Dylan: I don’t know what to have for dinner, all I eat is pizza and salad or chicken. I am just going to starve and go to bed early.

Me: Make spaghetti – that is easy!

Dylan: I don’t like making spaghetti because I need to buy milk and it ends up going bad before I use it all.

Me: … ummm. Do you just really like having milk with spaghetti? You know making spaghetti doesn’t involve milk right? Are you making your own white sauce!?! (I am now completely baffled)

Dylan: I don’t make spaghetti, I make pastaroni.

Me: …you realize that spaghetti is easier to make than Pastaroni right? And you don’t need milk…

The end.

First off, Dylan built me two raised garden beds a while ago and I’ve finally taken the plunge and filled them with dirt and things that will hopefully produce vegetables – I think these things are called plants. Hopefully they can survive on primarily the elements because…well, lets just say I’m trying really hard to be dedicated to growing things. This whole thing is a big challenge that I must win! But did you know that it takes a long time for plants to actually produce vegetables even if you start with mini-plants and not seeds. I did not.

Anyway – here is my garden.

Here is one of the beds, filled with things I’m hoping don’t die now that it has gotten cool again – Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a jalepeno. Grow little veggies, GROW!

My other bed has a lot of lettuce and a few zucchini plants and seems to be doing just fine.

I also planted strawberries back in April in those crazy topsy turvey things and it is seriously the easiest thing I have ever done. And I’m going to have a million strawberries here in a few more weeks! You can do it!

Mmmmm

And here is one of my tomato plants up close and personal because it had this cute little yellow flower, which I think is a good sign (note, it was nearly this big when I bought the plant…not that you can actually tell that it’s tall in this photo)

Our other big project involved my birthday party. We decided that we do so much entertaining in the summer and have no indoor entertaining space, that it would make sense to put in a patio. One of the reasons we bought this house was the backyard. It’s huge. But it was almost all grass. Now, we have a great seating area and still lots of grass!

And our crazy fire pit actually fits into the yard instead of sticking out awkwardly in the grass.

For my birthday, Dylan got me a hammock – I have always wanted a hammock. Because with a gift like a hammock comes permission to take naps and be lazy!

If the sun ever comes back out I’m never leaving the backyard (or more importantly…the hammock). And see those cute white lights in the background? They are from Ikea and are solar powered and come on magically when it gets dark. They’re pretty awesome, and only $10 for each one. They also come in blue and red.

So that’s been our big spring project! And it literally hasn’t stopped raining since we got the patio done. We had one nice day and night to BBQ and have people over, and then it’s rained non-stop the past 10 days.

So that’s the little tour of our backyard – we love it!

I would tell you that I’ve been extra busy the past few months, but I think I’m always this busy so it’s a poor excuse. But it is lacrosse season which takes away 2 evenings a week which means I need to cram more stuff into the other nights and leaves little time for me to want to type any more on my computer than I already did during the 8+ hours I spent at work. Maybe I’m not cut out for this blogging thing after all.

So I usually keep my blog filled with mindless, lighthearted dribble like what I had for dinner or what my dog has most recently destroyed. But I do a lot of blog stalking in the little free time that I have and am always inspired by the folks who talk about real things, on a regular basis. I’ve always enjoyed writing, I just need to make it a higher priority in my day. I also need to get up earlier and go to the gym and walk the dog more, but we can’t all be perfect.

So for those real bloggers out there who share their secrets with the world, I’m taking a cue from you tonight and venting into my computer screen.

Most of the people who read my little blog (if there are any left) know that Dylan works away from home most nights during the week. This leaves me home in the evenings mostly by myself – and with my big scary dog who will eat your face if you come near our house.

Dylan and I dated long distance almost all the way through college. We know how to survive in our relationship apart from each other. This fact, does not make our lives now any easier. I don’t know how people do this long term, or how they can work away from their families without coming home on the weekends – let’s just say I could never be an army wife. We haven’t been married long, but living alone most of the time while married is just strange. It’s never how I imagined married life would be when I was growing up. Not that I don’t love being married (and especially to Dylan)…and I suppose being married is probably never like you think its going to be. It’s always the little things that get me. Getting ready to go to bed alone and not having to fight over the bathroom sink to brush my teeth. Or waking up alone (well, next to my stinky, slobbery, ferocious dog) on your birthday. That one sucks pretty bad. But the bottom line is that Dylan’s job situation isn’t permanent. And so we both are pushing through for the hope of the next project to be closer to home. And there are rumors of a new project in the fall that would have my husband living at home for maybe even a whole year (seriously folks, we’ll have been married 2 years in September and Dylan has been at home for 3 months of that full time). Except with rumors of jobs in Portland also come rumors of jobs even further away than the one he’s at now. One where I couldn’t drive an hour to meet up with Dylan for dinner on a Tuesday night.

So that’s whats going in our life. And why I don’t blog all the time. There is no one else to blame if you don’t get fed, or the house doesn’t get cleaned and the dishes and laundry don’t get done. Or that flesh-eating dog doesn’t get a long walk in the evenings. But I’ll try to keep better tabs on things here. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get back to the mindless things in life, like the vegetables I’m attempting to grow.

Thanks to the following bloggers (who have no idea who I am because I just stalk) – but they’re a good read if you have a few minutes.

Marriage Confessions

Girls Gone Child

This is Reverb

(and I realize some of these fall into the mommy-blogger category. This is no way suggests we are having a baby soon – Dylan’s out of town remember. But seriously, more than anything these folks write about life. And life for them just also includes kids. Mine includes a dog and cat.)

