Cheryl Beckham

I actually got up on water skis and managed to hang on for a good 5 minutes or so, this has been a long time a coming. I went for a week end visit at my brother’s summer beach house, where he has all of his water toys at hand and we had ourselves a blast this time around, and the weather was perfect the whole time for a change.

I have always enjoyed water sports, swimming, boating, rafting, fishing, tubing, but have never been able to get myself up and out of the water each time that I have attempted to water ski, so this came as a big surprise and helped end the summer on a high note! And one of my nieces got the whole thing on video to be shown, I’m sure, during one of the family holiday season get togethers that will be here soon, ugh…

All most all of the houses on my street have some sort of vegetable garden growing in their side and back yards, I do believe that I am the only one that doesn’t have much of anything growing in my yard, besides some crab grass and a few trees and some bushes here and there. I’ve never been one to get into the landscaping aspect of my land, but I do enjoy seeing all of the nice landscaping jobs that people have been piling a lot of their time and money on, all across the neighborhoods.

This afternoon, I answered the backdoor, to find a neighborhood kid with a basket of home grown vegetables that his parents had asked him to deliver to me. It seems that they have an over abundance of their produce and are nice enough to bring over to share with me. I like neighbors like that, not really used to being friendly with neighbors, never stayed any where long enough to get to know anybody and the ones that seem to approach me, in most cases, are the whacked out, messed up, druggie kind of neighbor, the kind that you would want to avoid, not get friendly with, that is for sure.

Had the chance to try a new drink last night after work. New to me, anyways. I didn’t really feel like drinking a beer for my “free after the shift is over drink” so I asked the other bartender for a suggestion and she came up with the mojito. Let me tell you - this is a great drink!

I watched her make it. She took a tall glass and dropped a couple lime wedges in the bottom. Then she sprinkled a couple teaspoons or so of sugar into the glass. Then she sprinkled some mint leaves in the glass and took a little stick-type bar tool and smashed the stuff in the bottom of the glass to mix it up. (Found out later that the tool was a “muddler.” Who knew there was a tool for this?) The lime juice melted the sugar into a thick syrup and mashing the mint leaves spreads the mint flavor through the syrup.

Then she fills the glass with ice cubes and pours a couple shots of white rum over the ice. Fill the glass the rest of the way with club soda, and stir. I’ll have to start making these for some of my regulars that are always looking for something new to try that is nice and cool for the hot summer months!