Genghis Grill - 9/365

We're still on "stay-cation" this week so we did lunch and a movie with friends, Charlie and Christina.  We went to Genghis Grill, a place that opened here last year but we had not yet been to.  It's one of those places where you "build your own bowl" and take it up for the cooks to grill it all up. It was really, really good. I built the Special Fried Rice bowl since it was only 445 calories ( even on vacation I'm still keeping to the good eating ).  It was a little costly for what it is, but it was extremely good and I wouldn't have any issues doing it again.

After lunch we went and saw the movie The Wolverine.  It certainly wasn't the best of the Wolverine / X-Men movies I've seen, but it was good.  After that we went for a two mile walk at a local park before heading home.

Later the boys were busy gaming so Christina and I made a last minute trip back out to the theater to watch The Conjuring.  Wow, talk about a scary movie!  I've never tensed, jumped and screamed out so much during a movie in my entire life!  Well worth the thrill and the second trip back into town! I didn't think I'd be able to sleep very well after that movie, but it was after 1:00am by the time we got home and I ended up pretty much zonking right out.

A few more days left to this vacation - we'll see what else we can get into!  :)

( Note: Thank goodness for cell phone cameras or I'd have already flunked out on this Project 365. Though I way prefer the quality of my Nikon, the phone has saved me twice already! )

Me and Buddy - 8/365

Buddy and I went on a 2 mile hike at Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve.  It was a nice, overcast day, though humid.  I was hoping to get four miles in, but Buddy, being furry and large and not used to walking more than his yard, puttered out on me at about two miles.  Just as we were heading back to the parking lot he found a creek.  I let him get a drink and before I knew it he had plopped right down in the middle of it to cool off.  So we sat around for another 20 minutes waiting for him to quit dripping before I got him back in the car.  I think he enjoyed it though.

Lois Lane - 7/365

Lois Lane loves sitting in the human chairs on the front porch.

Day Moon - 6/365

This morning the moon was very visible from our back porch.  I generally don't take many moon photos, but I needed one for my Scavenger Hunt so thus it's today's daily photo as well.  :)

Country Puzzle - 5/365

This is a jigsaw puzzle I put together over the winter. Since it matches our decor I planned to frame it and hang it, but can't find a decent priced frame for the size, so I think I'm just going to add some photo hangers on the back (it's already glued together) and hang it that way.

Fresh Veggies - 4/364

Today's yield of veggies from the garden - it's starting to explode with tomatoes and peppers galore!  Also have a few eggplant here and there.  There is nothing better than fresh garden veggies!

Hiking at Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve (3/365)

Today Christina and I went on a four mile hike at Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve, a local 170-acre non-profit nature preserve full of hiking trails, creeks and wildlife. I already put in my daily Power 90 workout, however the weather was almost spring-like, especially for July in Kentucky, so I couldn't pass it up.  Creasey Mahan is my favorite place to walk and hike locally.  We put in four miles and 10, 582 steps in just under two hours. We even jogged for probably a half a mile in short spurts (that's saying a lot for two people who have never jogged in their life).  Since I've been working out I've got so much more energy and in the evening I really don't feel like plopping down on the couch for hours of mindless tv like I used to...now I just want to find something to DO - and this was perfect!  It will definitely become a staple to our workout routine!  And I will certainly sleep good tonight...

Knock Out Rose (2/365)

We have several Knock Out rose bushes in our front yard - red, white and pink varieties.  We are wanting to plant more since they are so pretty and grow fast.  We currently have three lining the driveway and one in the front flower bed.  We will be planting two at the driveway entrance and eventually lining most of the driveway with them, all in alternating colors.

Giant Dawg & Chiweenie (1/365)

Today I've been going through some old blog posts and was able to re-enjoy my former attempts at my photography projects.  I've also been wanting to get back into my hobby photography since I haven't touched my poor camera in many, many months.  So, naturally I began a Project 365 again today.  ( Project 365 is a photo every day for one year )  Naturally my pups are in the limelight for a lot of my shots, so why not start off with two of them!  Buddy and L.B. graciously posed for me against the graying backdrop this evening.  Aren't they a stellar couple?  ;)

Dirty Girl Mud Run - Team Breast Friends

On August 24th I will be participating in my first Dirty Girl Mud Run here in Louisville!  We have our "Breast Friends" team ready to get down and dirty!  I would like to invite anyone that wishes to join us to please do so!  You can join our Facebook DGMR group or you can go directly to the DGMR Registration page to sign up for the race.  If you wish to be a spectator and cheer squad, please come join us and cheer us on!

The 5K women's race takes place at Champion's Park at 2930 River Rd in Louisville KY 40206. Our team is Wave7 which starts the course at 9:30 am.

If you wish to display our team logo showing your support for our team you are welcome to purchase logo products in my personal CafePress store (with no cost markup).  Any donations you wish to give through our Team Site gives a portion of proceeds to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Wish us luck and we hope to have a good turnout both for our team race and our cheering section!

Mmmmm Zucchini!

Chickens LOVE zucchini!

Experimental Home Cooked Meal Was a Success!

Jason and I generally aren't seafood fans - not at all. But we are trying to eat healthier so decided to try some baked fish on recommendation from friends. We invited them over to help us prepare it and, of course, to eat it!  We ended up making baked cajun and blackened tilapia fish, zucchini patties (both dipped in plain Greek yogurt) and a side of Texas caviar ( a cold salad consisting of beans, corn, cilantro, peppers and some other stuff pre-made from Costco ).  None of us were too thrilled with the Texas caviar salad, but the rest was fantastic!  We have vowed to attempt to get at least one fish dish a week consumed.

