Strawberry BBQ sauce;

Let me first say this: I forgot to take actual photographs while cooking.  Right away that's going to make this post short and sweet, since a post without photos is like a day without sunshine...bad.

I was flipping through Amanda's Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) magazine that came a couple days ago (yes, I'll admit I look at that magazine, but mostly just the Garden section for inspiration and ideas) and came across a page about Strawberries.  Apparently May is National Strawberry Month.

BHG had a couple of ideas for not-so-ordinary uses for the delicious berry and one stood out - Strawberry BBQ sauce.  It was so simple!  It merely called for mashing a few strawberries with the back of a wooden spoon in a small sauce pan, then adding BBQ sauce (I have yet to try to make my own BBQ sauce from scratch, so I used our favorite store brand, Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce) and simmering for 5 minutes to blend the flavors.

And I did just that!  I mashed three of the most ripe berries in my pan, added as much Sweet Baby Ray's as I thought we'd use and coated the chicken breast tenders I had just cooked.

For side dishes we had asparagus and sweet potatoes that I baked, hand mashed with a bit of milk, cinnamon, and our favorite pancake syrup.  It was a great dinner!

Yard Stuff: Journey into the Weed Forest

I realize it has only been a week since my last "Yard Stuff" post, but our yard is just so glorious, I couldn't help myself.  I guess it's like all those people with endless photos of their kids.  We can't get over how amazing the transformation has been from barren rock land to magical forest.  John and I went back to Michigan for the weekend and when we left Friday morning, our trees were still covered in buds with tightly curled baby leaves and all the weird little weeds spotting the yard were just small clusters. When we returned just a few short days later, we were shocked to find the buds had exploded into full leaves and the weeds had grown like, well, weeds.  Even at about noon on Monday, our yard was mostly shaded from the sun.  It's pretty awesome and now every night we go out and walk around just looking at all the new surprises.  So, here are some updated photos of our yard for your enjoyment.

This first set is from Monday the 25th, just FYI.  This photo is a view looking directly out into the yard from our patio.

This is a view looking to the right.  That house is our backyard neighbors.  I've never seen them.  Creepy backyard dwellers...

Looking up into the canopy.  What a beautiful day.

This is looking a little further to the right.  There's our little compost pile.  Or should I say pile o' leaves.  We need to get more green matter in there.  Funny thing... we've actually thrown some dead plants in there and then they spring back to life and we take them back out.  Either there's a fountain of youth in there or we need to better understand when a plant is dead and when it's just dormant for the winter...

This is a view of the right side yard, as if you were standing right outside our addition.  That darkish blob is one of our only evergreen trees, its species still TBD.

The back of our house, duh.

This is looking into the back backyard from the compost pile... next to the compost pile.  :)

This is the weird little weed that I commented on back in the last Yard Stuff update.  It has since grown a bunch of pretty yellow flowers.  It has even more now, despite being munched on by these partners in weed devastation.

Another photo of the beech tree we like.

Here is our lovely stump pile.  I bet weird things live in there.  Trolls or something.  OK, probably just bugs and stuff.

This is a frightening shot.  You got the wicked poison ivy vines, the cinder block herd, and a wild bichon sighting.

The purple azalea and its poor azalea neighbor who hasn't bloomed yet.  Show off.

The Three Bushketeers.

Now we're in the front yard looking up at the house... and part of John's car.  We've been kicking around the idea of building a carport to protect our cars from the sun/pollen/snow/bird poops.

Finally, this is looking from our parking area into the right side of our front yard.  If you look closely, you'll see a shot of the elusive Chewie and D.  It's like "Where's Waldo?" with adorable pups.  Maybe I'll make them some red and white striped shirts...

OK, now all the following photos are from today (Friday the 28th).  Update!!  We were finally able to identify this tree.  It's actually a chokecherry!  Today we were surprised to find these neat flowers sticking off of the tree. 

Just one of our many neat oak trees.  I don't know why the intersection of the branches with the trunk looks so weird.  Maybe it has something to do with the grid of nine nails sticking out of the side of the tree that we can't figure out why anyone would possibly want a grid of nine nails sticking out of a tree.

 And this middle azalea finally decided to join its pink brothers and bloomed, too!

