It's Been A Week Of Firsts!!

With all the bugs around here, I've been pretty distracted.  I haven't even hit the sewing room for two days.  I'm afraid of what I'll find lurking behind the fabric.  Mornings like this make up for it though.  With all the rain clouds, it makes for some gorgeous sunrises.

My plan for poker night was to take something chilled and summery since the temperatures have been hanging in the 100's.  I've no idea why I decided to barbecue a skirt steak.  You know in the old days, flank steak and skirt steak were the cheapest 99 cent a pound pieces of meat you could find.  

This 8 inch piece cost me $8 a pound!!  I've no idea why in the world I thought to barbecue when it was 103 outside, but really, it couldn't get any hotter.  Four minutes per side and she was done.  Cut across the grain for some great fajitas or beef tacos.

Once I scraped everything off the grate, I figured to try and barbecue corn for the salad I was making.  Corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and avocado mixed with a little lime juice.  I've never done this before, so it was another first.

I thought I didn't leave them on the grill long enough, but took them off anyway.  It's hard to husk screaming hot corn.  I cut the ends off and tried to slip it out like the microwave version, but it wasn't happening.  Those stalks had a death grip on the corn.  Finally free, I put them back not the grill for some toasty grill marks.  That didn't happen either.

I also whipped up a quick tiramisu.  Now how in the world am I going to get it to the poker game 45 minutes away without everything melting?  It was genius ... my brain actually went into gear.  I got out my huge cake pan, turned the top upside down and filled it with ice.  The salad fit perfectly.  Since that worked, I figured to try the cupcake carrier.  The tiramisu pan fit perfectly in that one, surrounded by more ice.  I'm on a roll!!

I lost a total of $4.00 playing poker.  I mean seriously, I only won ONE hand all night long.  I've never gotten such bad hands ... nothing ... I got NOTHING!  That's when I heard someone say not to take Jones Road home.  I'm only calling it Jones because I can't spell the real name.  It's bad when it rains.

Trouble is, that's the only way I KNOW to get home.  I left at 8:00 with the sky looking like this image.  Lightning was flashing all around the entire valley.  My first thought was .. I'll just follow another car so if I get hit by lightning, SOMEONE will know I'm a goner.  In no time, it got seriously bad.  There was a line of four cars, all racing through the night to get around the storm before it hit.  

There was no rain, but the lightning was incredible!!  I began to pray.  I'm not kidding, it was scary with a capital S!!  By the time I got home, I had a screaming headache.  I took some aspirin and sat on the couch.

That's when it happened AGAIN!!  Never EVER leave your water bottle on the table without the lid. I learned that in California when a fly got in my drink.   So now, I ALWAYS check first.  It's a good thing I did, because wouldn't you know there was another dang spider INSIDE the bottle!  Drown baby, drown!!  He was already dead thank goodness.

So LAST night when the weather guessers said there would be no rain, it came down in buckets. Never in my life have I seen that much water fall from the sky.  How can those clouds possibly hold so much??  In ten minutes it went from quiet with no breeze to raging winds throwing water at my sliding glass door twelve feet back from the edge of the patio cover.  The rain was going sideways.

I'm not even sure the motorhome is still there.  I'll go look this morning.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would rain like this in the desert.  The good news is everything is blooming like crazy.  The bad news of course is that I'm sure there will be twelve more spiders trying to get out of the water and into my house.

Desert living ..... who knew it could be so exciting!!