Why does Starbucks do me dirty every birthday drink and frequently when I cash in points for a free drink?  It's stupid but it really bums me out.  My free drink is _the_ birthday gift I don't have to _buy_ for myself.

I used a sting relief pad on my arm where I was stung.  The next day it was red, warm, dried out, and firm to the touch.  Seems to be acute dermatitis, but from what I read lidocaine rarely causes issues and the only other ingredient in the wipe was alcohol.  Regardless, I'm rocking some cream and hoping it settles down lest I need to get it looked at.

This week Avery had her final, multiple-team swim meet and today she is wrapping up the second/last week at Camp Splash.  She's definitely tired and will enjoy the days completely off next week.

This week's CSA bag came with pickling cukes, eggplants, giant red potatoes, fresh (and tasty - I already had one for lunch) corn, kale, and green tomatoes.  I never thought I'd be happy to see kale, but it's a good chance to make some of the tuscan chicken recipe we all fell in love with.  I'm also excited to make a small eggplant parm.  I will never understand the appeal of green tomatoes though.  Help me out here people, otherwise they'll just sit on the counter with the hopes they ripen.

As to my garden, I've pulled a few onions as the tops completely died off; they were rather small.  We gave pulled a couple more tomatoes, but not even enough to keep Avery satiated.  The basil is really kicking up, I'll need to start pinching it off and will use some of it with my eggplant.  The cukes and peppers seem to be hitting their growth strides as well.

Finally, the pumpkin plant out front has two pumpkins growing quickly.  I'm so excited!  I had a pumpkin from last year's CSA that sat on my counter most of the winter and never started to get soft.  I decided to break it in half an plant those halves out front in the mulch beds to see what came of it.  If you recall, I've tried pumpkin seeds out back; I've even stuck my finger in those blossoms to try and get them to fertilize without luck.

As to my weekend?  I've prepared an image of Sally O'Malley to embrace the insanity.  I'm also picking up the chocolate raspberry cheesecake I won from the school auction later today.  If one has to buy a birthday cake for themselves, do they have any obligation to share it?  Asking for a friend.

Something stung me and didn't have the little wasp-gonads to stick around and face my wrath.  I was opening the fence to take some clippings to the front and bang, right on my forearm.  You best believe I'll be looking for more little hives starting homie, I'm going to take out your little black and yellow gang members.

Aside:  Thank goodness I only needed to scoop poop and clipped some of the growth that hangs down over my fence because I am already dripping with sweat.  Thanking God for people who are willing to mow.

Aside:  I pulled the first tomatoes tonight while watering the garden.  5 sweet 100s and a larger orb was plucked from the ground - not sure what type of tomato that one was, but I know a squirrel or some other enemy of the state had ahold of it.

While my giant pork roast cooked in the instant pot I got busy today.

I cooked the beets (and some eggs) to pickle.  Then I went at the cabbage, which resulted in a side of cole slaw for our pork sammies, a batch of haluski, some baked garlic parm slices, and some cut up to use in a soup in the next day or two.  This left me with nearly half of the cabbage still intact.

When I get after so many things at the same time I long for a big beautiful kitchen with 2 or 3x the counter space I currently have.  I guess we always want more, don't we?

The way too hot to be outside heat continues -- as do the storms.  Avery is to go back to Camp Splash this coming week, but it looks like there will be lightning storms all week.  Fingers crossed they get a few hours at the pool a few of the days.

I look back when I was working on my Masters confused as to how I did it, where I found the time to get it all done, to breathe, to sleep.

These years running for a kiddo are hectic.  I am tired.  I am wishing for more hours in the day but not complaining.  I know at some point, which probably will be in a blink of an eye, I will again wonder how -- in addition to wishing for this time to have lasted longer.

Up at 6, except wed when I had to get Venus to the vet for her spay surgery, which was a 530 wake.

