's.  Under a 60 year old Maple tree of unknown variety.  Hence, the "madness!"

I knew it was going to be a tough dig.  What I didn't know was that it wasn't going to be so much of a dig as a hack at the teeny spaces between the giant roots, curse, take a deep breathe, remember that I love gardening, hack...repeat.  Eventually, I found three decent spots under the tree which were not anywhere near where my landscape plan showed planting the oak leafs, but that's ok.  They are in and I think they look fantastic.

I also dug up and divided some cast iron plants and pocket planted them amongst the hydrangea's and along the slope behind the Maple.  I relocated a coral bell and painted fern that were not happy elsewhere in the garden.  After watering everything in, I sat down with a big glass of ice cold water and enjoyed the view.

Mushroom Pomodoro

or, at least that's what I'm going to call it!

Ingredients: sea shell pasta, mushrooms, tomatos, garlic, green onion, red pepper flakes, olive oil, basil, parmesan cheese, salt & pepper.  Adjust ingredients based on how many servings you'd like to make.

Boil pasta, drain, reserve some pasta water
sauté mushrooms & garlic in olive oil (quite possibly the BEST smell on this planet!)
add diced fresh tomato
add pat of butter
little more olive oil
chiffonade basil, add to heated mixture right before you toss with pasta - - give it just a second or two on the heat.
Combine all ingredients.
Add pasta water as necessary - if it's dry.
Grate fresh parm on top, serve immediately.

Delicious!!  Very tasty post yoga vegetarian dinner.  Enjoy!
If you try it out, let me know what you think in the comments.

Something's in the air

We’re experiencing a major heat wave, which is miserable. I am having the BEST day, just wanted to share.

Car Repair updates & a delicious dish!

Betcha were worried, you hadn't heard from me in awhile!  Well, the SAAB A-C recharge went just fine.  This post is about the most yummy linguini primavera!

I am trying very hard to eat a little more healthily, locally and creatively.  Here's the result!

Ingredient List: linguini, fresh red and green peppers, white onion, broccoli, diced tomatoes, porcini mushrooms, zucchini, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, chicken broth.  I also had a chance to use some fresh herbs from my garden - basil, curly parsley and dill.

Today's Crazy Idea

I am going to attempt to recharge my a/c system in my Saab 9-3 convertible. Now, why recharge the system when you have a convertible? Why not just lower the top?

Well. You’d have to have a functioning top. That’s another post for another day.

Armed with an R-12 to R-134a adapter, some sort of valve do-ma-jiggy, a can of freon and about 30 minutes of online research (with no pictures mind you!) I am off to try to find the low side line.

Apparently, once I find this line, I am supposed to attached this pressurized can (which, if you attach to the wrong line will blow up, the kind man at Advance Auto Zone said while encouraging me to take it to my car repair place) and, if all goes well it will magically blow cold air again.

Totally sounds like I know what I’m doing, right?

May the force be with me.

And Mom, I am going to wear my safety glasses!

Ok, I'm pissed.

Recently, I ended a long term romantic relationship. My friends have been very supportive and almost all of them reacted with anger - - directed towards the Venezuelan. Part of that reaction is that they are my friends and don’t like it when I get hurt. (They rock.) The other part was incredulity at the fact that over a year into the relationship, when backed into a corner, he explains that he doesn’t ever see himself with a family or married. Whether this is true or whether he lacked the balls to say that he didn’t see that future with me, I won’t know until I get his wedding invitation.

I thanked all of my friends for their reactions but told them not to be angry with him. There were lots of good things about the relationship and the ending was rather uneventful. After reading a blog post (by one of my favorite bloggers! Check her out here: Chez Rougie) about online dating - - she is also recently single, I am pissed.

HELLO!! WHY WERE WE DATING?? WTF?

It’s not like I struggle for things to do on the weekends, well, any day of the week. Between networking, fabulous friends and family, I have kinda a full schedule.

Now I have to start dating again and I AM PISSED.

