It's Friday

Man, where did this week go? It's already Friday again, and you know what that means...

Penny rules the roost.

In the yard

A happy little dog in the yard.

In the yard...

 

 ...smiling!

Poison Ivy?

Quick! Is this an innocent flowering vine or is it my arch nemesis poison ivy? It features leaves of three (let it be!) and a hairy vine (no friend of mine!). Vote in the side bar.

Here are some sites to help you make up your mind: Missouri Department of Conservation and Wikipedia. And also this site about Clematis virginiana which is a poison ivy look-alike.

I've already picked up poison ivy from my yard once before and am no longer interested in any of that tomfoolery.

Click the picture to see this plant up close and personal. Just don't touch it.

Rub 2.0

Belly rubs are the stuff of life.

Censored.

Tombstone

This looks like a tombstone, yes? I inherited this sweet slab of concrete along with a ton of bricks when I purchased my house. It's been lying flat on the ground for two years.

Last weekend, I propped it up as step 1 of a two-step disposal process (step 2 being actually heaving it into the trash). Unfortunately, now it's back at step 0 -- lying flat on the ground -- because I thought it might be creeping out my neighbors.

Here lies the previous owner's garbage.

Rub

Could someone please give this dog a belly rub?

Let the belly rubbing commence in 3...2...1.

Snowy DAH

For Brian. His handiwork is finally getting the online recognition it deserves!

Back when we still had snow, my brother created this gem in my backyard: DAH. You'll find definitions of "dah" in the Urban Dictionary, but none quite hit on how we (we being a couple siblings and me) use it. I suppose it's best described as a response to tease or poke fun. Example:

Me: Some guy was playing the harmonica on the bus!
You: Dah dah dah.
Me: Dah! 

I don't think "dah" is going to catch on with the population at large, but here it is in the snow, nonetheless.

Keen supervision

Certainly, Dave's manual labor was very helpful in finishing my bedroom painting project last weekend. But, we both know, had it not been for Penny's keen supervision, none of this would have even been possible.

Managing the projects from her cushy office. 

How to make pots o' gold

Pots o' gold are so March 2010, but I said I would post the instructions, so posting I am.

Ingredients (for scotcheroos)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter (divided)
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups Rice Krispies
6 oz. chocolate chip
Some crushed green M&Ms

Instructions
In a large pot, bring sugar and corn syrup to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in 3/4 cup peanut butter and vanilla. Add the Rice Krispies.

Grease your hands a bit and then roll the scotcheroo mixutre into litte balls. My batch made approximately 18 balls. Let those cool on a sheet of waxed paper.

For the frosting, melt chocolate chips in the microwave and stir in the remaining 1/4 cup peanut butter. You can either dip your scotcheroo balls into the chocolate (covering about 2/3 of the ball) or scoop some chocolate onto a table spoon and roll the balls in it (this is what I did) to cover the lower 2/3 of the ball.

 
Place them on the waxed paper to cool (even when cool, the chocolate will still be somewhat soft). Take a crushed bit of M&M and add it to the front of the pot for a little decoration.

The rainbows are DIY toothpick flags. I found a simple rainbow image online and skewed the image to make the ends skinnier. Once they were printed and cut out, I folded the rainbows in half and glued the two halves together around a toothpick.

 These lucky little guys won me a $20 gift card. Cha-ching!