Leggy Lady

Well my leggy lady is going to be getting the facelift. My sister (the same one I dragged all around Tai Pan) and I spent about 30 min in Wal-marts' spray paint aisle.
I hemmed and hawed between three colors.
Yellow, Turquise or Orange.



What color do you think I chose? You will just have to keep tuning in to find out. I can't spray paint her yet cause it is May 29th and there is still snow on the ground in parts of Utah and plenty of rain to go around. As soon as it lets up I guess my plant stand will get the remake of her dreams

Front Porch Re-Do Part 1

Boring

Getting a little better.

Remember that leggy lady? Here she is with some new potted herbs. I normally put flowers in the pots but this year I thought that I would make an attempt at growing my own herbs. They are always so expensive at the Grocery store and I like to use a lot of fresh herbs when I cook so it just made sense.

Cilantro

Tarragon

Chives

and Rosemary

The green looks so pretty against the dark brown of the soil. It has been a week and I haven't killed them yet. I think it is a record :)

Take a look at this Leggy Lady!

In one of my wanderings around Tai Pan Trading a few years ago I cam across this leggy lady. I fell in love with her immediately. BUT I left her. I knew that I really had no need for her and no space to put her. I walked on but my mind was on that lady the whole time.


I dragged my little sister all the way back to the beginning of the store. I had to claim her before anyone else felt the love that I did.
When I got back to claim her, she was gone. My heart fell. I knew I wouldn't find another like her anywhere. So off we went with my shoulders slumped. How could I have done that? Well I did have one other purchase to make so to the cash registers we went and what do you think I found shoved in a little corner WAY out of the way? My little leggy lady.
I grabbed her up and had a new skip in my step. But then I had a dilemma of what to do with her. So she sat in the corner of a room for a long looooong time, until that day that my brain finally started to work. She would fit perfectly on my front porch with some cute little potted plants. So out she went and she has been there ever since.


I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't a little paranoid that she was going to be stolen.

Sadly she has lost her glistening beauty and is now a little dirty and in need of a facelift.

Now to decide on what color she should become...

Doesn't this look just like Summer?

I love to eat. I love all the foods that summer brings. Fruit, Hamburgers, Icecream. Well I didn't want to wait any longer.
I recently had a mango and some strawberries in the good old icebox. I dug em out and diced em up all pretty. Slathered some yummy poppy seed dressing on them and sat down to enjoy the tastes of Summer. Heaven...at least one of my versions of...

My mind was thinking of swinging in the park and swimming. Too bad my mouth was thinking BLECH. Turns out the strawberries hadn't realized they were supposed to taste like Summer. Instead they tasted like they were picked way to early. Well at least the Mango was good and I have learned my lesson on forcing Summer to come early.

The Importance of Being....Primed

So it starts. The painting of the living room. If you remember I started with this beautiful shade of chocolate brown.

I loved it. I still love it. Alas it is long gone. It just made my already dark living room look like the inside of a cave. I think it also made everything look a little drab. A new color, a drastic color change had to be made.
Can I tell you the importance of priming?
I have a red kitchen. I LOVE the color red in kitchens but 5 years ago when my cute hubby and I painted it we didn't understand the value of a good prime job. Needless to say it took around 7 coats of this beautiful red to cover my walls and actually look red.
I have learned my lesson and went out and purchased a big fat 2 gallon bucket of Kilz 2 primer. It is a great primer and it really did a great job.

This is the picture of the first coat.

Yes I said first. Remember how dark the walls were. I want and need to have as much good coverage as I can get so my next beautiful colors will show in the way that Behr intended them to look.

See the difference.


Yahoo!!! The walls are all primed and ready to be painted.
Now who wants to come over and help?

Chipotle Lime Marinade

I recently attended a cooking class that was put on at our local grocery store. The teacher was my friend and neighbor Kritsy G. Can I say what an awesome teacher she is! She had some really awesome and SPICY dishes for us to try. There wasn't time to teach all of the recipes but she did cover how to make all of them. One in particular caught my eye. The Chipotle Lime Marinade.

3 jalapeno peppers (seeded and chopped)
1/2 cup packed cilantro leaves
2 garlic cloves
2 med shallots
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
juice of 2 limes
1 tsp. salt
3 Tbs honey

Puree everything except the olive oil and lime juice together. After everything is mixed together with the machine still running add the oil and lime juice slowly.

Marinate chosen meat for at least 3 hours.

Now this has the potential of being pretty hot so I backed off a bit just to make sure I could handle it. I am not a light weight when it comes to spice but I do know that her family likes things as spicy as it can get.
I added only 1 jalapeno, I think that I backed off a bit too much but the end result was still a very tasty piece of chicken, it tasted almost sweet. I cut it all up and threw it in to some fajitas...Yum.
I will definitely be trying some of her other recipes and I would very much recommend trying this one out. Super good and extremely easy to throw together.

* Be very careful when you cut up the jalapenos..if you are a face toucher, eye rubber like I am I would suggest some latex gloves. Nothing hurts worse than adjusting your contact with a jalapeno covered finger :(