I am pissed because I have to go out there again.
I am pissed because I have to reactivate my match dot com membership.
I am pissed because I’ll have to go to Alive After 5 and hang out with the 20 somethings and the 30+ somethings who are single 'cause they are weird, just getting divorced or old dudes.
I am pissed because I have to go out there again. (Repetition duly noted.)

Welcome to Stage 3 of the grieving process - Anger & Bargaining.

Oh, and the Tar Heels made it to the Final Four of the NIT. Do they call it a Final Four in the NIT? I mean, they were Not Invited to the Tournament.

Oh, and...I am pissed.

Stuck in the middle

Stuck in the middle between college and....where are we supposed to be?

I have somehow found myself in my 30’s and single with no prospects for marriage in site. Before today, this really bothered me. And, to be honest, it will probably bother me again. However, today, I found out that I’m not alone!

I had a fantastic lunch today with an ex-boyfriend/old friend - one of the few ex’s that has survived a breakup with me! We live in Southernville and our friends have all gotten on the train. They did the “college - great job - laid off - great job - marriage - laid off - great job - house - kids - save for retirement” thing. (Note to self: come up with a name) My friends and I are the tail end of generation-X and are on our second recession since graduation in the late 90’s.

All of our friends are building lovely lives together with their spouses. They are on their first or second child. Some friends are already on their second husbands! They have nice cars, nice homes, savings accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, college accounts for the kids. Somehow, we missed the train.

It was certainly not for lack of effort. He and I have both dated extensively. We’ve done the college dating, the post-college meet in a bar dating, the online dating, recycled ex’s (including each other!). We aren’t weird people. No odd growths, strange habits, we don’t smell bad, we’re decent looking. In fact, we’re on the decent side of decent looking!

We’ve done everything we were “supposed” to do, except get married. Somehow, we just haven’t managed to fit into the mold you are “supposed” to fit into. I question why - what have we done wrong?

Today's Dumb Question

Does your Brita water filter last longer than most of your relationships?

Down Dog

Clancy just made my morning!

I have a Yoga/Pilates room set up at the house. Yes, I will admit, it does not get as much use as it should. This morning, I walked in and Clancy was doing down dog on the yoga mat!! I wish I’d had a camera.

Two Year Anniversary

2008 was a Helluva year. First, I got laid off. Then, I caught my kitchen & myself on fire. There are pictures below and they are pretty graphic, so if you have a weak stomach, skip this post!

Here are some pictures of my hand, with second degree burns, after the fire:

Day One

Day Three

Day Four

Looking at these pictures makes my stomach turn. The memory of how painful the burn and healing process were still take my breath away.

As they say, time heals all wounds.  This was taken March 13, 2010.

Suicide by Fried Rice

So, yet again, I tried to kill myself. This time I attempted death by food poisoning, not death by fire. Sorry, that’s a bad joke.

After seeing a clip from Food Inc. and The Cove during the Oscars on Sunday, I was seriously toying with being a vegetarian. I got home and decided to make vegetable fried rice a la Trader Joe’s. Now, a little back story. I SUCK at making white rice. I am a pretty darn good cook, but somehow, rice is beyond me. Tuesday, I got lucky. Followed the ex-boyfriends advice (he made fabulous rice!) and it turned out...OK... I was so proud. I had just watched America’s Test Kitchen make stir fry and (1) made sure my pan was smokin’ hot (2) sauteed onions and more mushrooms (3) stir fried the frozen veggies in batches so as not to steam them (4) cooled my rice before frying it. All was on track to be a tasty meal.

Sometime between dinner Tuesday night and waking up Wednesday morning, my digestive track staged a mutiny. Oye vey.

Later that morning, after I composed myself, I called Mom to whine. Then I posted on facebook that I was sick. I toyed with setting up an out of office email explaining that I was dying. There is something about being sick that turns me a pathetic whiney human being. I want sympathy. From anyone and everyone. There is NO WAY any one else has ever felt as badly as I do in this moment. It's not possible. (See Rougie’s lessons learned about being sick.)

