Sue sent this sad note today…

“Good Lord Jenny does it ever end!! Teka has just been diagnosed with a splenetic tumor!!  She went to the vet last evening and they called us back this evening with the results of her blood work. She has elevated levels in her liver and kidneys which means that her cancer has spread  Our hearts are so heavy right now. I hate to ask again, but please friends pray for her. We lost our first dog, Sheba, from this disease. I can’t believe this is happening again!! We took her for a 5k walk this morning and she wanted to keep going. Kya saw my jeep and ran for it!!

I’m so sorry to bring sadness to your website again, but you all know how much my dogs mean to me. Sorry JJ but please pray for her. Unlike Jess, this is cancer and it has a very low survival rate. I have to take off Monday to take her for an ultrasound. With that we will know where it has spread. Ugggghhhh!!! Just Pray friends!! Again, I’m sorry to be so depressing and needy!!”

Yesterday, my tomato count hit the 4,000 mark. Today, the new total is 4,086!

That’s not counting what this guy eats.

Look at that face. He knows how wrong this is, doesn’t he?

Every time I leave the house, which is usually to go grocery shopping, I find comfort in knowing that if I wind up stranded on a desert island, I will have everything I need to survive. I’m always adding new things to my “just in case” assortment of essentials and I think I need a bigger purse. Here’s what’s in it now…

Wallet – Scratch pad – A pen – A backup pen in case it runs dry – Breath mints – Reading glasses – Sunglasses – Folding glasses (for Denis) – Tissues – Handywipes – Bandaids – Neosporin – Teabags – Floss – Tooth soft-picks – Measuring tape – Roll of quarters for parking – iPad – iPad car charger – Cell phone car charger –  Hand lotion – Lip moisturizer – Sunblock – Vaseline – Hand sanitizer – Nail file – Nail clippers – Ear plugs for too loud movies – Chewable aspirin for anyone having a heart attack – A comb.

What do I still need?

The contest is on my new Healthy Home Cooking page on Facebook.

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/JennysHealthyHomeCooking

If you’re lucky, I might include a lovely soft pair of homemade rabbit slippers… 🙂

As a standup comedian, I adored Phyllis Diller, who passed away today at the age of 95.  Not only did Ms Diller pave the way for all women comics, she was really, really funny. I was beyond excited when she appeared on my talk show in 1991 while it was only a test run in Las Vegas called Just Between Us. What a genuinely nice person she was. Thank you, Phyllis, for the decades of laughter.

I may never see a plant like this again so on August 16th I made this video tour of my cherry tomatoes. Keep in mind that I did not plant this, I didn’t feed it, it just appeared in my garden – and it’s ONE plant!  It’s grown to about 25 feet long and 20 feet wide, vining in every direction. I had been picking tomatoes for seven weeks and in this video I picked 151 tomatoes! (it took 15 minutes so we sped up the video – even I don’t want to watch 15 minutes of tomato-picking!) That’s 151 tomatoes in one day! That brought the total to 2,352 tomatoes but since then, I’ve picked over 1,000 more – you can follow the daily tomato count in the “Tomato Progress” posting above. I still can’t believe it! How many more will come? There may be another contest yet…

Congratulations, Kari !! You should head for Vegas right now because you guessed 1,721 tomatoes and by 10 this morning, I picked exactly 1,721 tomatoes!

Kari says, “I am a mom of two wonderful children and an avid gardener.  My husband, the kids and I plant a garden every year as a family and we too are having a booming tomato season. We love to cook so sauce, salsa, toasted tomato sandwiches, we’ll have enough for it all… Thank you so much. You just made back to school shopping a bit easier.”

Kari guessed 1,721 and when I counted my tomatoes up this morning I was shocked that someone hit the exact number. I still can’t believe it! And Lee (from my hometown – go, London!) came close with his guess of 1,758. A lot of you missed the blog posting just below where I said that I had already picked 1,014 tomatoes by July 29th.

This tomato plant is still producing like crazy! I thought it would be almost spent by now but it looks like I will eventually get about two and a half thousand tomatoes. Enough for me, the rabbit, and the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, tomato-eating squirrel. Thanks, everybody, for playing. Kari, your gift card is on the way!

UPDATE 6:00 pm

This is crazy! Here’s what I just picked tonight at 6 o’clock. Sixty-two more tomatoes for a new total of 1,783!

All you have to do is guess how many ripe cherry tomatoes I will have picked from this plant by Friday morning. At 10 am on Friday, I will go out and pick all the ripe tomatoes I see and add it to my running total. Whoever comes the closest to the total, whether over or under, will win as $100 American Express gift card!  Sounds like fun! 🙂

Here’s all I can tell you:
~~It’s one humungous plant that showed up on its own and I started picking ripe tomatoes on July 6th.

~~They are large (and delicious) cherry tomatoes.

~~The plant is around 25 feet long, 6 feet tall, and around 15 feet wide.

~~I’ve been picking tomatoes every day.

~~One guess per person.

~~Here’s a close-up view…

~~Someone is picking & counting tomatoes while I’m in Vegas, too.

~~We won’t be counting the ones eaten by the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking squirrel.

Good luck!!

Total to date: 992 tomatoes!!!

I feel a contest coming on…. 🙂

UPDATE JULY 29TH: 1,014 tomatoes!