My Serrano Peppers are starting to turn red!

So excited to see that some of my Serrano peppers have begun to change colors! This one was the first one... I spotted it yesterday and squealed with joy. Tonight it was bright red and ready for me to snatch it off the plant. There's another that seems to have gotten the hint and it should be red by tomorrow night. I am so excited!

Garden Update and Questions about my Bell Peppers

Finally a garden update! It's been about a month since the last. I've taken pictures, but have not gotten around to updating. Everything is looking pretty good these days, though we had a little miss-step with the cucumbers. They didn't get watered often enough during a pretty hot week and they look a little sad as a result. They are still producing cucumbers, but not as many as they were before said miss-step.

This is the first time we have ever grown peppers... so I am having trouble deciding what to do or think about some of our peppers. So I could use any feedback. Some of the peppers are one color green and others are a more yellow green. I can't remember which are supposed to turn what colors... but I've been checking the yellowy looking ones for two weeks becuase I was just sure they were going to turn a brighter yellow or another color any day now... but now I am not so sure. I have no idea how long to wait and I'm starting to get concerned they they might go bad if I don't pick them soon.



And then there's our tomatoes. They look delightful and I am dying for them to turn red. All of our in ground plants are covered in tomatoes at every stage. So when they do start to turn red we're going to have more tomatoes than we know what to do with! (I can't wait!)


And then we have the cherry tomatoes, which are in our topsy turveys. They are healthy, but not really producing much yet. They were planted about a month after the other tomatoes though, so I expect they will pick up later this month. Right now we have one adorable little cherry tomato.


I will have to do an update on the herb garden soon as well. It is doing great. But I have to laugh at my first attempt at cilantro. It was a mess. I made the mistake of getting it from the garden center already pretty grown... and so litterally a week or two after I planted it the plant bolted. I was annoyed until I read online about the seeds and realized I could not only get some corriander out of this blunder, but I could also get some seeds to start my own from seed next time. I didn't bargin for the CRAZY amount of seeds that would come from this thing though. There are probably a hundred seed pods on it. I'm just waiting till the turn brown to collect them. I collected a few today, but I expect to collect many many more very soon.


And lastly. This little bugger. I hate these things. I don't have any clue if they are harmful to my pepper plants (anyone? anyone? bueller? bueller?), but one of the dorms I stayed in during college had these all over the place. I refuse to do anything about this thing, unless I find I need to for the health of my peppers... and mostly because the crunching sound that is made when you squish them is revolting... and of course... they stink... because they are stink bugs. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled to find them hanging around the garden.

Currently Reading

I am notoriously bad at starting another book before I finish another. This would be why I am in the middle of six... yes six... books right now.


1. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (184/540)
2. The Magician's Assistant - Ann Patchett (26/357)
3. Watership Down - Richard Adams (248/474)*
4. Crazy Ladies - Michael Lee West (119/400)
5. PR! A Social History of Spin - Stuart Ewen (70/414)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (81/652)

I also started and finished The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling this afternoon. It was such a fun little book and reminded me just how much I love losing myself in the world of Harry Potter.

So what is everyone else reading?


*I have been reading this book for 2 years now... sigh, one day I will finish you!

(I think this is going to become a regular spot on my blog. I like the idea of that.)

Polishing off the backyard: The torches are as good as new

So I've been hard at work with my mother cleaning up and polishing off the backyard. This past weekend's project was to fix up our old citronella torches. They were all pretty rusted and looked terrible. But after a coat of Rustolla and a top coat of silver spray paint... they look like new!

My Creative Space: Crocheting Various Things

This week's creative space has been a lot of ADD crocheting. I've made a bunch of different things. The big granny on the bottom is going to be a baby blanket, I think. The medium two-toned squares are going to be a blanket, eventually. And who knows what the flower granny squares will be.

More Creative Spaces over at kootoyoo.

Jeff Fisher & Friends Charity Softball Game

The Jeff Fisher & Friends Charity Softball Game was this weekend in Nashville. So my mother, my aunt and I headed for Nashville. We had seats on the front row of the third base line near the dugout. Prime places to get autographs, see the players up closer and talk to them, and of course see the shenanigans going on on the field. I'm not much of a baseball/softball fan myself, but this was so much fun. Considering only a handful of the players can actually play softball, there was a lot of high pop flies... which were promptly dropped in the outfield, and well cheating. Its apparently a tradition that Fisher's team cheats to win the game near the end. This time he employed cheerleaders and little leaguers to score fake runs.

It was also a lot of fun to get the players' autographs and interact with them. I was really annoyed however at the autograph hounds next to us who were clearly collecting autographs to sell online and were the reason why a lot of the players steered clear of our area. But I after I got my jersey signed by Cortland Finnegan and a picture taken with him, I could have cared less if I got any other autographs... I was on cloud nine. Can you tell he's by favorite? It was such a fun time!

More pictures from the event can be found here.

Mosaics: My Summer Essentials in June

I love the mosaics and inspiration boards that people do on their blogs. So I wanted to start doing them for different things each month. This months is small as I was having a little difficulty getting started, but I think they will get larger and easier to do as I start doing them. It was fun nonetheless which I feel is the point. So here it is... My summer essentials:


1. My collection of Lilly Pulitzer dresses, I am always excited for warm weather so I can wear all my colorful summer dresses. 2. This Neutrogena sunscreen is a wonderful thing. It goes on light and it stays on. It also helps protect your skin from both UVA and UVB rays. I don't go outside without it. 3. This year I finally got a pair of dressy/casual sandals. It took me awhile to find what I was looking for, but these Jessica Simpson sandals that I found on Ebay are perfect. 4. A relatively new favorite, these McKim flip flops by Lilly Pulitzer, that I found at Marshall's for a great price, are the perfect flip flop for summer. Light, durable and attractive. They go with everything. Mine are brown. 5. And one of my most used items this summer. My gardening gloves. These gloves made by Wells Lamont are my favorite becuase they are light weight, but excellent for mulching, gardening, pruning, and so on. They velcro closed so that I don't end up with dirt inside the glove and they don't make my hands overheat. 6. The Be Curly line of products from Aveda is the perfect thing for curly hair (obviously... given the name). I have always had a problem with my hair becoming tangled and impossible to brush through. Once I started using this stuff... no more of that! It's wonderful.