My container garden (for now)

I am growing Sweet Basil, English Mint, Chocolate Mint, Green onions, & Oregano.
Right now that is all I can handle, I also have a few bulb onions and Hostas around the porch, but they are easily watered and then forgotten :).

The basil was grown from seeds I took from my mom's basil plant at her house, the green onions from the discarded roots of a onion from the grocery store, and the mints and oregano are both from the Dallas Farmer's Market.

THEO ALTENBERG

This guy has some really great abstract oil paintings.
Here is my favorite one from his online-gallery

O.T. Oil on Cardboard 2010, No. 1

Theo Altenberg's Site

Something I've always thought.

Being a fan of basketball, I am naturally a fan of the Mavericks. Whenever Jason Kidd is playing, I always think out loud, "Is it just me, or does he look like a Ferengi?" In case you are wondering what a Ferengi is....here you go

Everyone, meet the lovely Quark.

Anyways, now here is Jason Kidd:

Everyone, Jason Kidd.

And now, Jason Kidd the Ferengi.
My Photoshop skills are laughable, but I think it gets my point across.
Can anyone else see this?

I would be so happy if I could get a picture next to Jason Kidd while he was wearing a pair of Trekkie-fan Ferengi ears. Seriously!

Yours, 

Johanna the nerd. 

1. For more information on Ferengis GO HERE

2. For more information on The Mavs GO HERE

3. For more on the studly Jason Kidd GO HERE

NEXT MOFFIN SPORTS POST: Is Troy Aikman Harry Connick  Jr's down-syndrome brother?

Jackamo and his daily car ride :)

Hiatus:Explanation

This is a quick post to explain that I am not away because I want to be, but because I had lost my camera. I found it this week and will be back shortly with quite a few posts about many things to catch you up basically since last spring. Huzzah!

The Moff.

i think i've got it now

allow: God
deny: self

24 days and counting.

Counting until what you might ask me? (You might not ask, or even care about what I'm counting down, but I will tell you anyways)

Christmas.
That is what I'm counting down for. For me, the christmas tree gets pulled out of the attic and put up the first week of November. I have a lot of christmas decorations (my fall decor fits in nicely too!) that I feel like since I go through so much effort to get it set up every year, I might as well enjoy it for a while!

This year with having Jack, we won't be able to put all of our AWESOME ornaments we bought while on our honeymoon last year. I'm afraid he will ransack the tree at some point so I want to keep them from getting broken.

My idea is to hang a long garland over my dining table or over the TV area and hang the ornaments off of it so they will be out of puppy's reach.

*sigh* only 24 days to go until i'm not ENTIRELY crazy to start making paper snowflakes and setting up my christmas (mismas) tree :)

Pluots, Plumcots, & Plumots

Have you ever heard of this fruit? My mother, sister and I were walking Jackamo around the Dallas Farmer's Market a few weekends ago and a hispanic farmer reached out to us with a slice of this ruby red fruit he kept calling a Pluot. He told us its a mix between a plum and an apricot, and being a fan of both, I tried it.

This is my new favorite summer fruit.

Cheaper in the grocery stores than peaches and cherries, at 88c a pound yesterday, I didn't pass these up when I saw that they were selling Plumcots. I figured these might be the same juicy jewels I tried at the famer's market a few weeks back.

The variety I found at the store is called the Dapple Dandy Pluot. It has a pink skin with golden green freckles all over it. If you look at the skin closely, it almost seems metallic or pearlized. It really is quite beautiful.

Dapple Dandy. Yom.

The pluot was created by Fruit Genetic Specialist Floyd Zaiger. Floyd Zaiger from what I read, is most famous for making the designer fruit Kiwi. If you wanna read more about Floyd Zaiger, you can find the article here. Wikipedia says that the Pluot is an interspecies Plum and Apricot cross pollinated together to form the juicy fruit. I've found that these are superior to plums because of the skin having no bitterness at all like plums generally have.

Fruit Nerd Out!

Johanna

A list :)

6.08 years of Joelhanna

  

 I love you Joel!

Being married for a year and one month has been awesome!
I'm looking forward to the rest of our lives together!
I love you!

The Moff

1. Make a huge dent in the garage monster.

2. Find a book/series to read.

3. Cook at least 2 times each week.

4. Go to NRH20 once with my sister.

5. Clean the workplace (Wipe down all counters and machines and clean all the windows)
6. Order the floors to be waxed at work.

