Lilly Is Such a Shit

Lilly, our rescued pit bull, with issues, has mostly good days, some bad days and some "dog are you fucking crazy?" days. She has issues with night time. Whoever abused her did something that makes her one bizarre mutt at night. Recently, we'd been able to leave the back door open, she'd go out in the yard and do her business and chill on the deck, or she'd come back inside. Well, sometimes she needs to be leashed, because she'll run around like an idiot and make a ton of noise.

Since she's been sane lately, we've been leaving the back door open, so we can circulate some cool air into our hot house. Well, apparently, she decided she wanted to play with the vines.

We have a trellis along part of the fence, and we put it up because she was getting up on the built-in benches and looking over the fence for cats. It has these pretty vines on it and she's torn them down a couple times running by them, but they've started to flourish. The vines haven't been growing as thick over the last year as the nursery led us to believe they would, so Patsy planted another one in the center, so it wouldn't look so empty.

Lilly tore the new plant out by its roots, shook it like a toy, spread soil all over the deck and very likely completely killed the plant. Patsy replanted it, but it looks sick.


                                             This is Sarah, not the offending mutt. Sarah is completely sane.


                                                           Poor plant.

Damn crazy dog.

                                                 Hey Crazy Pants!

First Picnic and a Pie

My parents and I took Zoe for her first picnic at Laurelhurst Park. It was nice and cool in the park and we found a shady spot to put down our blanket and let Zoe play. We just had some snacks, Izzis and blackberry pie (that I had made using berries my dad and I picked from the brambles near my parents' apartment), but I figure it still counts as a picnic, because there was food and a blanket and sitting on the ground in the park.

We watched two men set up a balance rope thing across the whole bowl, that's the dog park during the winter, and then one of them carefully walked all the way across it. It was interesting and I definitely would not have the balance for it.

Mostly we just played with Zoe and ate meat and cheese and crackers. It was my kind of picnic.

                                                                                              Belly laughs.


                                                                                                  Mmmm, toes.

Zoe sat up for the longest she has ever done, too. Usually, she balances, teeters and then fall over within a few seconds, but this time, she was sitting there for a few minutes. I love the little accomplishments.




                                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The pie I made was really simple. Just a quick crust in the food processor and then three ingredients in the filling.

Blackberry Pie
The Crust:
2 1/2 cups      Flour
2 1/2 T           Sugar
1 t                  Salt
2 Sticks          Butter, cut into 16 little cubes and frozen
3/4 cup           Ice water (don't actually use the ice in this measurement, just the really cold water)

Combine the flour, sugar and salt in the food processor and pulse to combine. Add the frozen butter and process until the butter is in pea sized pieces in the flour. Add the cold water and process until the dough looks like large curds. Turn out the dough and form it into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.

Filling:
4 Cups           Blackberries
1/2 cup           Flour
1/2 cup           Sugar

Combine flour and sugar in a bowl and mix it together with a fork. Toss this with the blackberries and let sit.

Cut your chilled dough in half and roll out two circles or dough large enough for your pie pan. Place on circle into the pan and smooth it out, leave the overlap. Add the filling and then cover with the second round of dough. Trim the edges, if needed, to that there's about an inch of overlap. Tuck the edges up underneath, but on top of the lip of the pie pan. Crimp. Brush the whole top of the pit with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar and add some vents in the middle of the top crust. Place in the fridge and let chill, while preheating the oven to 425 degrees. Once preheated, bake for 25 minutes and then turn temperature down to 350. Bake another 25-30 minutes until pie is golden brown. If the edges start to get too dark, place foil around the border to keep it from burning.

One Year

On Monday, Patsy and I celebrated one year of marriage. Between pregnancy and having our little girl, this year has gone by quite quickly.

The day started out rather crappy. I went to help my parents pack up some of their things because I thought they wanted to make it easier to move once my mom finds a new job. It turns out that one of the big reasons they're putting a bunch of stuff in storage is because they're afraid that my sister might break some of it.

My sister is 26 years old. She has a myriad of physical and psychological problems and lives with my parents because she's incapable of taking care of herself. One thing that she does not handle well is alcohol. She becomes an absolute idiot and sometimes gets violent when drunk. Also, it makes her very ill. Well, she's depressed because of her boyfriend, who lives two hours away on the coast and decided to drink away her sorrows, using my parents' wine. While my dad was working a graveyard shift she threw things at my mom, fell on her face charging at my mom and was generally being a psycho pain in the ass. My mom told me that she threw some canned food and a couple other things at her. What my mom didn't tell me, and what I found out when I went to set something on her tiny bistro table, was that my sister destroyed my mom's camera lens. The thing costs several hundred dollars and my parents can't afford to replace it. My sister was puking her guts out and I just wanted to slap her.

