Puzzle-ing, Purple Peppers, and Yoga Poses

Do you know how you know you're getting old? When you spend the evening doing a jigsaw puzzle. I found a Where's Waldo puzzle on EBay for like $3 so I had to buy it. It's only 100 pieces so I thought it would be easy....yeah, no. It took us close to an hour and a half to put it together. We found Waldo while constructing it but there's a whole list of things to find on the side of the box. You know what's not funny to do to someone when you've spent way longer putting together a puzzle than you imagined it would take? Hiding a piece so you can be the one to finish it. I looked for a specific piece FOREVER and was convinced that the person who sold it on eBay was a big fat liar and all the pieces weren't there like they said and they deserved negative feedback; but nooooo, my husband was the liar who hid that piece in his pocket and right when I was having a conniption about the eBay seller he produces it, puts it in, and proclaims "I win."  WITH A SMILE ON HIS FACE 😡.  I tell you what, if he hadn't gotten me ice cream I would've picked him up and slammed him🍦 ----> 😊. (I can do that, too. He’ll tell you I can’t but it’s been done more than once. Ok, so it might have been like 2 inches off the floor and we were standing right beside the bed but he got SLAMMED 😝). 

I'm including a pic of the puzzle and list of items to find so you can play along, too 😉. You'll need to zoom in, of course. We got a bit confused about the men wearing tuxedos. There are several wearing suits, but not sure what constitutes a tuxedo in Where's Waldo world. Is it including a top hat? I don't know but that's what we went with. 

Poor Sansa was feeling ignored while we were puzzling so she started throwing her ball at us. We eventually took a break to play hide and seek with her. She loves that game but she's too good at it now. She knows all our spots and finds us super fast. All the fun wore her out though so she plopped herself under the table like this...😂 @ that tongue! 

As we were counting down the final days of summer, Phil(ip) and I decided we needed to get some summer activities in before it was too late. We visited Kennywood with my brother and his family and went golfing. Aside from camping, which we didn’t do, that’s about the extent of our summer bucket list, which makes it extra ridiculous that it took until the last two weeks to check them off. We’ve been too busy being gardners and home improvers. Anyway, several summers ago it seemed like we golfed 7 days a week; every evening after work and on days off. The woman at the club house used to recognize us when we when we went but every time she asked for a name Phil(ip) would say Phil and she would write Bill. So that's just his golf name now. I'm posting our score card but I'm warning you, it's not pretty. We aren't even remotely good but we have fun doing it. Oh, and the best part? I won 😋. But with 20 shots over par, that's nothing to brag about 😂. 

I'm going to blame my score on the condition of the course. It definitely needs some TLC. Maybe because it's the end of the season they're not keeping up with the greens, or maybe it's been that way all summer, I don't know but they are sandy and some have bald patches. I have a hard enough time putting, I don't need any complications. After the first drive it all goes downhill. I can hit pretty well with my driver though. It's a good form of stress release as long as I don't try to kill it and take my eye off the ball and rip my guts out...

I finally cut into that watermelon I talked about last time. It was delicious! Huge, but delicious. It filled two big bowls!! We may have only gotten one watermelon from that plant but it was a good one at least. 

The rest of the garden is slowly dwindling. The tomato jungle is still popping them out but has definitely slowed its pace. The cucumber plant got destroyed like the zucchini by the dumb bean beetles. I enjoyed bagging those suckers up when we pulled the zucchini plants out. I don't ever kill bugs but I admit that I left them in that bag to die and I'll do it again when we take out the cucumber.  Gardening has hardened my heart so much! First the rabbits, then the beetles, and then the tomato stealing neighbors (who, by the way, stole more of my big ripe tomatoes. I'm half tempted to net that bed back up out of spite. See? I'm so cold!)

We have purple and green bell peppers that are doing well. They apparently like the cooler weather, who knew? Well, probably lots of people, like the kind who do research on gardening before planting a garden...

I didn’t know purple bell peppers even existed. They taste just like any other bell pepper but look like a red onion when you chop them up. 

