Two more days until summer... we hope!
I know there's still one whole day in the long weekend but I couldn't take any more time with people. I adore my family so much but it wasn't them. It was me. I've gotten so very used to having more alone time over the past 10 year being away from them. My creativity demands alone time but my santiy demands people. My family fits the bill quite nicely most of the time but this weekend was also about birthday parties which always means a house full of people. Thankfully, even with the crappy weather (IT SNOWED! Well, in the morning but it still rained on us all day today and it was pleasant), the house wasn't overly crowded although I did commander the TV room so that the majority of the kids and myself could watch Tangled during the main meal part of the festivities.
What a hoot when my Gramma (who is turning 85 on the 1st) thanked my sisters for their gifts and then turned around and thanked one of them a second time but never thanked me. It's the kind of thing that you just laugh and shake your head about. The sad thing about this is that my Gramma is really starting to go downhill. I can only hope she goes with dignity like my Great-Gramma did a couple of years ago. It's just scary, is all. My Grampa was taken very suddenly a little over 12 years ago so we didn't really see him decline at all. One day he was alive and then he wasn't. Watching my Gramma get older these past few years has been hard.
We have this thing that just came to our area called "Bountiful Baskets" - you may have heard of it but it only just came here. Pretty much, the deal is that you sign up and pay your whatever amount of money it is on Monday and then you pick up a basket(s) of food on Saturday. They started doing it in our little area about a month ago and my mom has been doing it. I have benefited in small ways from time to time. When I can snag a loaf of the bread that comes extra, I'm a happy girl. They had to not use the school anymore and came to my dad (the Fire Chief) and asked if they could use the fire station for distribution. Because of this, if there's extra left over, he gets any of that.
This week, I helped my dad find his wedding book (oh yes, wedding season is starting and my dad's other job is Pastor so he's got nearly one wedding every week for the next three months those are the ones that have thought ahead) and I traded the "favor" for anything extra we got from BB. That means I'm the proud owner of:
a coconut
around 15 small little mangoes
5 key limes (unless they're really, really small regular limes)
3 heads of romaine lettuce
1 container of strawberries
1 container of blueberries (of which I traded for one of mom's loaves of bread)
2 yellow onions (the other part of the deal for the bread)
2 yellow peppers
a cantaloupe
a pineapple (that may never get ripe)
a bunch of bananas
3 apples
a small papaya
a head of cauliflower
4 tomatoes
a grouping of broccolini
a mediumish bag of green beans
TWO VANILLA PODS!!!!!
and a bag of mint
I'm going to be eating fresh food for some time! I need to come up with a shopping list for things that I can use with some of this stuff. Like bacon so I can cook up the green beans and then probably freeze them for later. And taco salad stuff with the salad makings because I have a hankering for taco salad.
And I need to come up with something really cool for those vanilla pods! I see them being used on cooking shows all the time so I'm sure I can find SOMETHING. Maybe I'll use them with those mangos.
A book rec: Lament by Maggie Stiefvater is SO GOOD. If you liked Twilight but wished it was better or are always on the lookout for a good faerie story, this is the book for you. It was just so well written! I'm also reading a free Kindle book that is very similar to this that isn't as well written and I'm not enjoying it nearly as much as I enjoyed this book. I can't wait to read the next book in this series an other books by this author.
Also, I would like to point out that I wiped the floor with most of my opponents at any game we played this weekend. I took first for second in nearly every Qwirkle game and ruled at all games of Hand & Foot (it's a version of canasta) that I participated in.
It's almost June and that means NEW TV! Hooray! I love summer TV. Looking forward to so many of them!
What a hoot when my Gramma (who is turning 85 on the 1st) thanked my sisters for their gifts and then turned around and thanked one of them a second time but never thanked me. It's the kind of thing that you just laugh and shake your head about. The sad thing about this is that my Gramma is really starting to go downhill. I can only hope she goes with dignity like my Great-Gramma did a couple of years ago. It's just scary, is all. My Grampa was taken very suddenly a little over 12 years ago so we didn't really see him decline at all. One day he was alive and then he wasn't. Watching my Gramma get older these past few years has been hard.
We have this thing that just came to our area called "Bountiful Baskets" - you may have heard of it but it only just came here. Pretty much, the deal is that you sign up and pay your whatever amount of money it is on Monday and then you pick up a basket(s) of food on Saturday. They started doing it in our little area about a month ago and my mom has been doing it. I have benefited in small ways from time to time. When I can snag a loaf of the bread that comes extra, I'm a happy girl. They had to not use the school anymore and came to my dad (the Fire Chief) and asked if they could use the fire station for distribution. Because of this, if there's extra left over, he gets any of that.
This week, I helped my dad find his wedding book (oh yes, wedding season is starting and my dad's other job is Pastor so he's got nearly one wedding every week for the next three months those are the ones that have thought ahead) and I traded the "favor" for anything extra we got from BB. That means I'm the proud owner of:
a coconut
around 15 small little mangoes
5 key limes (unless they're really, really small regular limes)
3 heads of romaine lettuce
1 container of strawberries
1 container of blueberries (of which I traded for one of mom's loaves of bread)
2 yellow onions (the other part of the deal for the bread)
2 yellow peppers
a cantaloupe
a pineapple (that may never get ripe)
a bunch of bananas
3 apples
a small papaya
a head of cauliflower
4 tomatoes
a grouping of broccolini
a mediumish bag of green beans
TWO VANILLA PODS!!!!!
and a bag of mint
I'm going to be eating fresh food for some time! I need to come up with a shopping list for things that I can use with some of this stuff. Like bacon so I can cook up the green beans and then probably freeze them for later. And taco salad stuff with the salad makings because I have a hankering for taco salad.
And I need to come up with something really cool for those vanilla pods! I see them being used on cooking shows all the time so I'm sure I can find SOMETHING. Maybe I'll use them with those mangos.
A book rec: Lament by Maggie Stiefvater is SO GOOD. If you liked Twilight but wished it was better or are always on the lookout for a good faerie story, this is the book for you. It was just so well written! I'm also reading a free Kindle book that is very similar to this that isn't as well written and I'm not enjoying it nearly as much as I enjoyed this book. I can't wait to read the next book in this series an other books by this author.
Also, I would like to point out that I wiped the floor with most of my opponents at any game we played this weekend. I took first for second in nearly every Qwirkle game and ruled at all games of Hand & Foot (it's a version of canasta) that I participated in.
It's almost June and that means NEW TV! Hooray! I love summer TV. Looking forward to so many of them!