First Hibiscus of 2010

This morning, we woke up to this beauty. Middle Monkey was one happy kid.

New Garden Resident

Welcome our newest garden resident, Sid. Sid is a little bitty Praying Mantis. We hope he gets much bigger and that maybe he is a she and will make a lot more baby bugs. This picture doesn't look a lot like a Mantis because he was sort of crouching down. Just before the picture was snapped, he was in classic praying stance.

Fathers' Day + Mechanical Yard Monster

Hope everyone is having a great Fathers' Day. We ate grilled shrimp with pesto for dinner. Later, Baby Monkey combined an old bicycle and reel mower into a yard monster.

And we thought it would get less interesting as the Monkeys got older.

Happy Fathers' Day everyone.

Brown Rice Pilaf

To go along with The Walk to the Moon journey I am on with Anna, I need to make some food changes. We already eat pretty well. The only person in this household who is overweight is me. The boys are thin and Manly is, well, manly. The boys eat tons of fruits and veggies. They always have. I eat my veggies, but not nearly enough. My food goal is to eat all five of those fruit and vegetable servings every day.

Tonight we had shish kebobs for dinner. The skewers were loaded with chicken, bell peppers, grape tomatoes and onions. I grew every one of those vegetables in our garden. These were served over a brown rice pilaf that was very good. Now, I will be benevolent and share;)

Brown Rice Pilaf

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 small carrot finely chopped
1 green onion finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
A couple of shakes of soy sauce

Saute the vegetables in the oil. Add in the rice and stir for a few minutes. Add the soy sauce at the end. Go light on the soy sauce or it will be too salty.

Anyway, that was dinner. Have a great weekend.

35 minutes on the elyptical machine + crunches and planks. My belly muscles are shot:P

Ugliness

I have a confession. I've got a lot of ugly plants living on our deck. For some reason if a plant is alive I just don't want to get rid of it. Therefore, I have two year old leggy Snap Dragons that look like HE double hockey sticks. This afternoon, on my way home, I am going to stop at our local nursery and pick up some pretty plants and banish the ugliness to the compost pile. Nothing is supposed to live forever and my deck should not be the retirement home for ancient plants.

Walk To The Moon

Last night, on Facebook.... Anytime you read those words it might be something really, insanely silly. This time, however, it is something really, insanely awesome. Our own Anna Flower Garden Girl mentioned that she had some weight to take off. I commented that I too have some weight that needs to be banished. She said something about walking to the moon, so I went out and found a website that is encouraging people to do just that, walk more that 477,000,000 steps as a group. I joined right up for the Purdue Walk to the Moon group. So Anna and I are going to do this thing and hold each other to it.

See y'all on the skinnier side