Let's Dish with Millions of Peaches!

Sitting here looking back on this past weekend I wonder again how I managed to get my usually introverted husband out of the house to do so much with me! I hope he had a good time, because I had a wonderful weekend and I'd love to share some of it with you.  First, I was invited to a friend's house for a devotional meeting on Friday night (which the hubs didn't attend). Our topic was love.  Here is one of my favorite quotes from The

Hidden Words:
4. O SON OF MAN! 
I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life. 
http://www.bahai.com/Bahaullah/hiddenwords.htm

The Hidden Words are so incredibly beautiful, but are short enough that you can pick one or a couple of meditate on.

On my way to devotions, I picked up my friend K along the way. I met her at DaySpring this year, and love her crazy quirky spirit.  She is a love. We were early so we decided to hang out on the swings, and I took pictures of her being so silly.  I'm not sure why it it so small, but I managed to capture her in element.

Our first Let's Dish meal

On Saturday morning my hubby and I headed over for a Meetup event at a place called Let's Dish.  At Let's Dish you prepare meals in bags so all you have to do when you get home is cook them. You can take them home and freeze them (for up to three months). I really enjoyed it. While I like to cook, I have problems deciding what to do cook and I tend to fall back on the same things over and over again.  I hoped that this would extend my repitoire a little, and give me some ideas, plus since you prepare everything at their store, there is any waste.  There are 6 servings to an item, so we split them all, so that we could have a dinner and then someone would have a lunch the next day. Once again, no waste!

We had so much fun! The 80's music that was playing made the hubby happy, and the snacks didn't hurt.  Here are Christy and I. I took the apron off before I remembered we were taking pictures. The next day we made our first meal (Balsamic chicken roasted red pepper sandwiches.  They were delicious!

I'd like to put in a shout-out to my friend Juli, and her hubby and adorable ball of chub baby for coming to hang out with us on Saturday afternoon. We had fun, and it will be repeated. I think next time we need to play some board/card games.

Since the weekend wasn't quite over yet, I somehow managed to convince my anti-social husband to go peach picking with me first thing in the morning on Sunday.  First thing in the morning works better if you don't sleep until 10, and not leave the house until 11:30, but we rocked it! We didn't need many, so it didn't take too long, which was fortunate for us because it was pretty darn hot out there. At the barn, I picked up a couple of ears of corn and we hung out drinking our perquisite bottled root beer (I think the hubs got sasparilla).  They have a garden where you can pick flowers as well, but I decided instead of buying some now, that'd I'd wait until my in-laws came into town (22 days and counting!!) and take to pick flowers with which to decorate the house (and most likely feed the cat that won't stop eating anything he's not supposed to!

My dessert the last two nights

I've been going to a lot of Baha'i events since discovering how large the community in this area is, and I've really enjoyed myself!  I decided to give myself a free pass to show up to one event sans food, or drink but after that I have to bring something.  Do you have a standby food/drink to take to events?  Maybe this will be my way to getting rid of all the stuff that I love to bake.  Hmmmm... This Friday, where ever I decide to go is probably getting some sliced peaches.  Yum!!

Sunday Afternoon I stopped in for what was supposed to be a short baby devotion (think community, prayers and fellowship) for a couple pregnant members of the Baha'i community here. It was great to meet some new people, and hang with old.  After oh, about 4 hours (everyone about the 7 of us adults and kids had left) the group decided to move to another friend's house (who happen to be my neighbors) to hang out in their basement theater and watch...The Princess Bride (20th Anniversary Edition). It was HILARIOUS since all the adults had most of it memorized and we kept trying to get the kids to say 'inconceivable!' which came out as 'inspicable' (I have a sneaking suspicion that they've seen Despicable Me and knew that word).  My husband finally got to meet some of my friends and we finished out a long, wonderful weekend with a great movie, Maiwand Kabob (the best!) and some great friends.  Did I mention the hugs on demand? Having little kids around has some serious perks.

Stupendous Saturday! Friends and yogurt...and mulch?

(insert big satisfied smiley face right here!)

What a great Saturday I have had.  My husband and I both had friends over, and it was a great day, even if it poured most of the day.
Yesterday morning Mona and I headed over to a meetup (with another group) and met some great people.  On the way out, they gave us these beautiful flowers!

This morning I decided to attempt to make yogurt after a friend sent me a link to the http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ recipe.  I only have skim milk and skim fage yogurt, so this might end badly, but oh well I can buy the proper ingredients next time!  After putting the ingredients in the crockpot, allowing the milk to heat for a couple of hours, stirring in the yogurt and letting it cool, I put it in the oven (OFF!) and covered it with everything I could find (including sending my friend upstairs to grab a towel to wrap around it.  I have two aprons around it, and there might be some place mats.  Whatever...it works!

you can't really see anything but the string hanging down from my apron

It says 'NO TOUCH! yogurt"  It was a small sticky note...and a bad marker!

Since I didn't want anyone preheating the oven and starting a massive fire, I also put a sign up...








One of the things that my friend Mar and I love doing is coloring.  No joke...I like it more now that I'm an adult than I did when I was in school.  This is our latest...project.  If it were more zoomed you could see how her side is perfectly even and beautiful and mine is...well me.  Not always inside the lines and uneven.  Pretty much sums up my personality-messy but effective...

It is hard to see, but it is apparently a picture of a sorcerer's chamber. The orange thing at the bottom was supposed to a lion. 

Last night the husband and  I hit up Costco for some serious produce.  Mona and I shared some of hers as well, so I now have mangos, cantaloupe, pineapple, avocados, a sweet potato, spinach and 2 asperagus shoots. I can eat asperagus, but no I don't like it.  This fact is making it really hard for me to finish.  I sort of gave mona most of it.
The menu this week worked pretty well.  The hubs either ate a couple of bites of my food or had it for left overs, which worked pretty well. I ended up cooking the hamburger meat yesterday, and then we can make tacos whenever we want.  We ate at Costco last night since we were there, which made me feel a little guilty but my husband doesn't deal well with hunger, so I had to feed to beast.  Here are some yummy produce shots...



Twice a year we apparently have to mulch our front garden.  This is okay in theory, but I didn't know jack about mulching.  I made a big mistake. Instead of getting the more expensive stuff that is darker, I got the cheap red crap that it looked like they had put down before.  Dyed...wood. What was I thinking?  Basically, I don't now won't eat anything out of the garden (there was an herb garden) because God knows what chemicals they use.  Oh well...lesson learned.  Next time, I'm getting cedar or pine. Does anyone know anything about using dyed mulch? I've never mulched before. I'm glad I was planning on simply container gardening anyways!

Before the red mulch fiastco I pulled out a bunch (no seriously, it takes over) of mint and decided to make mint lemonade from a recipe I found online.  It's good...I've had way too much. I ran out of lemon juice...two bottles. I should be shot for using it, but I had it on hand and...they did all the work for me! I just had to measure it, right?  It was a good project for 9pm.

That is it for tonight!  I'm thinking tomorrow will be low key.  I will try to get some pictures of our front garden now that it is mulched, even if I will grimace every time I look at it...just a little.