30 Before 30 - #8 Complete

Okay first of all, it is way past my birthday... I still consider my 30 Before 30 list a success because everything was completed before my birthday, I just haven't had time to make videos or do posts.  Sorry!!  Wait until you see the test results for our pasture!  Your jaw is going to hit the floor lol.  Anyway today's post is for the learning archery goal.

I haven't had much time to practice, but I'm not too horrible lol.  You can see in the above picture how close I got to a bullseye.  Here is a video (yes I was still in my breeches from riding earlier lol).

Direct Link.

Archery is so much fun!!!  My form is slowly improving.  Faster than my accuracy LOL!  My dad is practicing for his concealed carry license (hence the gun target behind my archery target) because he has to work late at night sometimes and had a scary encounter recently, so we're all going to do a lot more target practice on the weekends.

I only missed the bag once, went too high and 

look how far through the gun target my arrow went!

I shot hubby's E.A.Witness .40 too.

I'm waaaay out of practice lol.

I am going to do a post showing video of how the horses reacted to the guns on my other blog so keep an eye out for that.

Anyway I had fun today!  I miss this!

I'll try to get the other 30 Before 30 posts up as soon as possible, but it might be a while.  Things have been really hectic lately.

30 Before 30 - #19 Complete

 This one was harder than I thought it would be.  Number nineteen on my 30 Before 30 list is find a food I've never eaten and try it.  Bonus points if I cook it myself.  :)  I obviously went for bonus points hehe.  The hard part was finding something I haven't eaten before.  I am willing to try almost any food (nothing raw or weird stuff like caviar).

I finally decided on sweet sticky rice cake.  It's a really popular Asian dessert that I'd never tried.  The problem is I couldn't find sticky (glutinous) rice anywhere, so I finally ordered some online.

Hubby surprised me with an early birthday present (because I had to do this before then obviously) with an authentic Thailand sticky rice steamer!

How cool is that??  The water goes in the pot and the rice is wrapped in cheesecloth and put in the basket.  When the water boils it steams the rice.  :)  Here is a link on how to make it.

In my excitement I soaked the rice for six hours, wrapped it in the cheesecloth and put it in the basket.

 Put a lid on it and let it steam 45 minutes.

It actually looks really yummy when it's done and it's SUPER sticky!!  They aren't kidding about the stickiness of this stuff lol.  I tasted it plain and it had a good flavor. Tt doesn't taste sweet like the name implies, but I'm a rice lover so that didn't bother me at all.  To me it needed salt, but I'm a salt-a-holic so that's not surprising.  Once it was done cooking I finally realized that the rice isn't cooked in the rice cake recipe!!!  Oops!!!!

So I looked up other things to eat with sticky rice (it had to be eaten lol).  Most of the suggestions were things I didn't already have, but I found one that suggested fried eggs and soy sauce.  Sounded good to me and luckily I had gluten free soy sauce already on hand.  :D

So hubby fried up some eggs for me (I suck at frying eggs).

I put them on the plate really pretty for the pictures...

... but to eat it I chopped up the eggs in the rice, covered it in soy sauce and mixed it up.  It was DELICIOUS!!!  Seriously I could eat it every night it was so good!

So the next day I started over with soaked, but not cooked rice for the rice cake.  Here is the recipe (LINK).

First step was greasing the pan with coconut oil and then spreading the soaked rice in the pan.

Then I mixed up the coconut milk, brown sugar, vanilla, salt and eggs in a bowl.

Jackal is my cooking partner.  He politely lays in front of the fridge and watches, hoping clumsy me will drop something (I often do... seriously I'm clumsy... he knows to wait permission though so it's not like he's going to eat something he shouldn't, I pick up poisonous stuff like onions or chocolate).

Then I poured that over the rice and stirred it up.

Then I put it in the oven at 350 for 35 minutes.  While that was cooking I started on the topping.

I put the rice flour, coconut milk, egg, salt, brown sugar and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat.

I know this part is boring Jackal.  :)

Then I whisked and whisked and whisked until it started to bubble.