I wish the creepy ghost bichon would stop following me.  :'(

Here's an update on our pansy flower box.  Look how happy, bright and proud they are.  They don't look at all like pansies to me.  Get it?  *laughing at own stupid joke*

These happy little faces remind me of Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" where all the flowers are singing in the garden to Alice.  What a weird movie.  Watching kids' shows and movies as an adult... there's some messed up stuff in there I didn't even realize.  No wonder we're all crazy after years of subliminal messages and innuendo.

OK, welcome to the Weed Forest.  Seriously, everything that isn't covered by tree pretty much looks like this.  It's wild.  Especially since hardly any of it was there when we left for Michigan and then we came back to this.  This is the front yard, by the way.

These plants are real weird.  They have small dark green leaves with purple veins.  They're all over the place and one day just grew these big ol' stalks.  It appears they will eventually have a flower on the top. Weird stuff.  Well, after some intensive Googling, I think these guys are Hieracium venosum, or the rattlesnake weed!  I'm on a plant identifying roll!

I don't know what this is either.  Kinda looks like tree leaves, but very small.  Maybe they're trees for the stump trolls.

More weed forest.  I'm pretty sure we're going to have to get a lawn mower just to cut down our weeds before they go all crazy on us, climb in through the windows at night and eat us in our sleep.  Or avoid complaints from the neighbors...

John thought this one looks like the top of a pineapple.

This is the tree where we saw our first Grafton owl.  He (or she) was sitting right on top of that broken off branch.

Well, that's all for now.  We just love our yard so much.  I'm pretty sure 80% of it is just weird weeds and anyone who knows anything about plants would think we're ridiculous to love our weeds, but you know, weeds are just plants that people don't want.  So, if we want them, they aren't really weeds, are they?  Ha!  Flawless logic.  Oh, and if you weren't jealous enough, check out this sly dog...

We have to be the luckiest people in the world.  :)

Mom Den: Part 1.25

First, some bits of randomness... last Tuesday was our sixth month Graftonniversary.  I can't even believe it has already been six months, but then, it feels like The Grafton has always been our home.  We've accomplished so much in the last six months and I could probably go on for another six months just talking about all the projects we have planned and all the projects we can only dream about doing.  I'm just glad we're as happy as we are and haven't met any crazy setbacks yet.  I need to go rub my Buddha (the little red dude, not Elliot) and try to reverse any jinxing I may have just brought upon myself...

Rub his tummy for good luck. :)

Second, every once in a while I like to check the "stats" tab in Blogger to see all the random countries people are reading our blog in (I have no idea how they stumble upon it).  There's also a section that shows what search strings people navigate to get to our blog.  Since we don't get much traffic, it's usually empty, but today, there was a fun surprise for my viewing pleasure...

If you can't quite read it, it says "new sprout marijuana mold".  Tisk tisk, anonymous searcher.  I feel slightly scandalized that our beautiful, innocent plants have attracted these types of hooligans.  Oh well.  Hopefully while they were here, they got to enjoy some photos of our glorious sons or felt inspired to put down their pot and paint something.  Rapscallions...

OK, back on subject... I have finally found direction on my mom den.  Ever since I was given this space, I have gone back and forth on the colors and feel for the room.  I always thought I'd go pink in there for fun, but with everything else going on, never really decided on anything.  My latest idea was either a magenta and navy blue scheme or maybe something like coral and turquoise.  Well, we can throw all those out the window because I found and bought this green floral chair yesterday on Target's website:

I can't even remember now what brought me to Target's website, but this chair was featured on their homepage as part of an advertisement for their furniture sale.  It just looked so bright and cheery, I couldn't resist.  Plus, I think using the chair and its colors will be a great inspiration for the rest of the room.  The colors go so much better with the rest of our house than something pink ever would have.  There's some orange like our basement, a slate blue to complement our Gossamer first level, and a green that is similar to what we're thinking about using for the second level.  It's like it was meant to be!  To sweeten the deal even further, it's on sale for $99.99 from $139.99.  Remembering my success in finding a coupon code for our basement rug, I Googled around again and found a $5 off a purchase of $50 or more code and typed that in to save a few more bucks.  Still, not a ton of money, but it's something.

