Mary, Mary Quite Contrary...

How does your garden grow?

I am excited to say that the two veggies I planted this spring are growing! I have documented my tomato plant over the past couple of months. Look at it today! One red tomato :)

There are 4 other little green tomatoes beginning to grow too.

I also planted containers of lettuce this year. Fresh lettuce sounds so appealing to me. Look!





I think I need to thin out the lettuce, but it's so pretty!

What's for Dinner?

I used to make a very yummy chicken pasta salad. Everyone who ate it seemed to love it. I haven't made it in about 5 years, so I decided to make it the other night. I got the recipe from All Recipes. It is the best chicken pasta salad I've ever had! Here you go...

Best Chicken Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 3/4 cup steak sauce - I use Heinz 57
  
• 1 (12 ounce) package fusilli pasta
• 2 cubes chicken bouillon
• 1 Vidalia onion, diced - I use about 1/2 of this
  
• 2 avocados - peeled, pitted and diced
• 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup Ranch-style salad dressing - I use Naturally Fresh Lite Ranch
  

Directions

1. Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat. Place breasts into a glass baking dish and marinate in steak sauce for 15 to 60 minutes.
2. Grill chicken until no longer pink and the juices run clear. Remove from grill, and chop into bite-size pieces.
3. To a large pot of boiling water, add bouillon cubes and pasta. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain, and rinse under cold water.
4. In a large bowl, combine chicken, pasta, onion, avocados and tomatoes. Mix in salad dressing, cover, and refrigerate until chilled.

ENJOY!

Sick Day

AK is sick today. She spent most of last night with a high fever, sore throat, and vomiting. Yuck. She seems to feel fine today, but the doc says it's strep throat. The first thing AK said was, "That means we have to stay at home all day." She did not say it with excitement. So to make her day a little more fun, we made these.

We used the shells we collected at the beach a couple of weeks ago. From the top we have a spider, a butterfly, a whale, and a girl (for some reason this one reminds me of Janice from the Muppet Show!)

Playing Catch Up!

I feel like I haven't really blogged about much lately. I've been taking lots of pictures, and have lots of stories to share, but I just can't seem to find the time.

I have become happily obsessed with the little wrens nest just outside my kitchen door. We have had wrens for the past 3 or 4 years nest in our cat head bird house. They are there this year too! I love watching the mama and daddy birds build the nest of twigs and whatnot.

See the mama's eye peeking at me?

Then before I knew it, they were bringing food to the nest, and I realized there were babies in there. They are really good about us going in and out of the door less than a foot from their nest, but they sure do fuss when they see me looking out of the window at them!

The bird is hard to hear because the door was closed, but if you listen carefully you will hear her!

On Sunday I got several glimpses of the babies, and then that afternoon they were gone! I guess it was time for them to fly away. Here are some pictures...ignore the blob of poo at the entrance of the bird house. I think mama dropped it because she was too busy fussing at me and my camera!

Then...this afternoon, I heard the familiar sound of the wren's song just outside my door again. I like to think it's the same pair of wrens, but I'm not sure. Anyway, they were going in and out of the nest. Taking things out, and bringing things in. This is how I found it this afternoon. I'm not sure if they gave up for good, or just for the day.



I will be watching and listening for their return :)

Follow Me Friday - Let's Try This Again

Ok, so Follow Me Friday didn't work out so well for me last time. However, I am all for trying it again. Come on all you followers...I'm waiting for you! Head over to On the Verge to play along!


Welcome to Follow Me Friday! This is a great way to find new blogs and make new
friends and get new followers.

Please make a post and spread the word!

Head to On the Verge and do the following:
Grab the badge and put it in your post.

Sign in to Mr. Linky

Follow away!!

Make sure to leave comments to your new friends and let them know where you
found them from! Make sure to come back every Friday for a new list!

The Envelope Project

The Envelope Project is going on at Meet Me at Mikes, and I decided to join in! I am participant number 175. I have started gathering some cute items to send in my envelope, and I will get AK to help me decorate the envelope. I love looking at the pictures of the sweet little items people have been sending! My goal will be to get my envelope in the mail by Monday. I'll take pictures...of course :)

The Owls Have New Hair

Take a look...

The paddle plants did not survive me. I will try to treat these pretty plants a lot better. I just wasn't sure about those paddle plants. If I watered them, the leaves shriveled. If I didn't water them...their leaves shriveled. Hmmmm. I need low maintenance plants. Maybe these will fit the profile.

One Small Change - June

My One Small Change for May was to get a small garden started. I must say, my plan was to grow vegetables, but I just like flowers so much more! I did get one tomato plant planted topsy-turvy style. However, that's about as far as it went. I think it might be too late to plant much else, but I plan to look into it.

These were taken several days ago. That one little tomato is a bit bigger now!

So, while May didn't go so well, my plan for June is sure to be successful. I started learning to knit a few months ago. I love it, but have not been doing much lately. For June, I plan to get back into knitting and make my own reusable dish cloths. You can read about our change to a paper-free kitchen here. I started on a pretty little cloth this weekend. We will be heading to the beach soon, and I figure the long car ride will be a good time to get to knitting!

I am also reading a book my mother-in-law let me borrow.
It is full of great resources for making small changes.

Lake View

We went to visit my aunt and uncle at their house for Memorial Day weekend. There was lots of fun, food, swimming, sunshine, and family time :)