As awful as it is, I wish my parents would put her on the streets and let her sink or swim. I know that that's not fair, because she suffers from mental illness, but I hate her sometimes, because of the things she does to my parents. She thinks I'm like her and tells me about how awful our parents are and how she hates them, because she thinks I'd understand. I keep a blank face and yell terrible things at her in my head. We have great parents. They were understanding when we were stupid teenagers, raised three functioning adults (and one non-functioning) and now I consider them two of my best friends. I think that is a sign of successful parenting.

So, I helped them pack up my mom's glass knick-nacks and get their china cabinet into a uhaul truck and then told them I'd see them downtown, as I had to meet up with Patsy for our date. I was not in a great mood, as my sister has this rage inducing affect on me.

I met Patsy at his office shortly before our dinner reservation, so that I could feed Zoe before handing her off to my parents for the duration of our meal. Patsy's not a romantic guy, so I was quite surprised when he gave me a bouquet of orchids and lilies when I got there. I don't give him enough credit in the day to day, because when it comes down to it, even when he doesn't respond, or seem to pay attention, he listens. He listens enough to my babbling to know that I love lilies. Orchids are a given; I grow them in our living room and force him to look at them from time to time, but lilies would require him to hear me when I speak. Anyways, I fed Zoe and then got a little stressed out, because my parents were running behind and we needed to get to the restaurant. Granted, the restaurant was 3 blocks from Patsy's work and it was a Monday evening, but Patsy was bitching about how none of our parents are particularly reliable when it comes to being on time and I wanted to make sure Zoe didn't fuss while she was with my parents and I had already fed her. I knew they had to go to the storage unit before coming down, so I tried to get Patsy to shut up because he was stressing me out more. We ended up meeting them at the restaurant and transferring the ergo to my dad.

We went to a place called Mucca Osteria and the food was really great. The place was legit Italian, too, down to the waiter, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was the owner, shouting at the cooks in Italian, and the fact that I couldn't read the menu. Patsy and I ordered a caprese salad that was a tower of heirloom tomatoes, fresh, incredibly soft, creamy mozzarella, and basil, sitting in a pool olive oil and balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with some green that resembled clover. It was easily my favorite part of dinner. We also ordered two entrees and split both, so we could try some of each. We got a pasta dish with sausage and cherry tomatoes and a delicious, meaty broth, and then a gnocchi dish in a tomato cream sauce with some sort of Italian bacon. The gnocchi itself was good, but I wasn't a fan of the bacon, which is weird, because if I had to eat one food for the rest of my life, it would probably be bacon.

I really loved the food, but with the price, it's definitely a special occasion place. Unfortunately, given the location and the economy, I wouldn't be surprised if it folds. It's situated on a block of restaurants that are all roughly $12 and under a plate and it faces the MAX line, so not exactly a lovely view. I hope that it makes it, though.

After dinner, we met up with my parents and Zoe and got ice cream at Ruby Jewels. I got an ice cream sandwich with house made double chocolate chip cookies and salted caramel dark chocolate ice cream. There's something about salt and ice cream that is so delicious.

Zoe was completely passed on my mom in the ergo and they told me that it took a while to get her down, because while they ate sandwiches at Kenny and Zukes, she watched them intently and made chewing motions. I am so not ready for solids. My mom finds my trepidation hilarious.

My date with Patsy made the crappy parts of the day fade away and it was a great way to celebrate our first year of marriage. It was the first time eating dinner without listening for Zoe the whole time or holding her while eating, so it was just really, really nice. I can't wait to have another date night with my husband, and my parents have already offered to watch Zoe whenever we need them to!

To many more happy, argument filled, silly, ridiculous years!

New to this

I suppose this will be my first post writing about my family, baking and whatever other stray thoughts fall out of my head. I doubt anyone will read this, because I'm unsure I'll share this blog with anyone, but I think it might be fun to spew my thoughts on the internet from time to time.

My name is Jessica and I am a new mom, with a 4.5 month old named Zoe. Along with my husband, Patrick, we live with two silly pit bulls named Sarah and Lilliput (Lilly) and our roommate, who rents our basement named David. I used to be a baker, but am now a stay at home mom, thanks to day care costs. I never really did what I wanted to as a baker, which was cakes, and I got burnt out in the baking world, so I'm alright with not going back to it and will hopefully find something better to do for a job when Zoe's a bit older.

My life is fairly dull at the moment, with the exception of being amused by my baby, so I doubt I'll write here often, but I like the idea of it being here.