Better Late than Never - 12 on June 12th

The pictures were taken on June 12th, I have just been extremely busy with baseball, garage sales and birthday parties! So I say, better late than never.

I saved several peony blooms from the garden - with the torrential rains and winds, many of the blooms drooped to the ground. This was our 2nd (and last) bouquet of the season:


A common morning chore - emptying out the dish washer - and yes, I make sure the bowls are placed into the top rack in this double configuration - and I don't run the thing unless it is chock full of dishes. (which for us is about every 2 days)


I had to make fried rice this morning - for the kids' lunches. They now attend a summer day camp program that doesn't provide any food, which means we have to plan for snacks and lunch every day. [Try asking your kids what they want for lunch everyday and you will find their answers default to "I dunno" (with the slumped shoulder shrug), "Nothing", or "I don't care". But when you suggest something, they say "Ugg - no!"]. The kids love fried rice and I can make a big batch that lasts for two days.


With the hotter weather, I switched to iced coffee / tea for my morning drink. My iced tea selection is Mango Iced Tea - brewed Mango tea with Mango syrup. So yummy!


On the way home from work, I took a picture of a farm that can be seen coming off the highway. I wanted to get a picture of the cornfields, but couldn't find a suitable scene with a convenient place to pull over. With the cool, wet spring only about half the fields have been planted and the many of the fields look terrible.


The latest book craze for Erica and her friends - the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers. Teenage girl falls in love with a vampire. I read the first book and understand why it is so popular with the middle school audience - love, teen angst, extremely good looking main characters. Coming soon to a movie theatre near you.


We have the requisite picture of Erica with Hannah:


After dinner, we had to drop the Tahoe off at the dealership Service department - its check engine light has been on since mid April.



After dropping off the truck, we went to the Ice Cream shop where I had planned to take pictures of us enjoying the cool confection on this warm evening. But I realized I had left my camera in the Tahoe, now sitting on the car dealer's lot. Great. We enjoyed the ice cream, drove back home, grabbed the spare keys and I drove back out to the dealer and retrieved my camera.

The garage is pretty empty without that SUV:


So it is now almost 8:30, and we start on the next activity - preparing for the Garage Sale. Our subdivision sponsors a garage sale annually - it is this coming Saturday. We always haul our stuff over to our neighbor's place, since they live on the main "strip" and big collection of "stuff" always attracts more customers. I cleaned off my scrapbooking tables and transported two 6 foot long tables to the neighbor's garage and started on gathering our wares to sell.

This year, we involved the kids - Scott told them they would reap the proceeds of any toys they voluntarily donated to the garage sale. This included stuffed animals, affectionately referred to as "plush". We sold on sliding scale - "Small Plush" was priced at $0.10, "Medium Plush" priced at $0.25 and "Large Plush" priced at $0.50. The kids rummaged through their closets, under their beds, gathering "plush" they could part with. (And there were several they didn't want to part with).

We filled up a large cooler with "Medium Plush":


And the wagon full of "Large Plush" (I couldn't believe Brian wanted to part with Big Scooby, but there he is.....)


Finally, Brian received an overdue haircut - and we all took showers and collapsed into bed after a long day.....