So, I slept. I slept ALL day. My wonderful sister brought over seltzer tonic water (it was supposed to be seltzer), krispy kreme doughnuts (surprisingly easy on the digestive system) and McDonald's french fries. Mickey D's french fries are my magic cure all when I am sick. This may sound crazy when your stomach is upset, but I like to feed a sickness and is usually works. Note, I said "usually!" Not this time, I couldn't eat the fries...or the doughnuts. It was back to the popsicles for me!

Wine makes everything Fine.

I was just reading over a blog a friend and I started in 2008. We were going to sell our places, ditch everything and travel until the money ran out. I had been laid off, she hated her job. It seemed like a good plan. Stuff happened and in late '08 the plan was put on hold. Well, she's in India practicing yoga and I'm drinking a glass of wine in the same kitchen as 2008. At least it's been fully remodeled since then - I do love it.

Today was a rough day. Nothing in particular went wrong. Just lots of waiting on other people and a lot of pissy people. Something was in the air, so I left work at a decent hour, ran some errands and headed home. Carolina Girl called while driving home. I pick up the phone, say hello and get "I am so pissed. everyone is pissy. can you go out for a dinner and wine?" I just started laughing! Perfect. Yes. How about wine and some dinner? We're off to check out a new sushi place and I'm looking forward to it. Looking forward to that dinner, a quick power yoga and a large glass of wine later, I am in a much better mood!

BTW - the yoga dvd was "trudie styler's power warrior." Recommended by Cookie (she's a yoga teacher who is a best friend's mom). Lady knows her stuff!

Yippee Skippy!!

I got my first blog comment today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Que the Pointer Sisters!

"I'm sooo excited! And I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!"

Ok. Breathe. Time to work.

Mhaaaawah....

It's Tuesday, which means yesterday was Monday. Not the most shocking revelation, eh? Well, every Monday for the last...I don't know? Two years? My best friend Andrea has been coming over after work. Originally, the plan was to work out and then I would make dinner, she brought the wine. I LOVE to cook and am a fair to middlin' cook. We stuck to this plan for a long time. You may be asking yourself, dinner...wine...exercise, what's the point? Don't they cancel each other out?! Well, sure enough...before long we were opening the bottle of wine when she arrived and ordering take out from the mexican dive down the street. Every once in a while, I would still turn out a tasty dinner. Remember, it's Monday night and we were tired!

Monday nights were just about sacred to me, and I hope, to her. They were something I looked forward to all day on Monday. It's nice to have something to look forward to after work on a Monday. Last Saturday the bitch up and moved! She left town for good. As previously mentioned, she is my best friend so this wasn't exactly a surprise to me. The surprise was how much I missed her.

I boo-hooed a little when we said our goodbyes, but not too much because we promised we weren't going to cry and, we aren't crying kind of girls. We've been friends for 15 years, almost half our lives (holy cow), it's not like we weren't going to see each other again. We both have several very strong long distance and long lasting friendships, so we know it can be done and have no doubts that we will do it.

None the less, yesterday sucked.

I heart...new to me techie things!

I am in love with two tech things right now! The first is "readability." I was introduced to this by David Pogue in his great ideas of 2009 article. This is great! When you really want to focus on content on a website, you click this little button on your broswer bar and next thing you know, you are looking at an "e-reader" version of the page! The article is translated into a nice white background with a lovely grey/black sans serif font. They have a few different "views" you can choose from, this is the one I liked. Here's the link if you're interested in checking it out: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

The second thing that I absolutely love is "Adium." Found out about this little gem of an im client aggregator from LifeHacker's blog. I have been looking for a way to put all of my im conversations in one program so that I'm not (1) logging into every darn one each time because my friends cannot all agree to use on free email service (or skype...who isn't using skype yet?!) and (2) it's just cleaner. You don't have so much crap crudding up your screen and RAM. Bonus! It pulls in Facebook chat too! Here's a link to download Adium (pronounced Stadium). http://adium.im/