How To Create a Cat Magnet

1. Go shopping

2. Buy really cute velvet pants.

3. Bring purchases home and show off to husband who provided funds for fancy pants.

4. Lay pretty pants out on sofa and forget about them overnight

5. Forget to put the cat out.

6. Sleep well in your bed as cat sleeps well on new the britches

7. Wake up to find cat fur on brand new garment.

It's That Quilting Time of Year Again

It's that time of year again. There will be more pictures of quilt blocks and fewer pictures of the garden.

The new turquoise and and lime green Dresden plate blocks are for our annual family reunion. I have to have this finished by the first weekend in December. Yikes, what have I gotten myself into. This is a fun family party. Manly Man's mom is the oldest of five children. There are lots of grand kids, and lots and lots of great grand kids. The party is huge. We can't really exchange individual gifts. We used to do a kids exchange, but it got to big. Now we just bring a gift for our own children and do something like a white elephant exchange for the adults. Some of the grownup gifts have been pretty funny. One year an uncle contributed a tow chain. Another year I managed to score and old milk can. The quilts have been pretty popular. This is a way I can give quilts to this side of the family without being completely overwhelmed.

BTW, how did Thanksgiving end up next freaking week? It feels like this year is flying by.

Well hell, I have to print a correction. My 2008 mastergardener calender has an error. Thanksgiving is 11/27 DUR. I feel a little better. Thanks for catching it Nola.

Peppers a Plenty

While other garden bloggers are posting about their first freeze, first snow, and putting their gardens to bed for the winter, over here in my garden we are having a fall bumper crop of hot peppers.

There is something a little off about my chili pequeno plant. The leaves are turning black. There has not been a freeze and they look perfectly healthy. The plant is loaded with peppers. hmmmm....

Here is a picture of the peppers I picked today with the lovely bouquet of flowers Manly Man gave me for our anniversary. Those are not all the peppers. I got bored and stopped picking them. I will get back out there again tomorrow.

What to do with all these pepper? Well, I joined the 29 Day Giving Challenge. My gift today was a pint of Serrano to the neighbor who loves them. She says they won't eat the habaneros. I will make some more hot sauce and pickle some. Then I may need to put up a sign in the yard saying,

"FREE PEPPERS LOOKING FOR A GOOD HOME"

Anniversary

Eleven years ago on 11/11/97 Manly Man and I married. It has been a wonderful life and I am so blessed to have him. He gave me beautiful flowers, a card, and cloths shopping money. Woohoo. Happy Anniversary baby, I love you.

5-6-7-8

A couple of days ago, I posted a little about how I became Aunt Debbi. Racquel at Perennial Garden Lover recognized our shared Texas drill team legacy and chimed right in. We agreed a drill team glory days double post was in order. You can see her post on her time as a Stingerette right here.

I am sure this picture made my Dad really happy.

Below is a picture of the 1981-82 North Mesquite Pacesetters.I have no idea where I am. We were sixty members strong.

Next is a collage of "What in the world were we thinking" pictures. Most of these were taken at drill team camp in Kilgore Texas, home of the Rangerettes.

.

Top left- Pompom attack

Top right -Look at Meme

Bottom left -Who picked out those goofy hats? And can we rub off some of that makeup please?

Bottom right -Did we really have to create geometric shapes in our camp roommate picture? Dig the french braids. I am the chick without a tan on the bottom right.

Sorry Meme, I found a curler picture.

I spent three years wearing blue eye shadow, red lipstick, Lycra, and industrial strength pantyhose. I killed the ozone with tons of hairspray. I tore up the pantyhose doing jump splits and knee spins on AstroTurf and gym floors during football and basketball games. I did all of this with my very best friend.

We enjoyed performing at Dallas Cowboy and Dallas Mavericks games. Profession athletes are huge - just an observation.

Here is a little short list of my misadventures during drill team

Jump splits in the mud

Boot kicked across the field during high kick routine

Being accidentally tackled by a out of bounds football player

Forgetting my lipstick before lining up on the field and having to kiss my best friend. Love you Meme, but not "that" way.

Falling off a human pyramid.

Do you have any high school glory days stories you would care to share? Don't be embarrassed. I fessed up to wearing blue eye shadow.

My Sister Has a Question

I received an email this morning from sister#2. She had a better garden this year than I did. I am not jealous, really, I'm not. Apparently, popcorn crop failure runs in the family.

Here is her question,

O.k. Well I tried it again and I caught the microwave on fire again.
Can you ask your gardening people what I might be doing wrong and see if any of them have ever grown and successfully popped popcorn on the cob?

Tell them that the popcorn I bought popped beautifully in a paper bag on five different cobs and that the popcorn I grew is directly from those cobs.
I am becoming mortally afraid of popcorn.

Love, Me

Aunt Debbi here again. If any of you have any information on what in the world we both could have done wrong please help. My popcorn and her popcorn look just like the popcorn seed we grew them from. My didn't pop but scorched with the traditional popping method. Hers' catches on fire in the microwave when the parent corn popped just fine with that method. Are we drying it too long, too short, is there a magic spell?

White Catterpillar

I found this frittilary caterpillar on the passion vine today. It can only be a frittilary, but it looks like an albino. So far I have not been able to find out any information about this. I am trying to find a local lepidopterous society. Maybe they know something about this.

Here it is again. I looks like it is in one of the later enstars. I wonder what the butterfly will look like. Maybe I should take it and put it in a caterpillar habitat and see what happens. Maybe I shouldn't . I need more information.

Here is another frittilary. It has lavender instead of black stripes. The web search for this variation says it does happen more frequently in Texas.

Here is another. Looks like it is getting ready to make a cocoon as it is in the upside down J position. I hope we stay warm enough to let them complete the transformation.