Various

I haven't done a "various" blog post in a long time. I've sort of missed them - have you? As per my tradition, these are mainly updates.

- Breaking my own rule right out of the gate, as this is not an update. Ha! While it could have been about 5 degrees cooler everyday last week, I generally like heat and humidity especially in the early evening when the blazing sun is below the trees. I appreciate the sun for keeping us all alive, don't get me wrong. I just don't like it blazing down directly on me. I prefer the same 90 degree temperature but with indirect sun. I'm not at all picky though.

We finally tried out the fountains at Ballantrae Park in Dublin. Anything that is compared to the Easton fountains is an automatic negative for me so I was a little leery. However, it was great! Absolutely no shade but considering J insisted I remain at his side (I don't blame him since we didn't go with other kids) it was fine because I was soaked. I hope to go again this afternoon and this time I'll wear my bathing suit. I've decided I'm too impatient for the "quick" dry of quick dry shorts. I hope to get some photos this afternoon too - cross your fingers!

- Our house is still being "landscaped," though right now it looks more like a foreclosure-scape. Perhaps we were too hasty in ripping out the hedges. It looked better at first but now the once empty beds with freshly tilled dirt are dry and full of weeds. Very attractive. D spent May beside himself over how horrible it looked; fretting that all eyes were on his eye-sore of a yard. Worried that all the neighbors were whispering and pointing. June was a month of acceptance that it is what it is. Now in the heat of July we're simply waiting. Waiting to get on our landscaper's schedule now that we've finally gotten quotes from him for the work. They'll be prepping all the beds in the front, and D will then plant the trees and shrubs himself. Of course we cannot get any of this done until the masonry company repairs our brick wall (ah yeah, rebuilds our brick wall). Seems I failed to mention the pile of bricks in our front side yard. Pretty. Supposedly that work will be done this week though it was supposed to be done last week. All I know is even I'm starting to think the house looks like complete ass outside.

- After two grueling, yes grueling, weeks of working on our adoption profile, I took a copy to our attorney on Friday. Attorney or lawyer - is there a difference? I like attorney better but I'm not sure why. I use lawyer more but I think only because it's faster to type.

Anyway, I seriously spent every single naptime and every single evening working on this thing for nearly two weeks. I had to locate images, scan them, color correct them, crop them, re-size them and then finally place them into the document. I used Word and if you don't already know, Word doesn't like too many images in one document. And if you get the images too close to one another, no amount of wrapping voodoo will keep them from dancing all over the page however they like, which I assure you is not how you like. I'll claim it was my mad Word skillz but maybe it was also having a Mac now that made this easier than in the past. However, once I added textboxes for all my captions it was on. Fun times. I'm so glad to be done! I have to give a shout out to AJ who was beyond, beyond, beyond helpful with the entire project. She spent most of her day on Thursday looking over every single page and emailing me thoughts for each one. I know I thanked her but I have to do so once more - THANK YOU, AJ . . . you rock! And I would be remiss not to thank everyone else who also helped. This thing was 26 pages of photos and answers to about a dozen questions. It was time consuming for everyone - THANK YOU ALL!!!!!!!!

Our attorney will be looking over it this week and letting us know if it's good, correct, awesome, I'm not sure what. I'm assuming that since we followed his suggested guidelines I'll have little or no additional work to do. I'll have more printed and we'll be all set for the long period of waiting. Of course "long" is a relative term and I have no idea how many weeks or months that could be. I'm thinking positively though so not that long.

- My attempt to eat less sugar has had a reverse affect. I find that often happens and it's got to be subconscious. I'm not dieting so there's no internal mantra of "don't eat sugar" or "don't eat this, don't eat that." If there was then I'd understand the reverse happening. I had just hoped to make better choices but alas I think I've been making worse choices!

At this rate, I will not have a very good habit formed going into fall which (no pun intended) is my downfall. Once Halloween hits all bets are off through Pi Day in March, well really through J's birthday two days later. What else is one to do in the midwest in winter other than bake and use up all those frozen summer berries?

- Speaking of summer berries, my collection from last summer is thankfully still good. I taste-tested them this morning. I plan to make two mixed berry galettes this week - one for our visit to the lake, and one for a family reunion. We are traveling again for another long weekend. I hope to hit a flea market or two while in WM. I can't seem to find any around here and I'm looking for a vintage pizzelle maker. Yeah, more baking, I know. I have my great-grandmother's pizzelle recipe and I really want to start making them and perfecting them. I suspect it will take awhile.

I only have three old family recipes . . . kolachi (I can't seem to find a universal spelling on that), pizzelles, and tomato gravy. The first two are my great-grandmother's and the latter is my grandmother's on the other side (as in my mom's not my dad's). I love them all equally, but I do wish they had more of their old friends in my recipe book.

Speaking of family, I found a photograph of a headstone with what is, according to my dad, either my great-great grandmother or great-aunt's name on it. He's leaning towards the latter. I looked up the name on Ancestry.com and found a couple close hits in the 1930 census records. Of course you have to have a paying account with Ancestry.com to view the record. Has anyone signed up with them? Did you get your money's worth out of it? I'd love to do family trees on both sides for my dad and the one on my mom's that is currently non-existent.

- One final update and it's a sad one. Sorry to end on a bum note. Our kitty Gato died this week. He was 12 years old and seemingly in good health. D found him dead one morning.

Gato was awesome basically. He had a wonderfully friendly and outgoing kitty personality. I don't think anyone ever met him and didn't like him. He was a huge (as in big-boned though I'll admit a little heavy too) orange tabby tomcat. A gentle giant though, he would never even fight back when one of the dogs was after him. At most he'd punch them and wait for help. But, if his sidekick Tatey was the one cornered Gato would turn into a ninja. Out of nowhere he'd jump down onto one of the dog's backs, biting and scratching to create a diversion and escape for Tate. It was shocking and comical at the same time. We love our dogs but they're little shits and they deserved whatever Gato gave them.

Gato had one issue, he was territorial (aka he sprayed sometimes). This became a huge issue at the other house but we were able to work through it and fix the damage to the house and stop him from continuing. After the move to the new house he started again and was currently living in the basement with our other cat until they could get used to the new smells and sounds of the place. It was taking longer than we would have liked and we'd been discussing the option of having the kitties become indoor-outdoor because basement life just isn't right.

I feel really guilty that he did not have his fair share of people-time in the new house and well really at the end of his life. I feel like I would have made other decisions if I had known he was sick and nearing his end. I also feel really bad because he and J were buds in the old house and definitely not here in the new one. I have no one to blame so I have been blaming myself. But for my own sanity, I think I will move the blame to carpeting. I hate carpeting anyway, especially cream colored carpeting. Let the petitioning for bamboo floors begin! Also, I'll be moving Remember Me up to the top of my Netflix Queue as I hear it's a tearjerker and I could use a good cry.

Miss you Gato - tell Tatey and Cleo we said "hi."