Bunch of this, and that, and nothing in particular

And there goes the cute blog title award.

If there was such an award, I am certain that I would not even be thrown into the running, cause truth be told, I am awful when it comes to blog titles.  Hahah

Anyway, it's been a day of a little of this, a shake of that, and a whole lot of nothing in between.

So, you have a choice, you can either keep reading to see if anything interesting catches your eye, or you can click right on out and go on your merry way, I promise I won't take it to heart.  We can't always have exciting days right?  As I get older, I am more than ok with boring, simple days.

Oh I did have a bit of a "what in the world is that?" kind of moment.

Ok, so I went out back to water my veggie garden and to put out some sun tea to brew, and something caught my eye from behind the fenced yard area.  All I saw was something about 2 feet tall, bobbing up and down as it walked.

I did what any normal person does.  I stopped what I was doing, and ran into the house like a crazy woman all the while mumbling "I need my camera, I need my zoom lens.....Marley get out of the way....ahhh I need my camera quick before it disappears."

I am pretty sure I wasn't but a minute getting the camera and switching out the lenses, but by the time I got back out, I couldn't see it.  I began walking towards the edge of the fence and then I saw it.....a huge bird.  My first thought was a Pteradactyl (cause I'm a loon).

But no jokes, it was huge, it stood about 2 feet tall, all white with an orange beak.  I have no clue what it was, but as soon as it saw me it took off flying.  I did yell out after it "Noooo don't go!", but as you can imagine it was long gone and not interested at all in the middle aged woman with the camera in her hand.

I did some research online and I'm pretty certain it's either a Heron or an Egret?  Don't quote me on any of this because I'm by no means a bird expert, and frankly didn't even know you could find these birds around my area.

Let's get back to other things that kept me busy today.  I hadn't made Sun Tea in many years, I used to make it a lot back in Arizona, especially when the kids were younger. They loved the sun tea and enjoyed watching it brew outside in the warm Arizona sun.

Since today has been one of the hottest so far this year (111) and an excessive heat warning going on, I figured I would make use of the hot weather and brew up some tea.  I made a lemon sweet tea and an unsweetened tea.

My tomato plan is filled with tomatoes and some are turning red.  I am beyond thrilled with myself, since forever I have always thought I'm a bit of a thumb of death rather than a green thumb.  I do however love gardening and growing things, so that doesn't stop me from trying, and trying and trying again. 

Oh if I could have a Secret Garden, I totally would.  Come to think of it, if we buy this house, we have a huge backyard and I may just talk my husband into helping me create just that.  A corner in the yard that is secret, an arch with pebble stones leading into an enclosed area, with benches and a water feature, rose bushes and lavender, hydrangeas and all sorts of gorgeous colored flowers.  *sigh*

Anyway, back to reality.

I had a ton of zucchini that needed using up, some of it actually went bad on me before I could get to it.  Bummer!!!

While looking for recipes to use that said zucchini, I came upon a Lemon and Zucchini Cookie that I knew I had to try.  Convincing me was easy, though the combination intrigued me at first, but convincing my family, especially the kids, to eat a lemon cookie with zucchini?

That would be a little harder to do.

So I did what every mother does, I didn't tell them the veggies were hidden in there.  They tried them, they loved them, they grabbed another, and then another, and I chose the moment in between bites to casually mention "Oh Hey, those are lemon AND zucchini.".

They didn't seem to care, they said they loved them and that's all that mattered LOL   Dodged that bullet!!!

But really, if you want a summer cookie for your family, you gotta give these a try, they are so quick and easy to make and taste amazing.

Lemon Zucchini Cookies

I have spent the past two days, working on the blogs.  Today I mainly concentrated on the food blog.  I feel like I need to change it up a bit, make the posts a little more appealing and easier to read, link etc.

It's going to take a long time to go back and redo the older posts, but I'm hoping to slowly get there.

In the meantime, I have been adding recipes, left right and center.  I'm determined to get back to full time food blogging again.  I was in such a funk there for a while, not cooking anything interesting, not trying any new recipes, just making the easiest, cheapest, quickest, safest all time favorites, over and over again, but there's only so much spaghetti with store bought sauce that you can handle before needing a change.

Yes, you read that right.  I'm a food blogger, I have a food blog, and I sometimes rely on store bought spaghetti sauce to get dinner on the table quick.  My favorite is homemade, of course, but do I always have the time to do that?  No, I don't, so it's ok to use store bought once in a while, really, I promise, no one is going to think any less of you.

Oh I almost forgot, but I also added the recipe for this yummy dinner.  Chicken Tater Bake, it's like a potpie but with a tater tot topping.

And there you have it folks, my Wednesday in a nutshell.

A strange bird, sun tea, some yummy cookies, food blog work, a tomato plant brimming with fruit and triple digit temperatures.

With that said, I'm ending this day with a documentary that I started this morning on Youtube.  It is so interesting and has made me want to go and do a little more research on this subject.

It is about Rutkas Diary and the documentary is called The Secret Diary of the Holocaust.

There's so much I want to say about it, but I think I need to keep that until another post as this one has gone on quite long enough.  Oops!!!

Have a wonderful Wednesday night friends, I'll see you all back here tomorrow.