I bow to no man.

I hate Florida. Yes, hate it. Well...at least I hate May through about September. I usually get distracted around my birthday but sometimes I even hate it up to November regardless of celebratory goodness. I hate Florida for the majority of the year because it is too. damn. hot.

Last June, IndieTutes posted about some pops she made packed with healthy stuff that she let her kids consume at will without any of the cringing that I have been doing every time my kids whine for the 100 count box of neon ice pop sticks I bought in a fit of neurosis at Target a few months ago. What the what was I thinking?!?

Anywho, mental lapses and Red 40 aside plus the year it took me to actually do this, the kids and I gathered 'round the blender and made us some frozen pop mixes. These can be 100% tweaked to become vegan if you so desire, or just switch out ingredients for your own food allergies/protein requirements/tastes. The point of the following *recipes* is that these are pretty much bomb-proof and are -in fact- the bomb. You can't go wrong mixing stuff together and rocking breakfast with a cool treat when it is already 80+ degrees and rising and I haven't finished my first cup of coffee.

Kids love anything on a stick. Or that they think they're not allowed to have.

Here are the three recipes I created and amazingly remembered to write down and then promptly lost the paper so they're round-abouts. More like recipe suggestions, if you will. I used dollar section pop molds I picked up a few years ago at Target. These are fairly small pop molds so YMMV.

Cherry Berry
2/3 cup yogurt (we used strawberry)
16 fresh cherries pitted (duh)
1/3 cup milk
4 frozen strawberries
1 banana

Banana Chocolate PB
1 banana
1tbs cocoa powder
2/3 cup pb (wayyy too much)
1/3 cup milk
1tbs wheat germ

Apple Cucumber
3 large apples
1/2 large cucumber
1/3 cup water
1/2 banana
1tsp wheat germ

Strawberry Banana
1 banana
6 large frozen strawberries
2/3 cup yogurt (strawberry again for us)
1 tbs wheat germ


The moral of the recipe here is that you can pretty much mix up whatever you want and since they're frozen, called pops and on a stick your kids will pretty much eat them all.

Recycled modular decking -phase 2

The last of the boards have been secured to the pallets (though I ran out of scews, they're attached in the center and are stable and sturdy for now). We're having some people over for a bbq tomorrow so this is it for now. Eventually, I'd like to add at least 2 more pallets to the right side end.

We had an old bale of hay from months ago sitting on the side so I used that to spread over the walkway between the house and our property fence line. It was just weeds (which are still poking out of the hay) and bare dirt.

Total costs:

7 Pallets $10 (5 @ $2, 2 free)
Extra Wood $12 ( we had some laying around from other projects and we bought some cull lumber and got 10% off for being military)
Screws $4 (we already had these on hand but if you didn't...)
3 Chairs $48 ($16 a piece at Lowes)
3 Pillows $2.97 (.99 at IKEA)
Table we've had this one for years so I'm not sure I think I paid $10 new for it
Bug repellant coil holder .65 at thrift store

TOTAL $87.62 for approx 84 sq ft of deck/walkway space and all the fun extras

November in Florida

Photo take by me in our front yard yesterday

While our Northern counterparts are getting their first snows (or maybe more than first) us sun bunnies are still melting in the heat. Coming into the second week of November, when people start preparing for the holidays that are synonymous with cold weather, some days we're still stuck in Summer. AC blowing, flip flops on, iced tea in hand. The winter beds in the garden are more like a second try for the year than bedded down bulbs. Honey bees are still buzzing even if the mosquitoes have slacked off their swarming. Snow birds are coming to roost.

I wasn't always a Southerner (and Florida's even further south than most consider "down south"). Nope, I was born in the sticks of New Hampshire. I vaguely recall non-flat land and snow drifts taller than a man (when you're five, that's really tall), crisp first days of school and wearing layers under Halloween costumes. Trees that boast colors other than grass green or dead brown and crunch beautifully under foot. When it's a high of eighty-three two weeks before Thanksgiving my bones ache for those blustery days.

In all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what snow is like for an adult. I've never had to shovel, plow or drive it. Heck, when it was too high I probably got carried so I didn't even have to walk it. I never have to think about preventing frost bite or stocking oil for the winter. Coats are used for more than a handful of weeks and boots, hats and scarves are survival tools not fashion accessories. I don't have to function under the bulk of gloved hands. Burst frozen pipes are almost an old wives tale; something that happened to someone else a friend of yours once knew. We have no snow tires or tire chains or need for remote starters. 

It's a little embarrassing to admit really. Waking up before the dawn, shivering and huddling under the blanket then getting up and the thermostat reads a balmy, (really not that cold) sixty-eight. Sometime during these few decades in the sultry heat of the south, I lost my natural ability to fight the cold. My body just doesn't like it anymore. Then again, it doesn't care for the blazing heat of the summer either, where if you're not getting burnt to a crisp in the sun, the mosquito swarms are eating you alive. When walking to your car leaves sweat marks on your clothes and opening the front door requires a good dousing of OFF. 

I'm not sure there's a place in the world where the weather is always that gorgeous spring day or that delicious autumn night. I suppose we have to take what we get and make the best of it. If it's not cold by turkey day, maybe we'll blast the AC and bundle up and pretend.