Then I turned the heat to low and whisked for two minutes, then I took it off the heat and whisked some more... thought my arm was going to fall off lol.  It gets THICK very quickly.  Once it was smooth and thick I put it in a bowl to cool while the rice layer finished cooking.

Pulled the rice layer out when it was done (you can see where I didn't whisk the egg white enough).

Spread on the topping.

Stuck it back in the oven, over a pan of water (one inch of water and put it on the bottom rack under the cake) and cooked for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Pulled it out and tada!  Sweet sticky rice cake.  I let it cool a little before cutting it.

To be honest it isn't my favorite dessert.  It's not very sweet at all (I guess I was expecting sweeter?) and it has almost a bread pudding texture (or soggy quiche) that I'm not fond of.  The flavor is really good though (just not sweet... oh and you have to like coconut, which I do).

The cool thing is this recipe can be modified in a million different ways so I can always try again.  :D

So I had a lot of fun with this and I'll definitely be making sticky rice and fried eggs again!!

30 Before 30 - #15 Complete

Number fifteen on my 30 Before 30 list is to have hubby take pictures of me with Jackal because I'm really bad about forgetting to do that and I wish I had more of me with Storm.  Above is my favorite one.  :D

 Below are some taken with hubby's cell phone so they aren't as good quality.

 My favorite cell phone picture.

 Even Chrome got in on the action.

 I think I like it in black and white better.  :)

Bonus picture of Jackal trotting.

 Check out that awesome overstep hehe.

For amateur photographer hubby they aren't too bad huh??  I'm going to try to do this more regularly, but the next time is waiting until cooler weather!!  We were both extremely hot!  I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

30 Before 30 - #22 Complete

 I finally finished my letter to my future self!  I started it on July 20th and only now finished it lol.  I only had a couple of hours on the weekend to work on it and as usual my creative side went nuts so it turned into a bigger project than I thought.  I like how it turned out though, even if it's a little sloppy.  I blurred out most of the writing for privacy reasons, but you can get an idea of what it looks like.

I blacked out my name and wrote achieve1dream in there haha.  I should have used a ruler for writing the quotes and dates.  The crookedness is brutal to anyone who is even a tiny bit OCD.  Oh well.  It makes it unique and original... or so I tell myself haha.  I folded a sheet of my drawing paper in half to make this.

There wasn't enough room for everything I wanted to write (I'm long winded) so I used my fancy scissors to cut out pieces of my scrapbooking paper.  You can see in the middle where the big piece is pulling up.  That's because I can't find my acid free glue stick.  I had to use double sided tape.  I'll glue it when I find it.  :)  I mostly just wrote what everything is like now and then asked my future self questions about what I accomplished and what changed.  The future dog section is mostly stuff about goals and dreams I want to accomplish with my next dog (CGC, therapy dog, etc.).

This shows how the pieces lift up creating a lot more writing area.  You can also see the edges better.  :)

The last page. I left some of my lists (I'm list obsessed) unblurred to make it a little more interesting haha.  Feel free to laugh at some of the things I listed that I like.  :D  These lists only cover a tiny number of things I'm interested in, so I just chose the more recent stuff.  For instance right now I'm listening to Richard Marx "Right Here Waiting" and it's one of my all time favorite songs, but it's not on the list because I've loved it for years and years.

To make things slightly less boring here are some pictures of our peaches and flowers!

 They are so small, but hubby said they taste great.  What are the spots on them??

 The hibiscus has gorgeous blooms!!

 The vibrant red Geranium blooms.  Love them!

A close up of our Crape Myrtle blooms.

I have several other 30 Before 30 goals completed, but I haven't posted them because I've been so busy.  I'll get as many posted this weekend as possible.  :)

30 Before 30 - #1 and #26 Complete

I'm lumping both of my plant goals together.  :)  First up is indoor plants I can't kill... so far so good, but I won't promise I won't kill them eventually lol.  I'm trying really hard though.  Lots of research!  I did a post with more information on these plants along with pictures from Google here, but finally here are pictures of my actual plants.  :D

Hubby got me a plant light with a timer!  It's awesome!