Visit and feed kittens.  Put dog out.  Make coffee.  Work until girl got up at 730 and get her a quick breakfast, then back to work until running her to VBS at 9.  Back to work.  Pick her up at 1215.

Quickly pull together lunch for her (I have been making larger batch items on the weekend and nursing leftovers all week), walk out back with Zero for 5 min to breathe and tend to plants (water etc), visit with kittens for a few. Back to work.  Cheer her through some worksheets in the afternoon and to get dressed for swimming so we could leave at 430 for swimming practice (or meet on Wed - when I also had to run and pick Venus back up and get back in time).  Back from practice and figure out food. Visit with kittens again while girl showers.  Get her tucked in and get my own shower.  Crash.

At some point this week I also managed to schedule two routine appts for myself, vacuumed downstairs, did a load of laundry (oh yeah, that is sitting on her bed to be folded), and signed myself up to bake a few things for an event for the rescue.

Tonight she went back a 7pm for the finale VBS event.  Fortunately I threw one set of brownies in over lunch and another in before evening VBS program.  I got those cut up and bagged after and made no bakes.  I am typing this as they cool and I should be reviewing the recipe for the hot cocoa puppy chow recipe.

I could prb make that in the morning if I get up promptly.  We have jiu jitsu at 10am and need to have the goods at the event around 2.

Picked up my first bag from the CSA this year on the way back from VBS drop off.  The cabbage is larger than the watermelon I already had on the counter.  I shoved the swiss chard and garlic scapes in the fridge and cut the greens off of the beets.  Put the potatoes away and stashed the zucchini in the fridge.  Still need to deal with the leeks.  I am excited for the fresh goods.  I need a hot minute to plan for/with it.

I pulled all of the turnips and one bucket of potatoes today, despite the heat.  I didn't get a lot of potatoes, but at the greens had completely died off, so I needed to harvest what I had.  I also had a couple of potatoes starting to sprout, so I decided to replant - we'll see what else I can get by the end of September.  The one bucket of beans have also gone brown and the last handful I harvested don't look very tasty, so they may just become next year's seeds.  There is also one tomato starting to turn red.  Finally the basil is well underway -- but still no lettuce happening despite at least 4 attempts to seed.  The cukes are starting to climb and blossoming.  I'm hoping to get larger cukes than the variety I had last year. I want to pull some of the larger beets soon and perhaps put a few more seeds in the pot in their place, maybe later this week.

Today I cooked a turkey breast in the instant pot for the first time - it turned out quite well, as did the gravy that I had a sample mix of to try. These leftovers, coupled with leftover ham and bean soup I made yesterday, will be used to get us through the week.  I have officially become my leftover generating mother, but I get it now.  The thought of the week ahead makes me tired. 

Aside:  The new toilet seat wiggles around.  I might lose my mind.

Happy 4th of July!  While I second guess my desire to go sweat it out for a few hours at the parade every year, I am always glad we went.  I have to admit, it didn't seem as crowded this year.  Maybe I'm getting used to it?  We got to enjoy the parade w/ Avery's bestie again and saw several of her other friends.

The rest of the day I was wiped and was half asleep on the couch, but we pulled ourselves together to go watch the fireworks from our church parking lot too.

I truly love our town.  And I truly love our country.  It hit me today that next year we celebrate 250 years.  I was little when we celebrated 200, it's very likely that will be the only milestone birthday of our country I will see/remember.  God, bless the USA.  USA, please... praise the Lord for all we have, that His hand may remain over us and that He might heal our land..

Of all the dumb things to need to repeatedly replace... toilet seats.  I replaced the garbo plastic ones about a year ago with wooden seats.  A while back the one in my bathroom ended up snapping at the back making the seat loose - so I replaced it (again), this time with a slow close.  Now the one in the downstairs bathroom broke - right in the middle of the one side - snapped the whole way across.  Thank GOD I was not the one using it at the time or my personal insult and embarrassment would be unbearable.  Let's be honest, I'm not tiny, but I don't think I'm break a toilet seat every six months fat.  That said, what brand do really really big people buy, because hook me up.  At $30-60 a pop this is ridiculous.  I will also note that in all of my years adulting I've never had an issue with toilet seats before; none have ever broken at the mount point, in the middle of an 'arm', and none have even wiggled loose.

