a peck of pickled peppers.

who even knows how much a peck is? i don't. but i feel like it's a lot. and more importantly i think we have a peck of pickles and peppers and beets canned fresh from our garden.

and while i can be proud that austin and i have a {relatively} successful garden and we can turn it in to good food for ourselves, it's really too bad that i won't eat any of it. because the thought of pickles makes me want to throw up. although i will use the jalapenos and other peppers in cooking {but i won't actually eat them, just the flavor of them...}

but one thing we've made recently from our garden veggies that i will actually eat is this:

homemade tomato sauce! yum! we decided just to freeze it in freezer bags since it really won't be that long before we'll want to use it. and in each bag we only put the amount we would use for one meal, so we can just heat up what's in the bag and the rest can stay stored in the freezer until next time. i can't wait to have some pasta with homemade sauce. i hope it's delicious.


so that's about all i have to share today. we have literally been doing nothing over the past few days other than attempting to stay cool and hydrated. please let these 107 degree temperatures back off a bit, because i'm getting summertime cabin fever. but i can't really complain too much especially when i know my family back home is in the same heat without any power. that means no air conditioning, people! hopefully the wonderful power people will have them back on the grid sooner rather than later...


oh. and look at my pretty puppy. she's been a little absent lately, so i just want to share her cute face with all of you.

recently.

it's been a little while since my last post and i'm sure you all have been anxiously awaiting an update from me. but fret no more, my friends {or random strangers} because i am here to update you on some recent happenings.

austin and i have been getting lots of good stuff from our garden and we're having to get a little creative with some recipes in order to use all the veggies.

we used the giant bell peppers we got to make some stuffed peppers. it doesn't really look all that pretty, but it sure was good.

austin, juliet and i shared the first cucumber from our garden together.

and yes, juliet absolutely loves cucumber. however, just like her mother, she will not eat the peel.

proof that she will eat the cucumber, but leave behind the peel. and quite literally turn her nose up at it.

and just like last year, austin and i had to tie up our corn stalks although this time it wasn't because of a big storm's wind. i think our ears of corn are just weighing down the stalks, but they aren't quite ready to pick yet. so we brought out the tulle and tied 'em up.

we also bought some new stuff over the past few weeks to add to the garden. since our onions died {i'm told our soil isn't sandy enough for onions} we removed them and planted two banana pepper plants and some kind of pepper called a holy mole! not sure what we'll do with them, but we've got them anyway. we also pulled up all the lettuce we had growing because it was nasty. it tasted spicy, like horseradish. but we bought some new seeds and replanted. hopefully this lettuce will be much better.

and one last garden-related thing. austin and i pulled up all the beets we had growing in ordered to make some pickled beets. sounds gross, right? but for whatever reason austin likes them.

turns out we are pretty good at growing beets!

check out our prize beet. it was huge!

literally bigger than my hand.

and while i'm glad that austin is going to enjoy his pickled beets, i seriously did not enjoy the smell of the process. it was the boiling vinegar mix on the stove that was the worst. yuck. but i can appreciate the hot pink color of the beets in the jar.

moving on. a couple weekends ago, austin and i spent the day up on the mountain hanging out at his cousin's pool.

this past weekend, we were up the mountain again for a family cookout. some of austin's family from out of town were in, so we had a big group up there. we played corn hole and ladder golf until it was too dark to see anymore.

all the sisters and cousins together.

and i do apologize for making this picture so awkward. clearly, i didn't know what to do with my hands. also, i'm really pale.

the best part of all these gatherings is that i'm able to force austin into getting his picture taken with me!

and it's a good thing i wore my boots, because austin and i took a little adventure hike to go pick some yummy {and pretty!} blackberries.

we're planning on making blackberry pancakes for dinner one night this week. but let's be honest, i don't eat fruit cooked in food, so i'll just have plain...

saturday morning, austin was sweet and took me yard sale-ing. we kinda just drove around until we found a sale to stop at and although we didn't actually buy anything at any of those, we did make some pretty sweet purchases at a little local place called the insyde outsyde shop. it's a little antiques/resale/fun things store that we browse every now and then.

