"She's a Brick House...She's Mighty Mighty"

My theme song for today...what's yours?

Our Garden & Short ATL Trip

We were so anxious to get started on planting vegetables in our garden this year and even more anxious to see the results. After months of preparing the spot in our backyard, tilling the soil, planting, and watering we finally have something (small) to show for it:

Byars' Garden


Our first Tomato




Pesto Dinner with Ingredients from our Garden...Yum!

At the beginning of June we decided to do a short weekend trip to Atlanta to celebrate my birthday, along with my older sister Crystal's birthday, with our families and to see a few friends. It turned into a whirlwind weekend with something planned every meal of the day (literally breakfast, lunch, and dinner), but we wouldn't have it any other way! Here is some of the evidence:

The No Doubt Concert



Chillin' at the Pool


We are looking forward to the rest of the summer, especially our road trip to Chicago then Minneapolis next week!

Spring time!

Hello out there...helloooo helllooo (echo). Is anyone still there? lol. After a crazy few months we will try to get back to posting regularly. I finished up my first year of grad. school at the end of April. I can't believe it has been a year already! I'm taking a Maymester class right now, working, and I started an internship with Food Security Partners of middle Tennessee (www.foodsecuritypartners.org). It will be a busy few weeks until this class ends, but it will be worth it! After May I will only have 3 classes left...hooray.

Jeremy is finishing up the school year and has 2 weeks left until his summer begins! We are really looking forward to spending a lot of time this summer traveling and getting to do all the fun things in Nashville we haven't done yet. We are planning a road-trip to Chicago over July 4th, a trip to Minnesota to visit family, and hopefully a beach trip in there somewhere.

Everything else is going great. Our pugs, Beau and Ernie, are just as fat and silly as ever. We have loved taking them to the dog park now that it has been so beautiful outside. That's the "quick and dirty" of our lives for now. Hopefully I will post some pictures soon.

We would love visitors this summer...come see us in Nashvegas!!!

Winter Blahs

Can you believe it is FEBRUARY already? Time flies when you are busy as crap!
This has been our schedule lately:
Monday - J: work, tutoring, cooking dinner
Ash: meeting, work, reading/writing papers, class, eating dinner
Tuesday- J: work, tutoring, cooking dinner, passing out
Ash: work, reading/writing papers, class, another class, eating dinner
Wed- J: work, tutoring, eating dinner
Ash: work, NO CLASS (yippee), reading/writing papers, Cooking dinner
Thurs.- J: work, tutoring, passing out
Ash: work, class, DEAD From the week!!!
Fri.- J:work, no tutoring, beer time
Ash: work and cleaning day!

Thank YOU GOD for the weekends!!!!!!!!!!!!
This past weekend we had a wonderful and relaxing time. Friday we went to our favorite mexican place, Rose Pepper, and then bowling. We were supposed to meet some friends there, but they ended up not coming so we enjoyed a pitcher of beer all to ourselves! BTW I beat J (by two points...but hey that's still a win)!

Saturday we worked out at our awesome community center right down the road! It has an indoor pool and all...way better than an ordinary gym. Then we washed the car and played with the dogs. That night we got yummy dessert and saw Doubt. It was an interesting movie. The acting was fabulous, but I thought the story line was a little flat. I kept thinking there would be some amazing twist at the end, but there wasn't.

Superbowl Sunday I made Emeril's "Crazy Nachos" and let me tell you what they were the best freakin' nachos I ever had! I should have taken a picture that's how good they were!!! We enjoyed pigging out and watching the game by ourselves! I get really into football and I was jumping around the living room when #92 ran the ball for a 100 yard touchdown! How amazing was that? Overall, I thought this was one of the best Superbowls ever and I was happy the Steelers won. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I hadn't updated in a while so I wanted to let everyone know we are still alive!

Happy New Year!

We spent our New Year's Eve with some friends from J's school and rang in the new year East Nashville style. We missed our friends from home this year, but we're also excited to be in our new hometown to celebrate. Here are a few of the pics. from New Year's Eve and the bbq on New Year's Day:

Southern Luck New Year's day meal...Blackeyed peas and collard greens


Happy New year 2009!


English teachers


We hope 2009 brings you lots of peace, joy, and lots of fun times!

Farms

I am really interested in Community Supported Agriculture, or CSAs, and the opportunity to actually know where your food comes from! Plus through CSAs you are supporting local farmers and helping the environment by buying food locally. I think food security will continue to become an increasingly important thing to tackle in our society as food prices continue to rise ( I paid almost 5 bucks for milk the other day!) and hopefully I will be able to get more involved with Nashville Urban Harvest in the spring.

I was watching an old Martha Stewart episode today and she had this cute little family of farmers on from up north. They have a farm rental house that you can stay in and also learn to work the farm while you stay. I know this probably isn't most people's ideal vacation, but I think it would be a really neat experience! Summer vacation anyone? lol

Here is the link if your interested...and if not look to see if there is a CSA in your community:
Tide Mill Organic Farm

Holiday Decorating!

With funds somewhat low this year, we decided on a Christmas tree fund limit ($20 big ones) and threw caution to the wind!!! As we arrived at Home Depot we were pleasantly surprised to find elf-size trees. After contemplating over the huge selection under $20 (all of 2) we went with the cutest little tree you could imagine:


(Warning tree looks bigger than it actually is due to a. the tall stand and b. I'm only 5ft tall-same height as the tree)
Here's to a MINI Christmas!




Setting up the tree!