Friday Night

Here, where Route 165 Curves, Saturday nights take an easy pace. Dinner is always the highlight of our night. I love cooking-the planning, the prepping, the execution and of course, the consumption. It was Italian tonight. I almost tried my hand at homemade pasta...but, it was a long day at work. So, some frozen tortillini it was. However, the sauce was homemade and quite yummy. I found the recipe here: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/five-minute-tomato-sauce-recipe.html This is one of my favorite websites. The sauce was delicious-everything the author describes it to be. I'm always so disappointed with bottled sauces from the grocer's. I'm thinking this will be a permanent addition to my recipe pile.

Along with the pasta, there was the traditional crusty baguette, a fresh salad and marinated mushrooms (my all time favorit-est). Oh, and wine. Yes. A nice cold bottle of that. We're...wine children. Our palates are SO unsophisticated. Riunite has got to be my favorite red wine. It's sweet and slightly tart, and it goes down really easy. And its sort of...bubbly? Reminds me of those drinks someone pushes in your hand at a really crowded party and it tastes so good you have five and before you know it you're half naked wading in the koi pond out back and giggling as little gold fish nibble your toes. Really, I love this wine.

So now I'm pleasantly buzzed, full and Aj's sleeping next to me on our ginormous leather couch. Seriously, have my Saturday nights ever been better? I have these vague memories of dark clubs, sweating and dancing to crazy good music, then I'm distracted by my husband's snoring and the feeling fades. Yeah, Saturday nights here are wonderful. You should stick around for Sunday morning. We get real crazy and listen to bluegrass while cleaning.

Life's good here, where Route 165 curves. It's Saturday night and we're relaxing.

Loyal Friend

I came upon this picture as I was going through ancient photo files on our computer. My heart melts at the sight and even Aj smiles and sighs a little. She is our darling. Sara's the best dog we could ever have hoped for. Her daddy is a golden retreiver and her mother a blue heeler. What an awesome combination. She's playful, gentle, loving and omigosh she's so trustworthy-just like her retreiver ancestors. The heeler maternal blood brings us our protector, our roam-free farm dog who sticks to home like glue without the confines of a leash or fencing, and our sharp nosed ball scenting fiend.

Aj and I want babies. The day for that is rapidly approaching in our life. It gives us great pleasure to know that in Sara, our children will have a playmate and guardian. Years from now, when Sara is a long time gone, buried under the old sycamores, I know when our children begin searching for a dog for their own families, they'll say, "I want a dog just like I had when I was a kid." In in their minds there'll be a brown eyed beauty wagging her tail and chasing balls through the prairie.

Cold Frame

It's huge. We have pictures of me comfortably laying in it and cheesing for the camera. This is probably the best addition I'll be making to our gardening tools this year. I'm toying with the idea of trying to grow some cold season veggie in it right now. Broccoli?? Hmm....lol, I'm actually of the opinion that I need another one. Really, three would be perfect-they have so many uses!