After The Storm

I really would have written sooner but we had a pretty violent storm that we've had to recover from over the past few days. Plus, I've been called into school and have gotten very little sleep. Not a great combination. That's all changed now. :P Well, at least until next week starts. That's going to be an insane week for me and I'm probably going to show up here crawling. Yay for having my youth to pull my sorry butt through? Lol.

Being the dork that I am, I have kept a running list of what I wanted to blog about in meantime!

Once I took a good hard look at my newly organized Simply Adorned inserts and my list of the ones I want to make, I realized that I'll probably need another booklet soon.

 This is also for various school-themes.

Empty, for now.

This garden. Hoo boy. This past week, I have yet to water the plants this week. That's how serious it has rained and because of how the desert is not used to being wet, there are often flash floods from the run offs. My garden area just happens to be the lowest area in the yard. It's lovely... The day I intended to start writing about the following updates, we actually lost power for two hours but more about that later on.

Pretty little tomato blooms!

I cannot wait to harvest hundreds of cherry tomatoes this fall.

 We watched many documentaries and tributes on Remembrance Day (September 11th) and this was the beautiful sunset we saw that helped remind us that the world can heal and still be beautiful.

These are fresh Bhut Jolokia Chili Peppers aka Ghost Pepper, the hottest in the world.

I have those seeds right now and I'm debating trying to grow a tree.

One of the brothers that loves very spicy foods ate that bottom left piece. 

It rates about 1 million on the Scoville rating. For comparison, a Habanero chili rates between 100,000 to 350,000, my Bird's Eye Chili rate 50,000 to 100,000, and Tabasco sauce falls between 3,500 to 8,000. Oh yes. We have video footage and it was nuts. We had crackers, milk, and lettuce standing by for the aftermath. The SO just dipped his finger in the oils to try, turned red instantly, and downed a small glass of milk. There's no way we're going to let the brother try one with the seeds (where most of the heat is locked), let alone whole. Not that he wants to. This guy has eaten a large fresh Habanero whole before. We're all fans of staying alive.

These storms. The ground is still saturated today and it has not rained. Not as much lightning and thunder as we would have expected but what we got left its marks all over town. Our neighborhood's power was out for about two and a half hours. We were among the few thousand that lost it that night. The aftermath we had to deal with was our cable internet being out, our wireless network being zapped, and (as we discovered last night) our nearly one year old printer also getting zapped and dying despite being plugged into a six-strip at the time. What's especially aggravating about that is that we cannot afford to get a new one right now because of funding other household projects and just put in new ink cartridges. Sigh.

The SO and I have each decided on new household projects to focus on now that the faucets and light situations have been fully taken care of. I have to say that it is pretty awesome having two working showers and three working sinks instead of one of each. He's re-dug a trench for all of the water that has accumulated just off of our patio for the water to drain and not come inside, dug and built a temporary patch for the retaining wall that has yet to be finished by another brother (There was so much erosion due to the storms!), and now has set his sights on dry-walling a few holes throughout the holes. Let's just say they are large due to having three rowdy boys grow up here with many of their friends.

We lucked out when we bought the electric drills yesterday. Got this pair that we've been eye-balling for a few weeks now because it seemed like a good deal and ideal for the projects we had in mind. Unfortunately, we didn't read the box very thoroughly in all of our lust because they were too small and more for simple and quick projects. So, we went to return them and knew already which heavy duty sucker to grab and they happened to be running a deal about getting a free electric drill with purchase! The mini free one was actually one from the set we were returning. We're so pleased with ourselves. Lol.

My big project has been tackling the family's recipes. It all started when I went to pull out a recipe for a particular pork roast and I couldn't find it near the top of the pile so I started emptying the two drawers of all of the recipe cards, pages, and cook books to find it. FMIL comes around to see what all of the commotion is about and sees the floor littered with everything. We spent the next hour going through all of the pages and books and sorting them out. Fifteen minutes in, we found the initial recipe somewhere else in the kitchen, but were already in too deep. This is something that has been on my long term goals list. It has been fascinating for me to see the history of these beloved recipes and I want to preserve them. So, I've bought binders, page protectors, dividers, and bigger box to do so before they deteriorate further. They are well-loved. :P I stayed up the rest of the night to organize the smaller recipe cards that were jammed packed in a special box with the categories we had established earlier. Eventually, I'll heavily alter and decorate the binders and boxes. That pork recipe? Five minutes of hands-on preparation and slow roasting for several hours during the daytime resulted in a delicious dinner.

So good.

The table behind be is completely covered with my heirloom recipe preservation project and the fact that I'm planning my first extensive holiday workshop for Stampin' Up! I've been very fortunate to have garnered a lot of positive attention and interest with my Simply Adorned necklace at school. There will be a Halloween, Fall, and Winter themed 3-D projects. FMIL and I have been digging deep and working hard to hash out all of the details as soon as possible. A lot of planning going on there, lol.

The storms have been a sight to see. Here's some of what we've seen out back.

 Awesome cloud layered with sunset colors. We watched as it morphed and grew.

 A type of stick bug! :P

 My poor garden has spent most of the time looking like this.

 My lettuce bed is like the city of Atlantis. That's at least two inches of water.

 By the end of the day, the water is absorbed, but is replenished the next day by another storm.

The other day, I found the greenhouse tray full of water and floating in front of Gryffindor.

Fast-forward to today. Sorry in advanced for weirder looking pictures, I actually took these well after dark. Hooray for flashlights and flash!

 I potted what jalapeños that have sprouted. That small terracotta pot in the back is the parsley finally thickening up. The tiny green cup is the cilantro finally taking off.

These are their "forever" homes at 10 inches in diameter. There are eight pots total.

 You can barely see the little guys! Two leaves and no more than two inches tall.

 Pictures of the herb planter make sense now that there's nearly a little of everything making an appearance.

 Basil - Chives - Cilantro - Dill (first to go crazy) - Oregano - Parsley (sprouted within past two days) - Sage - Stevia (I believe it's the one going crazy instead of Sage) - Tarragon - Thyme.

 The lettuce, it lives!

 The cherry tomatoes have really taken off. Wow!

The peppers are each working on new lower leaf growth and branching out appropriately. Slytherin has three peppers that we're keeping a close eye upon. It's so exciting!

There has been a plethora of tiny weed growths in my area that I've tried to take care of but it's still very saturated. Tomorrow I tackle the recipes! Wish me luck. See you soon! <3