I got the wonderful news my chair shipped this morning, so you know there will be an exciting 3-5 business days of tracking ahead of me.  In the meantime, I'll ponder if I should repaint my den, what kind of window coverings to put up, maybe DIY'ing some art... OK, I probably won't ponder too hard since we're heading home tomorrow morning for the Easter weekend.  Plus, we still need to finish all our other painting projects and I think John deserves to have his office decorated before my den.  He's so great and deserves a great place to spend the few hours a day that he actually works.  :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Yard Stuff: Spring Edition

Spring is the best.  I feel terrible for all our poor friends and family in Michigan who are still dealing with 30-something degree weather and snow while it's just absolutely beautiful here.  All the trees have budded and these tiny leaves are appearing, making the trees look airbrushed with faint splashes of greens, white, and pink.  The grass has already perked up and has an amazing bright green glow to it and almost every night, someone in our neighborhood is mowing their lawn for the first time, filling the air with chlorophyll goodness.  Our daffodils have come and gone, making way for the tulips and their vibrant pinks and reds.  It seems like every day, new life has popped up somewhere and there's something else to be awed by and feel all twitterpated.

When we were shopping for a house, we saw many places that were much larger than The Grafton or much newer.  We could have even bought a small place in Old Town and you know how much we love Old Town, but I knew I needed a yard and the biggest yard we could afford.  So we ended up with our little shed of a house, but we have our 0.6 acres and I know that doesn't sound like much by Michigan standards.  However, here in the suburbs of DC, it's a pretty nice size and in our neighborhood, it almost feels like we're back home where the population density isn't something like one jillion people per square mile.  Throughout the end of fall and winter (i.e., the entire duration of our time here at The Grafton), it seemed pretty bleak and miserable.  All we had was our barren yard, broken glass, and a billion dead oak leaves to keep us company.  Now, though, it's like a completely different landscape.  The trees are in bloom, weird little plants are popping up all over the place, the moss patches are incredibly bright and puffy, and we even have small patches of grass growing here and there.  Not to mention the increasing variety of birds that have been coming around.  It's pretty amazing and I don't think a day goes by where either John or I comment on how lucky we feel and how we can't believe all this bounty is ours.

Anywho, while I was outside last weekend planting our container garden, I was taken aback by all the beauty around me and just had to take some photos of all of our yard stuff to share.  So, here it is:

Here is our suet feeder (thanks Mom Sue and Papa Harold!) and tube feeder.  You wouldn't believe all the different birds that come to feast.  We get blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, woodpeckers, doves, blue birds, brown headed cowbirds, Eastern towhees, finches, starlings, and other guys.  John's really getting into birdwatching and promises he'll contribute a more detailed post on our avian amigos.

This is an azalea... we think.  It's one of the bushes that already lived here when we moved in.  This guy is on the other side of our fence chunk.  Even since this weekend, it has tons more little flower buds waiting to open.

This is a close up of the little flower buds.  We think they look like little crab claws or Christmas lights.

 This bush is also a possible azalea.  It lives in the renovated flower bed on the side of our house, just underneath a window in our master bedroom.

These are a few of that bush's buds.

And a flower close up because it's pretty. :)

Here is the next bush over, with many more buds than its neighbor.  The following pictures are its flowers... and look how happy our pansies look!

These next few pictures are of some flowering trees around our yard.  I think they may be dogwoods, a cherry, and something else.  Too bad I didn't take any classes in forestry... oh wait... :)

Pretty flowers on what I think is the dogwood.

The possible cherry and its flowers.

I think this one is a beech.  Nothing special, but the leaves are so cute and I like the way the tree leans over.

These are just some cute buds and baby leaves on a tree nearby our backyard bed.

Another possible azalea bush.

This might be a weed, but I thought it was pretty cute.  It's grown much more in the past week or so, notwithstanding it sometimes falls victim to a grazing bichon who shall remain nameless...

These are some neat what I think are called bracket fungi growing on one of our many trees.

And finally, another tree fungus or something.  I just thought it was pretty.

So, there's our yard stuff.  Most of these photos were only taken a few days ago and everything has changed so much already.  It's just amazing.  I never thought a bunch of old scraggly bushes and trees, some weeds, and a couple types of fungus could make me so happy or proud.