austin bought this sweet mug {or is it a stein?} with his fraternity shield on it. it may be from the university of georgia, the year 1958, and have the name johnny on it, but it was like five bucks and we thought it was cool. so cheers to you, johnny.

and austin bought me this ceramic l.n. fowler phrenology head. i was so. pumped. because i'm nerdy like that.

i think he really adds to our eclectic decor around the house. fits in nicely with some of austin's coca cola collection.

and this faux ivory {it's actually like some kind of papier-mâché} elephant.

rounding out our collection of random things is a dried displayed rattlesnake head, some vintage cameras, and juliet toys, of course. quite the mix, yes?

and one last little thing, speaking of juliet. every one think good thoughts for my juliet today, please. she's at the vet right now getting checked out because she's been a little sickly lately. i had to drop her off this morning so they could see her in between surgeries because they didn't have any open appointments, so i'm all alone without her next to me.

look at that adorable little face.

{update: literally as i was typing this up about julie boo, they called to tell me she was ready to come home! she's got some meds and is feeling much better. i'm glad i didn't have to miss her all day long! hooray!}

harvest time.

{sorry it's been quite a while since i last posted. but my life is just really uninteresting. case in point: this post is about our vegetable garden... again.}

it's finally time for us to begin picking things from the garden! hooray!

the first thing we got was a jalapeno a few weeks ago. turns out, it was a hot one, at least according to austin's and ben's faces.

we've also cut a lot of spinach from the garden already.

we've used it for salads, margherita pizzas, and fritatta.

just yesterday we cut a giant head of broccoli off and used it in hummus and veggie wraps for dinner. yum.

we've got three more big bunches of broccoli that we just cut that we froze for use in dinners later.

{please enjoy my awesome photography skills that make this brocolli appear to be this odd shade of blue}

we're also about to be up to our ears in corn... get it? ears? corn? no? anyway.

i think at last count there were over 50 tomatoes growing on our three plants. too bad i don't like tomatoes...

my cucumber plants are taking over the whole garden and we've got a few itty bitty cucumbers growing.

and our beans are finally starting to climb up the corn stalks. we'll probably drown in green beans by the end of the summer.

our beets are busting out of the ground.

and now {unrelated to gardening} a few photos i've not shared yet.

ben and austin... post jalapeno burn.

dinger's new camp out spot.

the heards on mothers day at the cookie jar.

juliet enjoying ice cream from dub's {tuesday evenings they have "yappy hour" for the pups}.

austin and i mid-pool game. geeze austin's hair is long {and has since had it cut}.

me and juliet cooling off this memorial day weekend.

and juliet giving me the stink eye for making her go swimming.

so yeah. that's my life currently.

{p.s.- i wrote this post almost a week ago. and i never got all the pictures uploaded. because i'm lazy. but i finally did it. so there. but currently, my life is actually quite exciting because KASEY IS HERE!!!!}

manly things.

building things. and power tools. and manly things. or whatever. so check out this new work bench that austin and steve {with a little help from me} constructed for the garage. 

jealous? maybe not. but still. i'm quite pleased with it, especially since the only thing we had to buy for it were the two by fours for the legs because that plywood top was left in the basement by the previous owners of the house and the red base underneath that is actually our old front door!

{the inside was plain wood, but the outside was the maroon color}.

once we get some things cleaned out down in the basement, we'll put the work bench along the left wall over here with some tool storage above and below the bench. 

and since austin now has a work bench, he was able to put it to use when our friend clark came in town this past weekend to visit!

austin and i have been wanting to make a corn hole game for a while, so austin and clark used some of the leftover lumber from the workbench to make these:

obviously they aren't finished. but still, progress. considering we've been talking about making some since... forever.

and although i'm not sure that veggie gardens are considered to be "manly things," i'm going to give you an update on them anyway. so we planted our garden the last week in march, so things have been growing for about a month and a half now. and look how big things have gotten!

and can you tell it hasn't rained in forever? the grass is all brown and crunchy. awesome. so we've been having to water our gardens regularly to keep everything from dying, but at least we get to use our rain barrel on occasion. funny thing about rain barrels, though, it has to rain for them to fill up. right.

anyone want some tomatoes? because holy moley we're going to have a lot.

so yeah. a post about manly things and vegetable gardens. this is my life, people. very exciting.