7. Create a more detailed budget with husband

8. Live life a little more slowly.

1. Sweep Floors

2. Organize front closet

3. Make bed

4. Wash Dishes

5. Go through 5 boxes from garage.

6. Shower

Jack Update & July 4th

Joel and I got to spend July 4th weekend with my sister and our Uncle's family! It was tons of fun when we got stuck out on the boat during a rain storm (no lightning) and when we realized that wearing our life jackets upside down was a lot easier to float in rather than wearing them properly. Jack learned how to swim and how to sleep without a cover on his crate. We brought Joel's single-man tent for Jack to stay in and it worked out quite pleasantly. We were worried that he might start baying in the middle of the night and wake up the entire camp site but he didn't! Jack has also leveled up to riding in the car in the Moffin's lap.
Without further ado, here is our July 4th weekend:

Joel holding a shivering Jack-a-mo on his lap while sitting in the boat.

Anyone know what kind of plant this is? I thought it was interesting looking.

A very seemingly happy Jack. My Cousin Julie was holding him since he was tired of walking.

A very sunburnt Moffin and my husband Joel. <3

My goofy little sister modeling her life jacket.

One of my uncle's dogs Rocky the corgi. He's really cute when he swims. His legs are short.

After about 5 attempts, my sister got up on the wakeboard the last day we were there. Go Chiles!

My cousin Neal demonstrating how to wakeboard. Makes it look easy.

My mother sitting on the boat in this charming alcove we found to anchor the boat.

My mom and her older brother, my uncle Phillip. :)

That's all the pics for now. :)

Moff.

Busy Busy

Wow, life has been very busy lately! I finished Vicki's painting (and forgot to take a photo of the painting, so I won't be able to post it, sorry sorry). I am still working on my friend Hope's baby blanket, but I'm on the cusp of getting to start finishing it (binding the squares together, etc, giving it a decorative frame...ya know crochet hubbub).

I've also been quite busy finishing up stationary for my friends Erin & Brian for their wedding!!
I've did their Ceremony Invites, Ceremony Programs, and then finally I've done the Reception Cards which are little contact/info cards for the new couple to give their guests their new address!
Here are some pictures of the contact cards, because I am quite proud of them :)

178 of them!

That frilly edge, my sweet friend Heather let me borrow her craft scissors for me to HAND CUT each of these. Let me tell you all how much these scissors AREN'T ergonomic. It's starts to hurt after about 50 cuts.

Please excuse the poor photo quality on this one, I just wanted to give ya an idea of the inside design.

This is a gratuitous picture. I need to make a lightbox if I'm gonna start taking pictures of this stuff more often!

Alright, this is all for now. I'll have a ton more photos to post tomorrow if I get a chance. We spent the fourth with my family at Lake Whitney and had ton's of fun camping out there for a few days!

Johanna

blessed

It's taken me several years to recover fully from friendship blunders of my past. I know I still have a ton of apprehension when meeting new people and when Joel and I start to get to know them. I know that I also now have hope that is kindled, even amidst all of my apprehension. Short way of putting it is that I am learning to overcome my trust issues and trust people once again.

I have really great family. I love my family. I love every single one of them. Despite personality differences, upbringings, and ideas, I love them and I will always love them, and I will basically do anything for them if they are in need. They would do the same for me, and have. I am blessed. (This definitely counts towards my new family that I have through my husband. Not only am I blessed to have such a great family on my side, but Joel has brought me into his family and extended family in such a smooth way that I can hardly think that it's normal. They are great people)

I have really great friends. Who else will cook you dinner for no reason except they know you might want something different, or to hangout and watch tv? Friends will. Like every couple throughout history, Joel and I graduated from UNT last december and neither of us had jobs. We all know what not having a job means. God used our friends in such a loving and perfectly timed way that eased the stress of not having a job. While God was making a way for us to be financially stable, he provided for us through our friends (and family) within the body of Christ. All of you who bought us dinner, hung out with us, let us watch your TV, listened to me whine. Thank you. We love you and cherish all of your friendships very much.

That's all for now.
Joel and I have been learning to be dog owners and we're getting to be somewhat OK at it :)
Jack is growing so fast that I can hardly remember how small he was when we got him just a few weeks ago.

We've been cleaning and prepping our new apartment/house space for us to move into the last few weeks and it's really starting to shine. Right now it smells heavily of Johnson's Paste wood floor wax and 409. Hopefully in a week or so it will smell a little of fresh paint and clean laundry or something nice like that :)
I'll post pictures of the new space once I can actually charge my camera and upload pictures off of it. (I know that I am a horrible camera charger-picture poster updater blogger)

Joey

Never gonna "gif" you up.

This brings tears of joy to my eyes y'all.