This year, Dylan and I will be spending Valentine’s day weekend in Seattle without dog/cat/houseprojects/cooking/cleaning/dvr etc. And we’re staying at a swanky downtown Seattle hotel and going out to sushi dinners and getting massages and my hair did – the whole nine yards. Of course, this is all taking place on the 12th and 13th and we’ll spend 3 hours in the car on actual Valentine’s day and probably not do much else (this is called cheating the Valentine’s day system). But I only see Dylan 3 days a week – which is equal to only 156 days out of the year (assuming he’s working 4-10’s out of town through 2010) So dang it, we’re going to celebrate Valentine’s day and enjoy every minute of it.

And I’ll probably tell him I love him the other 156 days I see him too That’s how Valentine’s day works at the Toomey house this year.

Love ya!

Butter Chicken by the Pioneer Woman

My poor sheltered soul has never had Indian food before, let alone attempted to cook it. So I went over to Whole Paycheck, stocked up on some bulk spices that have never seen the inside of my kitchen before – Cardamom and Cumin and got at it. Let me tell you, Cumin and Lime are a distinct combination, and if it turns out you are not a fan of said combination, you’re going to hate your life. Because that smell is not leaving your kitchen for a while. Luckily, I am happy to be transported to some faraway – warmer – land.

I’m halfway through this cooking debauchery for the evening and it seems to be a fairly easy recipe. Don’t burn the onions – That’s what happens when you try to cook, chase the dog out of the kitchen, text your husband and blog all at the same time. Maybe someday I’ll get the hang of it!

But seriously, my kitchen smells amazing and I’m not sharing so make it yourself – you can do it!

Here are just a few things I thought I would share:

My spoiled animals – who have become ESPECIALLY spoiled during the week while Dylan is working out of town (aka, the dog thinks the people bed is now a doggy bed)

Please note that there is very little room for me when all is said and done here.

It’s January in Portland which means it should be cold and rainy and miserable. Instead we’ve been having some almost spring-like weather lately. So it probably won’t stop raining until July this year. But one morning a few weeks ago I had to grab my camera and take a picture of the most amazing sky as the sun was coming up. This was my favorite.

I loved the bare wiry trees against the pink sky.

And lastly way back when I made my 30 by 30 list. I crossed a few things off in 2009:

• Grew Dahlias (and some even bloomed)
• Took a train from Bridgeport CT into NYC (Amtrak, the real thing)
• Made a quilt for someone
• Went to a NCAA tournament basketball game (Go Zags!
• Have a well trained dog (minus the whole sleeping on the bed thing)

I’ve had a few nice bottles of wine here and there, but I’m not sure I’m ready to cross it off my list. But most importantly, here is what I plan on tackling in 2010.

• Read the Bible
• Learn to drive a car with a manual transmission
• Grow a vegetable garden

I think that is a good start for the year. Plus I’ll be chipping away at things like my Pulitzer reading list. And I turn 25 this year, so only 5 years to go!

If you would like to know the details about Dylan’s burning* people for energy plan, I’ll send you the link to his blog.

*Technically he’s discussing cremating people for energy. These are the ideas that you come up with when you work in the middle of nowhere apparently.

But after countless hours scattered through several months of weekends (and a little help from my sew-tastic Momma) I got it done.

This is the third one I’ve done and I will say there were far fewer screw-ups along the way than previous attempts. And because I’m a total nutters, I can never start small with these things. In my head, quilts are only useful if you can surround yourself in all their snuggly glory. And there are no babies around in my life that my mom hasn’t already made a dozen quilts for, so I’ll continue to embark on these crazy huge projects.

And I’m not one to do things half-heartedly when it comes to food, so I decided I should brine the turkey which NO ONE in my family has done before. We prefer the dried out version of Thanksgiving Turkey.

So tonight I unpacked my Turkey with Dylan’s help. There may have been some goofing around.

I don’t think there is much anyone can tell me that would convince me from serving Turkey neck in some fashion as opposed to feeding it to the dog. I really think it will make her Holiday (and celebrate her 1 year of life in our hands successfully)

Dylan preferred to be in charge of the brine and not touch raw turkey.

Hmmm, we really need to have a talk with him about the creepy mustache…

*Also, that is not enough brine to cover a 14lb turkey. I had to make a quick second batch. Lets keep our fingers crossed on this one.

I forgot to take pictures when I was making the crust, but it was pretty simple. Flour, butter, eggs, water mix up – pie crust. I’m sure the pie fanatics would have a cow about my lack of caring about the crust, but I’m sure it will be good enough for my family. I can tell you that if you have a dog that likes to stand directly underneath a cutting board that is covered in flour, and you have to roll out a pie crust and flour goes flying everywhere – this is what your dog will look like:

She likes to help out in the kitchen.

So besides the crust, pumpkin pie is pretty easy. You mix up some pumpkin filling, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, eggs, milk & molasses until it’s nice and liquidity.

I have a very well loved, hand-me-down KitchenAid Mixer. It’s not the prettiest thing out there, but it works. If you want to buy me a new one, I’ll make you a pumpkin pie, and maybe some cookies. But until then, I’ll keep trying to win one from the Pioneer Woman.

So it will look like this:

And if you’re lucky you will have your helper-dog underneath your feet for all of this.

Pour it into your pie crust – mine is not pretty. Thats what you get with homemade crust (at least mine)

Bake it for about 45 minutes and here’s what you’ll get:

It’s been very  difficult to not eat this.

I’ll let you know if it tastes as good as it looks!