Wow, remember last year when I was grumpy and blue on my birthday? Not this year! The day did start out with me cleaning the bathroom, and I did have to stop at one point and pay $4.15 a gallon for gas, but other than that, there was nothing bad about this birthday. The weather was phenomenal. Luke took me to lunch at the Willimantic Brewing Company and we had a nice motorcycle ride there and back. I met my mom and sister and went to see Made of Honor tonight and then went to Shady Glen for ice cream. I had several email birthday wishes, some e-cards, a couple of blog shout-outs, a bunch of messages on Facebook, and even two birthday songs on my answering machine. You guys are the best. I feel like a birthday princess. Thank you everyone for making my day perfect! I’d hug you all if I could.

I don’t remember planting this.  It’s marked “Tarragon” maybe I should change it to “Terrier”.

She was scratching at the door all morning, I’d let her out and she’d go five feet off the deck, turn around and sit in the garden facing the house.  Weird little dog.

What a weekend. I want to go back and live it all over again, it was just too perfect. It was one of those weekends where I was having too much fun to remember to take pictures. Now that’s something. I took Friday off to go to Sturbridge and shop with my mom. The weather was fantastic, we had lunch, we bought shoes, it was the most wonderful day.

Saturday we worked on the deck and in the yard. We went for a motorcycle ride and to a picnic with friends. Sunday we had a repeat of Saturday, complete with a picnic in the evening and a relaxing afternoon of sitting on the deck with our neighbors, enjoying the fact that we were SITTING ON THE DECK! Woo-hoo!  Monday we finished up a few things in the yard and I planted some new things in the garden. Luke put up a screen door off the kitchen so I can leave the door to the deck open and not have to chase wasps and flies out of the house.

I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect weekend. Oh wait, yes I could. Yesterday we went across the yard to our neighbor’s house so Luke could help our neighbor uncover his camper. We were sitting in his driveway on the side of the house facing our house, but now that the leaves are on the trees, we can’t see our house from our neighbor’s anymore. We were there for maybe a half hour, then we walked home and saw a note written in the dirt just off the deck left by Paula and Karlo! I can’t believe we missed that. I’m sorry Paula! That surprise visit would have really topped off the weekend.

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S’Mores Bites Update: I took them to two picnics this weekend and was frankly shocked at the response they got. People were coming up to me and thanking me personally for bringing them. They were a huge hit! I still think I’ll make the again with Fluff and see if I like them better, but apparently I’m in the minority. Everyone else seemed to think they were pretty yummy as they were.

Last night I was trying to come up with a quick and easy way to use the ingredients I already had in my kitchen to make a fun and interesting treat to take to one of the barbecues we’re going to this weekend. Among the random ingredients I had on hand were graham crackers, a bag of stale mini marshmallows (only the best for my friends), a bag of chocolate chips, and half a bag of mini chocolate chips. Hmm… I smell S’mores.

Now you may remember when I tried to make S’mores Becky Balls (on a stick). Those, while delicious, were a failure. I figured that this new idea couldn’t possible fail. I would warm four mini marshmallows on graham crackers in the oven, then smoosh them, sandwich-style, with another graham cracker and dip the whole business in melted chocolate. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well… they’re pretty. And they’re good in the way that anything dipped in chocolate is good, but they just don’t taste s’mores-y enough. Perhaps if I had used fresh marshmallows? Full-size marshmallows? Or maybe Marshmallow Fluff? Ohhh… Fluff! I bet that would have worked. Oh well, I’m out of chocolate and graham crackers. If anyone has the urge to try this out with Fluff, let me know how it comes out!

I made myself a new bag last night and I am in love with it.  I bought this apple and pear fabric months ago with no idea of what I’d make with it.  I just knew that every time I walked past it at Jo-Ann’s, I’d pick it up and admire it and for some reason I loved it.  Last night it finally found its purpose.  Cute, huh?

It’s really not that big.  It’s only wide enough to fit my checkbook, and just a bit taller, but plenty big for me!  Tonight I think I might make a matching checkbook cover.  I just typed that sentence and thought, how lame does that sound?  A matching checkbook cover?  What has become of me?  OK, how about I make a funky, coordinated pouch for my checkbook.  There, that sounds much better.