[via - Senor Gif ]

1. Ikea run! I need several things for the new aparment that we don't have a need for at our current apartment. like: Extension Cords, Paper Lanterns, Space fans (ideally those vertical ones) and I need two of those.
2. Paper towels for cleaning the apartment, i almost went through one entire roll last night.
3. gardening gloves, because shockingly, i don't have any
4. change all of our addresses from sycamore to oak (Denton loves it's tree-streets)
5. buy socks (my never ending phenomena of disappearing socks strikes again)
6. Get Jack a larger Crate
7. Buy enough paint to paint the entire apartment (1 neutral for entire place and about 4 colors to offset)
8. Buy one of those giant buckets of killz. (the 5gallon bukkit will do)

Jackamo!

Welp, Jack is pretty awesome.

He's pretty awesome at testing my patience too! He's a stubborn little puppy dog, but it's all fine since he's training really well and submitting pretty well (except when he's tired, so we're still learning those golden clues).

He's made quite a few friends in the last week or so. His best friend forever is Annabelle the longhaired Dachshund but he's also made friends with a mammoth-sized German Shepherd named Max, and a sweet Golden Retriever named Rio. He loves to run and run and run and carry around sticks and chew on his leash. But his most fun is when he gets to play with Annabelle.

Hi Annabelle!

They will run until the sun goes down and we call them to come back inside. Annabelle has taught Jack how to use the doggy door on our friend's back door. They will wrestle, growl, snarl, spit, fight, scrap, run, chase, yelp, and chew on toys until its time to go to bed, and all the while with their little tails wagging like crazy! There doesn't seem to be any clear dominant dog over the other as of yet. But we'll see how this trend continues as Jack keeps getting larger.

Right now, he and Annabelle are about the same size, but she is at her full adult size and Jack is still just a puppy. This will be amusing to watch. :)

I love how his ears flop in the wind!

I love how he gives me kisses when I wake him up in the morning!

He's super cute!

~

j

Minotaurs Vs. Centaurs.

http://www.ugo.com/movies/minotaur-vs-centaur/?cur=dungeons-dragons

A friend just asked me if I could be either a Minotaur or a Centaur, which would I choose and why?

My Answer:

Minotaur ( Is this sad that I didn't even take a second to think about it? ) Because they are way scarier and stronger ; centaurs are pansies.

What's your take?

Image: DiceMonkey

May Update

Joel and I are moving into a house-apartment in the next few weeks and I've been making a mental checklist for my expectations I have for the two of us (and our new puppy) for when we live there.

1. If it doesn't fit, donate it/throw it away
2. If it is always dirty (on the floor, stacked on the table, on the floor like a college student's mess...) find a way to organize it. If you can't organize it and store it away properly, get rid of it.
3. Clutter-free. Simple = better life.

Okay. That's my mini post on my life at the moment.

Jack-News
Jack has learned in the last week how to sit, lay down, roll over, and fetch (new as of 3 hours ago!)
He has made a lifetime friend in our friend's long haired dachshund Anabelle and i will post pictures soon of their romps through the backyard. It's adorable and super cute!

Art-News
-I completed Vicki's Painting and have given it to her, and it was a huge success! She loved it!
-Now i'm working on a crocheted baby blanket for my friend Hope's new baby boy.

I'm using a Bernat pattern as the main guide, and then i'm going to do my own edging, and probably tweak the pattern a bit, maybe add a few granny squares. Who knows?
-Lastly, I have a potential illustration job for a band based out of Austin. More on that later :)

Meet Jack

Bauer. Jack Baur (McDaniel).

(!)
I'm so excited, my sweet-sweet husband has gotten me the best present ever for our 1st anniversary!
He has gotten me this sweet little muffin of a beagle. Isn't he the cutest thing?
Jack comes into DFW airport all the way from Missouri to live with us.
*le sigh* I'm going to love those little nugget legs and kiss those little paws.

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So folks, i've been sick with the crud this last week which is why I didn't post sooner. And then before that, it was the busiest time of the school year for Printing Services here at the University, so, that is why I didn't post then either. I was too tired once I got home to do anything other than have my feet propped up on my pillow in bed and sleepily read the intarwebs.

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Weekend before last Joel and took our weekend down to Huffman, Texas where we burned things (dead trees) went to the dog races, and spent some really good time with our families and their babies (!) My sweet little neice Jillien was finally sitting up on her own and she was toothing her first tooth complete with wrist rolls and cankles! *heart*

Jillien!

Joel's nephew David was just the smiliest baby the entire weekend, nothing can upset him or make him look un-cute! 

Davey!

That's all for now :)

joey