My aloe in the foreground.  

I've almost killed my aloe by over watering and by putting it under direct light too quickly causing sunburn, but this survivor has come back better than ever after each mistake.  Love aloe!

My assorted succulents.  Not sure what they are besides the Jade.

There were others, but these are the ones that have survived.

Fingers crossed they last hehe.

My hens and chicks!  I have to figure out how 

to repot the chicks... I'm scared of killing them!

My Spider plant.  

The tips burned from not letting my water warm up to room temp, but now that I fixed that it's doing well.  I still need to repot it into a terracotta pot.

This is a cutting from the cactus I've had for six or seven years.  

I don't know what kind it is.  Those other pieces are Jade plant 

leaves that I'm trying to root.

My short snake plant, Peperomia and peace lily.

Peace Lilies

I've had the peace lilies for over six months now and they were doing fantastic, but after repotting them I'm having trouble with wilting... even after watering they don't stand all the way back up.  Not sure if it's the soil, too much water, too little water... working on it. Hope I can save them.

Peperomia!  Love this thing!!  It loves low light and neglect.  :)

Snake plant also loves low light and neglect.  

The lighter part wasn't there at all when I got this one.  

It's doing so well!!

The other peace lily... I hope I can save them...

Cast Iron Plant.  Loving this one!

It also love low light and neglect.  :)

My tall snake plant.  I love these!!  It's taller than my drawing desk.  :)

My indoor hanging succulent that is on my porch right now.  

It's doing great!  I've had this one almost two years.

I have no idea what it is!!!!

The only one I totally failed on was the Jade plant... I still have pieces of it that I'm trying to root, but it's not going well.  It makes me sad because it was one of my favorites.  I might try again later.

Next up is my garden.  It's actually part vegetable garden and part flower garden all thrown together.  I love it!  Since the front of my house is parking and the tornado shelter we decided to make the side yard our garden area.

We marked out where the fence will go with landscape paint.  It's a weird angle because of the shop building across from our house.  Also yes we still have to paint the rest of our siding dark brown lol.

 Then we brought in topsoil and aged horse manure as a base for...

 ... some leftover sod that was given to us.  :D

 We put out as much as we had and decided to make the rest a garden for now.

 This is a few weeks later showing how much the sod has grown.

 We planted our gooseberry bush that we've had for years in the corner.

 Then we planted all of my flowers and veggies that have been in pots on my porch all spring.

 Notice how small the tomatoes are so you can compare it to later pictures.

 Ornamental peppers are pretty, but also edible and very HOT!

 My Salvia loves being in the ground and has grown a lot!

 This is a really cool flower from my mother in law.  I forget what it is but it's so pretty!

 Hubby tied up the gooseberry so we could mow around it.  

I liked it when it was sprawled out better...

 Jackal posing in front of the garden a while later.  

Look how much the tomatoes have grown!

 My pretty Vinca love our hot, humid weather!

 The tomatoes have gotten taller than the peach tree!

 My geraniums that I had in pots for a couple 

of years are doing great and about to bloom!

 This is my first time growing Vinca. It's so pretty!

 Look at how much my flowers from my mother in law have grown!!

I love the colors!

 The purple sweet potato vine has gotten huge too.

 Here are some of the ornamental peppers turning purple.

 Tomatoes!  Our first ripe tomato got eaten by a box turtle on the fourth of July hehe.

 Some of the tomatoes are shaped really weird!

 Our peach tree is several years old, but it's only been in the ground about two years.  It put on a ton of peaches this year, but they didn't get very big and one limb even snapped.  Oops.

 Jackal photobomb!

 So obviously my garden isn't fully grown, but since my birthday is in the middle of summer it will have to do for my list.  There are more peppers and eggplants, but I forgot to get specific pictures.  I'll update again when we get the fence up around our yard and when the plants are mature.  :)  I almost forgot to say.. the other flowers in my garden are Shasta Daisy, Butterfly Bush, Lantana and Delphinium.