The beginnings of my attempt at flower gardening...

As you may remember from this post that I started growing some flowers... here are the first blooms!

Several little moss roses...

I like the vibrant color...


This one is probably my favorite though. It's such a sweet pink...

These Johnny Jump Ups are cuter than I imagined! They are sooo tiny!


A little moss rose growing amongst rocks... and weeds that I didn't stop to pull. :P

Snapdragon just opening up (and still in a starter pot on the table... he needs to be planted...

And a bright orange Zinnia.

I'm really enjoying my flowers. And I'm really pleased with how well my camera took those shots. It's just a little camera (not at all like Sarah's professional monster of a camera) but it does really well.

It's a good thing I have my flowers to cheer me up, because my cooking skills continue to fail me. (Cooking skills? What cooking skills?) Yesterday I made a crockpot dish for an impromptu potluck/softball evening with some of our friends. I tried a new recipe from our Betty Crocker Slow Cooker Cookbook, "Lentil and Mixed-Vegetable Casserole." We had just opened a 5-gallon bucket of lentils, and we had everything else we needed, it looked very easy (as if cooking in a crockpot isn't easy enough anyway) and it even looked tasty! We had a lot of errands to run during the afternoon, so I could just let it cook while we were gone and then take it to the potluck.

I got it put together and ready to cook, but since we were going to be gone 3 to 4 hours, and it said to only cook it 2 to 2 1/2 hours, I turned it on for an hour before we left, kept it on "warm" while we were gone, and turned it back on to cook once we got home. It wasn't ready when it was time to leave (the lentils were still kinda crunchy) so I plugged it in to cook while we played softball. It still wasn't ready when it was time to eat. Daddy looked at it, and gently informed me that my lentils were actually split-peas, which is why they were taking so long.

Split peas.

Lentils.

I should know the difference! It's not like I've never had lentils or split peas before! I was told that the bucket was lentils, and I just didn't doubt it, or even use any intelligent brain waves on the consideration.

Mr. J kindly said that with another 30 minutes, my casserole would have been superb, Kara insisted that it tasted fine and Sarah said she liked the crunch. It was nice of them to say those things and I'm sure they meant them... but I thought it tasted like casserole with sand. And it needed more salt. Not to mention, it wouldn't have been too bad if they had at least been lentils... instead of split peas.

~Lizzie