Rainy Day

Summer Again?

Well folks, I spoke too soon. Today was a 96 degree scorcher. I suppose weather is fickle no matter where you are. But we all knew that already.

Beauty trumped heat, so our little Wednesday play date group held to our plans of walking through the Naval Academy grounds to City Dock downtown. Our stroller parade parked in the shade for sandwiches before the return trip to our cars. It's fun hanging out with these gals and being Pierce's daytime buddy!

(Three of the four ladies here are pregnant. Kiddos kiddos everywhere.)

Fall Already?

When did Fall get here? Not just football season Fall, but mother nature Fall. Yesterday while walking outside with Pierce I was shocked to notice that trees have begun to lose leaves and change color. What in the world? It's only September? Then I remembered. We live "up north" now and summer doesn't last until Halloween here.

Today on our 71 degree afternoon walk we heard crows in the sky and stopped to look at a pumpkin display. Fall is definitely here.

Every year. Every season. I feel an element of surprise when the weather begins to fade into something new. Year after year the awe is still there. What a refreshing and wonderful gift seasons are.

Carolina BBQ

Did you know there was such a thing? I did not. Even after marrying into the Carolinian clan, I was oblivious to their ways with pork. Only in the past couple months have I been exposed to this vinegar based BBQ concept... in Maryland... by people from Ohio. Even Utz up in Pennsylvania knows what's going on. (If you like salt and vinegar chips, try their Carolina BBQ flavor. Yummm!)

Earlier today a crock pot recipe for "Carolina BBQ Pork" caught my attention so I gave it a try. It made enough to feed a small army, so we shared it with friends for dinner tonight and all agreed that it was worth making again.

Hopefully I can taste the real thing on a trip down south sometime :o)

Time to Post About Something...

I lost my good glasses at church. My back-up pair has a giant scratch on the right lens.

I baked blueberry as well as chocolate chip muffins this week. Turns out Baking Pam isn't a waste of money at all. Smells good too. I think it works better than paper liners. My stuff always stick to the liners.

Two Sunday's ago we stopped at Goodwill to see if there was anything there I couldn't live with out. There was. I bought a desk.

Last Sunday we took advantage of Blockbuster's unfortunate bankruptcy. Matt bought ten new release DVD's at a store closing for a fraction of the value.

I got to watch a friend's kids for a couple hours this afternoon. Sooo cute!

Tonight Matt and I had the opportunity to take a two hour cruise on the Chesapeake. It was drizzly, but soo great to be in the fresh air and chat with people from our church.

I made my first purchase from Amazon last week... and they mailed me the wrong item. Despite Matt's gook luck with it, I'm disenchanted.

We watch Scrubs re-runs every night.

Kix are goooood.

Aprons

Thanks to my torso models, these trendy vintage aprons and more are headed to MothersStuff!

Last Weekend

Our three-day Labor Day weekend was low key and relaxing. I originally had my heart set on an out-of-apartment adventure (camping?) but I know the fall is young and there will be other chances. We'll make other chances. This time around we went on a simple vacation to our guest room. Definitely worth the trip.

We also sifted through our two storage spots: the guest room closet and under guest bed. Last year about this time anything without an obvious home was shoved into one of those two places. So we emptied everything into the living room, sorted, divided, trashed, then filled the closet back up in a much less chaotic fashion. But it's still pretty darn full.

There was also a lot of tennis watching via the US Open.

And we had a nice leisurely three hour lunch/visit with friends after church Sunday afternoon.

And we had a glass of wine while reading by the pool Monday before it closed for the season.

And we grilled!

And ate gelato!

There was also a downtown outing. We tried an Irish restaurant for lunch, browsed an antique store and stopped in a fantastic bookstore.

It turned out to be a really good weekend.

Problem Solving, Toddler Style

My daytime buddy is good entertainment!