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.

It is remarkable how much longer taking a half day on Friday can make your weekend feel.  I'm in the use or lose time frame for vacation hours.  I've tried to use all year, but every time I have time scheduled off I use a smaller amount due to longer hours on the days leading to it.

Friday we made a late lunch and then headed to the town park pool.  I haven't been there since 2023, but I sure do appreciate it.  I had the joy of watching the girl go off the diving board, rope swing, and slide in the deep end with confidence.  While she may not be fast yet, she's officially a capable swimmer.

We did a bit of running yesterday, which included buying some school clothes for the upcoming year and snagging goodies at Trader Joe's.  Today was relaxing, including some time on the couch with Church on my lap -- those are the best naps.

Foster kittens are queued up for spay/neuter in a week and a half.  They are doing great and I have officially gotten purrs from all three.

Avery and I were away on the first cruise of the summer for a bit over a week.  While we were gone the kittens have gotten so big!  Venus is trim and has long lanky legs.  All three have made great progress, and as I suspected before I went away, they are now ready for freedom in the foster room.  This gives them a lot more to explore and play with, but also some space to romp and wrestle.  Two of the three are of weight so it's time to reach out and start getting their shots and spay/neuters lined up.  I'm hoping to get them through the process quickly as that makes them available for adoption - and heaven knows when they still look like kittens it is even easier to gain interest.

As to our cruise, we were on Symphony out of Bayonne.  A day at sea, Port Canaveral (we stayed on), Nassau (we stayed on), Cococay, and two more days at sea.  This is the same itinerary/ship we will take later this summer.  The ship is Oasis class, so there is plenty to do.  Avery barely made the cut on height at 4'4" (52") and was able to ride the flowrider!  She enjoyed it when it wasn't split during busy times.  As always she was loving the rock wall.  This time our neighbors were onboard, so she had someone to ride slides and get in the pool with.  She's treading water and swimming quite well, so it's also the first time where she could get in the pool w/o me hovering (the pools are too deep for her to stand (fun fact about cruise ship pools).

Cococay was delightful as always.  Girl wasn't as interested in the free slides as she has been in the past, and wanted to focus more time on the Oasis pool where she swam back and forth and we worked on her stroke and breathing.  I'm very excited for another week of swim team practice and her first swim meet as a result!  It will be nice to have an official first time on the 25 free (which is likely to be her only event).

Food was ok.  That's something that has been going downhill for years.  Specialty dining - this is the first time I've done a 3 night package.  Chops was quite good.  Hooked disappointed me compared to having it on Icon, everything here was so bland.  Izumi was yummy again.  I also had credit for Playmakers from booking this package - which surprised me, making my last day snack free.  I do like their garlic fries, and now I've learned how good their pork sliders are too!

Back to work this week - and a bit of business between swim practice/meet, Church and Zero's vet appointments, a massage appointment, and now a hair appointment.  I realized right before we left for vacation that Avery's hair is knotting easily and causing her trouble to properly tend to on her own.

I had to kick the heat on the other day to take the chill off of the house.  Today it's 85 out there.  Summer is definitely here.  The girl started a summer swim team on Monday.  So far so good.  It's a bit odd as parents can only go watch on Mondays.  I'm trying to create a habit of walking the building during that time to get some exercise in. I wish I had a summer off with sleeping late, swim teams, and VBS.

The kittens are doing well and we're finally past the daily medicine doses.  Saturn is slowly realizing that my hand is acceptable in small doses.  Mercury will let you hold him a bit longer than everyone else, unless there is an opportunity to play.  Venus was straight up purring this morning and she gets elevator butt when you scritch her.