I was just looking through the set of pictures I have on Flickr of our deck construction. Here’s the progress from one vantage point throughout the project:

OK, so in the last two I slacked in my consistent picture-taking position, but it’s from the same general area. The change is amazing to me. The stairs should be finished today, and this weekend the railing should be finished. We have 845 feet of cable to lace through the posts and supports… ug. It’s almost party time!

-Enjoying the amazing weather. (Wonderful perfect weather, please come back to stay!)

-Having Luke make breakfast for me everyday. It’s the best.

-Starting to install our deck railing (yay!)

-Working with my dad at his shop to make the supports for the deck hand rail.

-Finally going for a motorcycle ride just for fun. Man, I missed riding…

-Planting seeds and moving plants around in the garden.

-Painting two more of our exterior doors BRIGHT RED. Seriously, you can’t miss them.

-Walking out on the deck to find Molly with her head in my coffee mug, just finishing my entire cup of coffee. Such a dork. I wasn’t sure how the caffeine would affect her but she seemed fine. A little jumpy, but fine.

-Looking out the kitchen window and seeing a railing on the deck. Sigh… almost done!

A couple of weeks ago I bought a large tub of plain yogurt and I have no idea why.  I must have been planning to make something but I can’t remember what it was.  I can’t let a big tub of yogurt go bad, so I’ve been using it here and there - in a potato salad, a creamy tomato sauce, etc. - but tonight I looked at that sad, purposeless container in the fridge and thought: frozen yogurt.

I had to look all over for my ice cream machine, I almost forgot I had one.  I used to use it so often, I considered buying another bowl for it because the one bowl I have takes about 24 hours to refreeze and sometimes that was too much time.  It’s been a couple of years since my last batch of homemade ice cream, so I dusted off the machine and started trying to figure out how to make this yogurt into something delicious.

The last time I made frozen yogurt, I tossed vanilla yogurt into the machine and hoped for the best.  What  I got didn’t taste like dessert, it tasted like cold yogurt (go figure).  This time I had to make it better.  Since I was using plain yogurt, I knew it was going to need sweetening.   I went to the fridge… well I had a batch of “nectar” I made for the hummingbird feeder.  It’s really just simple syrup.  That would do.  I had a third of a jar of caramel ice cream topping, too.  Yum.  And half of a chocolate candy bar I shouldn’t have bought at the store.  Perfect!

Let me tell you… if you’re afraid to cook, go buy yourself an ice cream machine.  You can’t go wrong.  I let the yogurt-syrup-caramel blend in the machine for about 20 minutes, then layered it with the chopped chocolate and froze it for an hour.  It was amazing.

I can’t think of anything else to say now because the inner battle I’m having is distracting me.  Part of me wants desperately to go back to the refrigerator and eat more.  Part of me is so full it wants to throw up.  That’s some good frozen yogurt.

I’m sitting here thinking about tonight and what I’m going to do to keep busy and I’m all excited to finish sewing a bag I started last night. While I was sewing that bag last night, I was watching again the first season if Weeds from the Netflix site and, oh my goodness I love that show, and how did I not realize that the cute William from P.S. I Love You plays the dead dad Judah on Weeds, and Weeds made me think of gardening and gardening made me think of this funny little exchange from yesterday that I need to share.

I was emailing my culinarily-challenged friend Paula and we were talking about the herbs I just bought for my garden and she wrote, “Make sure to plant the green things that go into mojitos.” to which I wrote, ” I did plant the green things that go into mojitos. It’s called MINT.” Those three sentences made me laugh all yesterday afternoon and this morning when I went out to check on my “green things” I laughed again. Thanks Paula for making me smile. Now let’s make some mojitos!

I filled up my gas tank today. Seeing $3.99 per gallon made me nauseous, but then I calculated my mileage:

39.55 MPG!

The guy across from me at the pump asked what my typical mileage was.  He was filling up a PT Cruiser, poor guy.  With gas prices going up every single day, you really need to celebrate the small victories.  I think I’ll have to do a cartwheel at the Mobil station the day I break 40 MPG.

So who wants to go buy a Yaris today?  You know you do. I love my car.