4th of July we went out to multiple sites to take photos and saw the infamous Monk Parakeets that have taken up residence not far from where we live. How did I not know this before?
We also saw a tagged coyote near Joe’s work.
We had a little cookout at home where I made mushroom swiss burgers. We recently discovered the deliciousness that is small portabella mushrooms from Aldi sautéed in butter. Mmmm. I still hate the texture of mushrooms (so slimy!) but they are tasty.
I added more watch bands to my collection because I love wearing a color that matches my outfit. I got them from Jane for $20 which is a great price for five bands. They’re very comfortable!
I hit my annual reading goal of 24 books in July. Guess I’ll need to choose a more ambitious goal next year!
We got some delicious Rainbow Cone.
Joe found a tick on Wookie in the house. IN. THE. HOUSE. Ugh! Ticks freak me out. Between the possibility of Lyme Disease and Alpha-gal syndrome, where you become allergic to red meat, I can’t stand ticks! I check for them all the time and that’s the first time one has ever been in the house. I guess there’s one good thing about winter – no ticks.
We had a small tornado blow through town and tornado warnings more than once.
Our neighbor across the street passed away from an aggressive brain tumor. I feel so bad for his family. We went to the wake to pay our respects and rushed back home as yet more bad weather was on its way.
We saw some red-tailed hawks and on the way home from the grocery store one more saw a bald eagle!
Tried the Japanese Kewpie Mayo that everyone was raving about, only to learn it’s just disgusting Miracle Whip! Seriously, that’s exactly what it tastes like. What a letdown!
Joe got COVID, almost exactly a year to the day he got it the first time. We suspect it was the coworker who was coughing and sneezing all day. Luckily I managed to avoid catching it again. I feel really lucky that I’ve still yet to have COVID, or at least that I know of.
Both YouTube and Spotify decided now would be the perfect time to raise their rates even though wages have stagnated and we’re dealing with “inflation” (aka corporate greed they are trying to gaslight us into thinking is inflation even though they are reporting record profits). Needless to say, I put my YouTube Premium on hold because I’m not sure I want to pay $14 monthly just to avoid ads. We’ll see how I feel after the ads start showing up, though. I’m paid up through sometime in September I believe.
The kids came over for dinner and ended up staying until 2 am to avoid having to drive in the strong thunderstorms in the area. We had fun playing games most of the evening. We started out with Taboo, which is one of my favorites. You need at least four people to play so we rarely get the opportunity. Sadly, I lost because I was teamed up with K and we weren’t getting each other’s references. That’s the price of the generational divide. If it was Joe and me against the kids I think we’d win. We’ll have to try that next time, muahaha! Afterwards we played a Nightmare Before Christmas board game they had recently gotten us, which was better than any of us expected, and then various UNO games. We especially like UNO Flex and UNO Flip.
I keep saying this, but I really need to go back to posting more frequent blogs instead of these recaps, but I never seen to want to sit down and actually type out an entry on my computer even though I have the time to do it.