I’ve started teaching a beginner yoga class on Friday afternoons. I’m finally putting that American Council on Exercise Group Fitness Instructor certification to use! I’ve been working with Sansa and below, she attempts the wide angle seated forward bend but she keeps falling to the side 😂😂😉😉. Just kidding, she’s just a weirdo and likes to sit like this. 

Philip bought me a yoga swing for birthday (cough*several months ago*cough) that we finally got around to hanging up today. I watched some videos and tried out a few moves. 

I can already feel the soreness creeping in 😳😩. Warning: I’m gonna be cranky tomorrow. 

Next time I’ll have another new hobby to share with you but I’ll keep you in suspense 😉. 

Nutrition Tip: Pumpkin Spice Edition

        We’re 16 days away from the official start of Fall, or as I like to call it: Pumpkin Spice season. Just about every food brand out there is releasing a Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice something or the other. I love pumpkin flavor as much as the next girl (or guy) but it’s important to always be mindful of how much sugar we eat, and also how much sugar we are feeding our kids. Let’s consider this scenario: you stock your pantry with a few of the new pumpkin flavored products. You’re in a hurry in the morning and grab a pack of Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts for your child to eat in the car on the way to school. If he eats both pastries, he just started his day out with 28 grams of sugar, which equals 7 teaspoons. Liver and onions are on the school lunch menu for today so you packed your child’s lunch the night before. You made him a turkey sandwich, added some pretzel sticks, a juice box, and a Little Debbie Pumpkin Spice roll for dessert. The snack cake alone contains 6 ½ teaspoons of sugar. By lunchtime, your child has consumed a minimum of 13 ½ teaspoons of added sugar. The American Heart Association suggests that adult men and women should limit added sugars to 9 teaspoons and 6 teaspoons, respectively, in one day. Those guidelines are for adults, so children should consume even less. 


           It’s also important to take care of yourself and be aware of what you’re putting into your body. Here’s another scenario: You’re grocery shopping and you walk past the cooler case at Wal-Mart and spot the recently released Pillsbury Grands Cinnabon Pumpkin Spice Rolls with Icing. They look so plump and delicious with their gooey icing in the picture on the packaging; they’re pretty hard to pass up. You buy them and bake them for breakfast the next morning. So you wake up and have one, 5 ½ teaspoons of sugar, and then swing through McDonald’s on your way to work for a Pumpkin Spice Latte. The lady at the window asks you what size. A small seems like it won’t be enough so you say medium; adding an additional 12 (12!) teaspoons of sugar. Had you downsized with a small, you still would have gotten 9 ¾ teaspoons, while opting for a large would’ve scored you a whopping 14 ¾ teaspoons! That’s more than two days’ worth of maximum added sugar allowances, according to the AHA!

             Now, I’m not telling you this to rain on your pumpkin spice parade. The occasional treat is fine and should be had! However, if these scenarios sound like your daily routines, it might be time to make a change. Incidentally, this doesn’t only apply to pumpkin spice season. Every other flavor of Pop-Tart, and Little Debbie cakes, and cinnamon rolls, and everything sweet at McDonald’s, and hundreds of other products also contain massive amounts of sugar. Consuming too much sugar, whether you eat it or drink it, contributes to many different health conditions. Weight gain is one of the leading side effects of eating too much sugar. If we start being vigilant about our sugar intake now, we may not need to have a weight loss resolution come January! ;)
Happy Pumpkin Spice Season!

Good Clean Fun

After talking about it, for like, months, we finally made another batch of homemade soap. This is our third go at this and we're hoping this time is the charm. The first batch turned out fine but we didn't have a proper mold so it had a weird shape, having hardened in a rubber ice cube tray that I "repurposed" by cutting the dividers out. The second batch was better than the first but it hardened around the edges and left a noticeably softer core so it looked a little off. We've read about a way to prevent that from happening this time so fingers crossed that it works! 