75 Gallon Reef Tank (Video)

A quick Instagram video of the Flame Angel, Clown Fish and Blue Lobster in the 75 gallon saltwater tank.

Sunflowers Sprouting in the Compost Bin

We suddenly have 3 large sunflowers growing out of one of our compost bins.  We have gerbils and put their bedding in the compost - and the bedding usually contains leftover seeds that get hidden away or dumped out during cleaning. They are so pretty!  I think I want to now plant some around the property!

Craft Room Photos

As promised, here are some better photos of the new craft room setup. Please ignore all the white blobs on the carpet - Giant Dawg is in shedding mode and he is just...everywhere.

This is my scrapbooking, paper crafts, etc area viewed from the doorway:

Same station viewed from the closet:

This one is my painting, wood burning, glass etching station.  The main door leads into our basement kitchen where I have access to a double sink - and beer fridge.  ;)  And also easy access to the basement bathroom.  It really is quite handy!

For the wall storage, I used regular pegboard and accessories from Home Depot.  I was going to paint the pegboard to make it more attractive (it's brown) but got impatient with wanting to get my room together and didn't want to have to wait for primer and paint to dry before hanging them.  So, instead I covered the pegboard with 12 x 12 squares of patterned scrapbook paper.  I just scotch taped each corner and stuck them on the board, overlapping them just a bit.  Then I simply punched through the paper anywhere I needed the hardware hanging accessories.  It was easy, cheap and it's pretty!  And if I get tired of it, I can always put up a new pattern or color scheme.

Scrapbook Station Pegboard:

Wood Burning, Painting, Etching pegboard:

I also now have a closet that runs the length of one whole wall (to the right of the tv, but not shown in these photos) for extra storage bins and to store all my glass pieces that I save up via thrift shopping intended for glass etching and painting.

It must be Saturday! #poolday

It's so nice having such good friends just a quarter of a mile up the street.  It's even nicer that they have this awesome pool open to our use in the summer!  ;)

Pond? What Pond?

Our once gorgeous, beautiful pond that attracted so much wildlife now looks like this algae filled, scummy gross slime ball.  The first year we lived here it was absolutely beautiful and always had ducks, geese, herons, deer, turkey, etc around it.  It slowly started becoming filled with algae and we didn't really quite know why.  Jason tried treating for the algae to no avail.  It was then that he noticed that there was black water running from the ravine that feeds into our pond.  Following the ravine up led us to the horse farm two land plots down. Turns out they were stacking their horse manure right ON TOP of the ravine! So every time it rained, down came horse poo into our beautiful pond. We brought the problem to their attention and they promised to move it.  After waiting about a month nothing was clearing up so Jason went back and asked them again.  They said they were waiting on equipment to get it moved.  This went on for a YEAR.

Last May, our large grass carp began flinging themselves out of the pond. They were suffocating in the water due to all of the manure polluting the water.  We must have lost at least 75% of our fish stock that summer. Once that happened Jason went to the farm one last time, didn't so politely ask them to move it again and still nothing.  This led him to call one of the water authorities (I don't recall which one) and they came out to look at it. They ended up going up to the farm and issuing a citation. A month later the huge and growing pile was finally moved elsewhere.  But, unfortunately, it was way too late for our pond and pond life and now the above photo is what we have.  :(

We started to drain it ourselves to try to do a large "water change" but we've had so much rain this summer it's been impossible.  We can either spend a lot of money to have it drained and dredged to remove all the nasty sediment that now is in the bottom and on the banks, or we can let it take it's course and let it kill itself off, which will take several years.  *sigh*  So for now we're taking the wait and see approach until we find any other solutions that are affordable.  Anyone that comes across this that may have any suggestions - I'm all ears!  I'd love to have our beautiful pond back.  It should look like this again:

New Craft Room!

New Craft Room! I don't have a wider angle lens so can't get the square room all in one shot - but it's so much better than the loft - even more than I though it would be! I've over doubled my space with the storage areas and with the new L shaped workstations. And it's about 15 degrees cooler so good for my supplies and good for me!  It was a lot of work - but well worth it! Can't wait to actually use it for crafting now!  I will try to get "real" photos soon.

Mmmmmm Vanilla #Shakeology with Peanut Butter

We received our vanilla Shakeology this weekend and tried our first one on Sunday for lunch.  Yum!  We added some ice and a bit of peanut butter and it was yummy!  It kept me pretty full for the afternoon, too.  Jason still got a bit hungry so he's going to try to add a banana to his next time and see if that helps.  I look forward to the benefit and the ease of having a shake for lunch every day!

Four Weeks Down! #power90

I gotta say - I'm feeling pretty darn good after ending week four of Power 90!  I'm down 5 pounds and noticing size differences already. SO much more energy, too!  Loving it!

Video: More Fun with Milk Jugs

L.B. loves playing with empty milk jugs on the front porch. :)

Lunch Break #power90

This is our new lunch break routine.  Jason and I are on day 25 of our Power 90 program trying to get ourselves in shape, finally. We plan to go straight to P90X after this.  We are waiting on our Shakeology to arrive and will soon be launching our own fitness blog just to keep up with our routines, progress, recipes, etc to help anyone else that may need a boost that is interested in the programs.  I'll provide more info on that once it's up and running.

Monday Cozy - Lucky Dog

It's days like today - Monday and the first of the month - that I wish I was a lucky little dog like L.B. and get to stay buried under the covers all day.