SUPER VILLAIN kills 25,000 Bees

This is a story right out of a Marvel comic book. 25,000 Bumble Bees found dead in an Oregon parking lot and the assumption is insecticide is the killing culprit.

25,000 of anything is horrible but bees are critical. We need bees for pollination. And pollination for our food source. Without bees, we lose crops and food. But due to insecticides we're losing bees and cutting down our own food supplies.

And Monsanto is like the giant Lex Luther of the modern day world. It has been a major contributor to the decline of our bee population. This one corporation assumes the super villain role by creating genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) that kill bees. They must be planning on creating their own robotic bees and then charging everyone in the world for pollination. Control the food supply and you control the world. MWHA-HA-HA, they want to take over the world. 

But there's nothing funny about this Sci-Fi story, especially since it's real.  Farmers are even suing Monsanto over the destruction of their crops.

Control the food sources and food supplies and you control the population. But don't humans work in that corporation? I just don't get it. This is crazy sauce served up Monsanto style.

Getting Ready to Run a Half Marathon

Okay last year I ran a marathon and I wanted to do a triathlon but no such luck. This year I haven't been training like I did in 2012 because I sprained my ankle on Halloween. It was stupid. I was running in the dark and hit a divot and went down. The worst part of all is that it took six months to recover enough to even run... :( so I started running again in March (slow and short distances to build back up the strength in my ankle) it's been a super slow process.

But I signed up for the half. So, now I'm trying to prepare for the event.

How 'bout you...any set backs to your goals any secrets, tips or hints you'd like to share?

Meatloaf

Meatloaf was our theme for the day on Sunday. But not the singer. We were celebrating food...in the shape of a bread loaf but made of meat ;D

It was our monthly cooking contest. My family gets together once a month to have a food fest. We all have a theme we have to follow. This month it was . . . yep, meatloaf and we had 8 loaves to judge, eat and celebrate.

We treat the judges like kings and queens

And some really ham it up

And we really try to make sure it's a blind taste test. We have one person set out little samples in cupcake papers and have them numbered so that no names are associated with the bite.

And here's the winner for the meatloaf challenge

Next month it will be a Spam off.

World War Z

We all went to see World War Z.

I loved it. Thought is was filled with suspense and run, fast, zombiesque thrills without the usual gore of typical zombie flicks.

I also really liked Brad Pitt in this movie. And I'm not a big Pitt fan. Not that he hasn't done some good work but I always think of him as a pretty boy instead of an "actor" but in this show he wasn't the average Pretty Boy. He looked like a really human--which I loved.

Over all I would rate this fairly high. Now on the bad side...it didn't stick to the story in the book, but then that might have been really a difficult task. It would have been better if they had given the movie a different name than the book because if you go into the movie expecting to see a visual display of the book, you'll be sorely disappointed. But...if you go to the show for a zombie movie, I think you'll be entertained.

If you've seen it, let me know what you thought.

St. Andrews Legal Clinic Race for Justice

The Race for Justice is a fund raiser to help raise money for free legal services to benefit St. Andrews Legal Clinic.

It was a fun run.

    

Projects - Picket Fence Benches and more

My husband likes to reuse, recycle and repurpose more than anyone I know. He's made me quite a few benches and chairs out of an old picket fence someone tore out of their yard.

It's the reason our upstairs project has been taking so long.

He couldn't just go out and buy more wood. No. He had to use the lumber he'd torn out of the walls to make new flooring and he couldn't just buy new building materials. No. He had to hunt out materials that were taken out of other projects. Even the chandelier we bought for the room was an antique someone else wanted to get rid of. He was willing to rewire the light, if need be.

So maybe our projects take longer than some, but in the end it's pretty cool to have benches in the backyard made out of old picket fencing that someone else was throwing out, and arbors in the front yard made out of recycled lumber and flooring fashioned out of wood torn out of walls.

 So maybe my hubby takes longer to complete projects but when he finishes, it's always beautiful.

Here are a few more projects he's made for me.

Kabobs

"Kabob" means a small piece of meat on a stick.

But what about fruit kabobs?

We thought this would be a good idea for our renewing of our vows celebration because people could grab one and eat it anywhere. Beautiful, tasty and convenient.

We had pork kabobs, steak kabobs, chicken kabobs and even turkey kabobs and each meat had its own style and accompaniments. 

The chicken was marinated in Teriyaki sauce and paired with pineapple.

The steak was paired with corn, onions and little cherry tomatoes but you could make them anyway you want.

Here's how we did it.

First we soaked the shish-kabob sticks in water over night--so they wouldn't catch on fire on the grill.

Then we boiled the corn and pre-cooked the pork for 30 minutes in the oven.

Then it became a labor of love skewering the small bites onto the sticks.

It took all evening. Then we wrapped them in foil and set them in the fridge until the next day, when they were thrown on the grill.

The only problem was they were eaten faster than they could come off the grill. People were grabbing them like popcorn and they disappeared just about as fast.

Still they were yummy and pretty...don't you think?