Cold process soap making is pretty easy, although slightly dangerous if you don't handle the lye correctly. Just follow simple safety precautions: wear thick gloves and safety glasses, have a bowl of vinegar ready to neutralize your tools, and make sure you have proper ventilation when activating the lye. You may wonder why anyone would go to the trouble of making their own soap when it can be slightly dangerous but I'll tell you why. When you mix oils and lye together and they soaponify, they create glycerin, a fantastic natural moisturizer. Well, the beauty industry wouldn't want you to be able to buy one product that would clean and moisturizer you in one so they remove the glycerin, leaving soap that dries your skin out, and then sell it to you in the form of lotion. It's a crock. Aside from that, I just like knowing what's in the products I use and I also get to choose the smell. Today's batch is called Creamsicle because we mixed vanilla and mandarin essential oils. 

We used olive, coconut, and hemp oils for the base. There are tons of different options that can be used though. 

The first step, after measuring all the ingredients, is to heat the oils on the stove and then mix the lye with water in a separate container. Lye is reactive to certain materials so it's important to not use plastic that isn't suited for high temperatures. We also avoid using metal bowls because the solution gets extremely hot, making the bowl hot to the touch. We prefer to use a very sturdy glass measuring cup.  After stirring the lye into the water, I dipped my spoon into a bowl of vinegar to neutralize the lye and looked awesome while doing it, as you can see above 😉. 

The next step is a waiting game. Both mixtures reach temperatures near 200 degrees but in order to mix them together they need to be around 115 degrees. It takes roughly  30 minutes for them to cool. 

Oil mixture

Lye and water

When they'd cooled enough, we poured the essential oils and both mixtures into an old crock from a slow cooker and used an immersion blender to achieve the "trace" stage: 

*Helpful hint: if you're going to try making cold process soap and don't have an immersion blender, buy an immersion blender. Seriously. Without one it takes approximately 5,296 hours to stir it by hand. And then your arm will fall off. It's not a fun time. 

The last step is to pour it from the crock into a mold. As you can see, it looks like a box of applesauce. It will stay there for 24 hours and can then be removed and put up somewhere out of the way to dry for the next 6 weeks. It's important to let it cure for that amount of time because if not properly cured, it is still caustic and can cause burns. We've purchased some homemade soaps that weren't quite cured long enough and it's not fun to wash your bits with soap that burns. Just sayin. 

That cup to the left is what wouldn't fit in the mold so we'll have one round bar. 

After 24 hours we removed it from the mold and chopped it into bars. With the round one we have 12 bars total. There are all kinds of ways to make them pretty, such as stamps and coloring. We may try something different in the future, but for now we're ok with imperfectly shaped bars of soap 😉. 

It will be ready October 17. I'll be sure to let Philip try it first to make sure it's cured! 😉🤣  I'll let you all know how it turns out!

Disaster Zone Major: Tomato Jungle

I thought my zucchini were out of control...they had nothing on the Tomato Jungle. It gets capitalized, it's a proper noun now, that's how distinct it is. I'm almost a little ashamed to show you the pic but I will because we've cleaned a good bit of it up. You'll have to take my word for it though because we're not done so I don't have photo proof yet. 

This is bed 3, a.k.a Disaster Zone Major. Let me tell you how it got to this sad state. Last week I was trying to harvest some tomatoes because we were all set to start a batch of pizza sauce to can but still needed about 2 pounds of tomatoes. Two months ago we thought we had a brilliant idea to staple one side closed (the side you see) and leave the other side loose but weighted down with a board along the other side of the bed. This would have been a good idea if the beans didn't decide to use the net as a trellis. They are bush beans so I didn't think they would do that but they are deceitful little things. Anyway, now I could no longer open the loose side, at least not without tearing out the beans (which I should have done because this is a much bigger mess from not having done so). So what did I do? I tore a little hole in the top of the net so that I could reach down in and grab some.... Well that little tear resulted in the above. Who knew that tomato plants weigh, like, a lot?  They busted out of there like Hulk through his shirt. 

