A quick update on all things garden:

I have pulled two good sized fist fulls of pea pods from my garden so far.  They're crisp, tasty, and a great snack.  The tomato plants have all started to form fruit (I love how cute the little romas look).  Finally some basil took from seed and is starting to grow - still no lettuce to speak of, I guess I need to try again on that.  The potatoes are a bit of a mixed bag from pot to pot.  I guess we'll see how they turn out.  The beets and carrots are looking good.  The radishes have lots of green growing.  The brussels sprouts look like they've stalled out -- which is what tends to happen w/ anything cabbage or brocolli/cauli-related I try to grow.  I never did buy pepper plants - I guess I still could, I do have a few buckets that either didn't take or never got something planted in them.

I was irritated w/ my local Starbucks and their shenanigans (more on that in the last paragraph if you care) and started hitting the one in South Fayette before Avery's Saturday jiu jitsu classes instead.  They still do the bags of used grounds for free -- so I have snagged two bags and distributed them to many plants including my hydrangeas, so I am hoping for a nice pop of blue tones.

I guess we'll see how we weather this extreme heat.  I couldn't keep enough water drained off of the catch barrel for weeks on end, but I am pretty sure it is going to dry up quickly now.

Starbucks.  The local one plays the game where they disable their order ahead way too often for my liking.  It irritates me because they're essentially making the wait in the drive through even longer because no one can order ahead, right?  At least this case shows up in the app and you know, so you can chose to not order.  The other bull crap game they play is that sometimes they just slap a sign on the door saying the 'dining area' or whatever they call it is closed - drive through only.  THIS is not something you see on the app until you get there, which means I can't just run in and quickly grab my drink (which I've already paid for) -- and the drive through is usually wrapped and a nice 15 minute wait, which I don't sometimes have to spare.