Oh and here's a side story for you: the other day we went out to check the garden and in front of the awol tomato plants were two cigarettes, and in our driveway was an empty pack. We thought it was odd and decided that it was likely a neighbor had come to look at our beds and they had fallen out of their pocket. I don't really like that scenario but we've kind of been the talk of the neighborhood since we built our beds so I didn't think much of it. Fast forward a day and I'm out in the garden again, excited to pick my two biggest, best tomatoes that I've been leaving to ripen just a little bit more. I pull up the screen on bed 2 and THEY'RE GONE!! 😱😱 Now, I don't get mad easily (like, really mad, to clarify for all you naysayers. I get annoyed easily, but that's different) but I WAS SO MAD. And I still kinda am. Philip thinks I'm ridiculous for still being mad about it because there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. But I say, don't talk logically to me, I'll be mad if I want to. I'm mad because they could do it again at any time and I can't do anything to stop them....or can I? How about a human-sized version of my rabbit trap in the Fairy Garden? Ohh or maybe razor blades placed strategically throughout my plants? I think either one is a good plan. Honestly though, if someone asked me to give them tomatoes, I would in a heartbeat! But don't STEAL them and definitely don't steal my best ones!! Who does that?! I came to the conclusion that cigarette-loser was most likely also stealing out of bed 3 and the cigarettes fell out of their pocket when they bent down to get them. For those of you who know me well, you know how much I hate cigarettes. So the only solace I got from this whole situation was that I threw the thiefs cigarettes in my outside garage can that had dog poo in it 😈. 

Sigh. Anyway, where was I? I got all worked up telling you about that and lost my train of thought. Oh well. To sum it up, Diaster Zone Major got a huge makeover. The watermelon plant was obviously done so we threw it out. We  only had two watermelons that amounted to any decent size this season but didn't get to eat one because we accidentally broke it off before it was all the way ripe. It took about 3 1/2 hours but we got the majority of the tomato plants gathered up and staked (again. With bigger stakes). A few didn't make it but that's to be expected when they were fighting each other for space. While we were cleaning up that bed, a neighbor drove by very slowly (which isn't abnormal because most of our neighbors are...vintage 😉). When they didn't creep on by I went to talk to him. He said he wasn't being nosy, he was just trying to learn what to do. Little did he know, he came to the wrong place for that. If he had wanted to know what NOT to do, we could've given him a plethora of information! 

The good news is after all that reconstruction, we now have about one bazillion tomatoes. We froze most of them because we were told you can do that. I hope they're right. The tear that caused Disaster Zone Major did allow me to harvest enough tomatoes for a batch of pizza sauce. 

I always get the crappy job of peeling the tomatoes. And potatoes. And anything else that needs peeled. 🙄 Philip claims it gives him a headache to peel anything (which we both know is a lie..a very, very bad one). 

We cooked the sauce a bit longer than we did last time because it was very runny then. This batch is much thicker but also produced less. We got 7 jars out of this batch. 

That's ok though, I'm pretty sure we're going to have enough to make some more 😉. This is what I picked tonight. Yes, that's my kitchen sink that is filled with tomatoes. 

Here's an odd one for you: 

Is that like 5 tomatoes encased in one outer skin? I'm not sure and google didn't help me find the answer so if anyone knows what's going on here, please enlighten me. 

I also wanted you to see how big that freakin watermelon is. We plan to eat it tomorrow, I'll let you know if it's any good. 

I was scrolling through my pics to make sure I didn't forget about anything I wanted to tell you all and I had to include this one. A post that doesn't include a pic of Sansa is just incomplete. This is how she cools off after a walk: by laying her face directly on the vent. I personally wouldn't want cold air blowing directly into my ear but to each her own. 

Have a good night and remember, Labor Day does not mark the end of summer. Fall does not officially begin until September 22 so I will be showing off my love of pineapples and flip flops for three more weeks... and you should too! 😊😉🌴🐝🌷☀️🍍