Lost Week

Apparently I did not take many pictures this week and otherwise failed to record what we did. And the ol’ brain is not supplying too many details. Blame it on the 100 degree heat. It was nearly impossible to cook or do much of anything. The heat did not break til Thursday night. Friday was in the 70s.

I spent a lot of time looking at vacation spots, and am leaning now towards just going away with Tom for a weekend. It’s been a minute since we did that. I will make it up to the kids with more beach day trips and maybe something educational too.

In the garden, I’ve picked a few strawberries and tomatoes, and I made gravy last Sunday night with frozen farmers’ market tomatoes and meatballs from Haddon Culinary.  I also picked herbs to dry that morning. There are many green tomatoes out there just waiting for the heat to break so they can ripen. And I picked my first onion of this year! It’s small, but the remaining ones are big! Just waiting for the necks to flop over. I also have a pumpkin or squash on the vine out front.

Sunday night, I took a walk and snagged this book from a Little Free Library:

Also on Sunday, I shopped Macy’s “Black Friday in July” sale and got some good deals on bedding for T’s dorm room.

The rest of the week is kind of a blur of driving kids places, accidentally knocking over a tray of seedlings (and then redoing them), and shopping at Acme for anything that promised heat relief (lemonade, fudge pops). And a lot of moments of wanting to go the pool but it either being too hot or storming. And cleaning up puppy messes. Did I mention that she chewed through one of my favorite flip-flops? I’m reduced to wearing F’s Crocs.

Friday night I had dinner at an outdoor restaurant with friends. It was sooo nice and cool out that night.

This weekend I spent a lot of time with Frick and Frack:

It literally was just me and them most of the time. Tom and F. went down the shore and the boys were in and out. And I didn’t need to run the AC. So it was quiet and peaceful, more so than it’s been in a long time. I was in the mood to be in the kitchen, and there were a lot of veggies that needed to be used up. So I roasted tomatoes, and pureed, skinned and froze them. Two were mine and the rest were from the farmers’ market.

I had zucchini, scallions, a lemon and corn hanging around, which inspired me to make zucchini-corn fritters with lemon basil aioli. Really good!

I also cleaned out the fridge and gave the kitchen a good cleaning. (Nothing like a Wawa iced latte to put a little pep in my step.) I did some other cleaning and some loads of wash. In between I was cleaning up after Molly and working on her housebreaking.

The boys and I hit up Goodwill. T got three great pairs of shorts and Nike sneakers that were practically pristine, N got a hoodie and a small art print (.99), and I got a platter to use for my homemade birdbath ($10)! Pic to come. I also got a virtually brand new small trashcan ($4) for T to take to college. Our total was $64. It was nice to spend time with just them! We stopped at Acme as well.

There were also other errands, watering the garden, etc. By the time I sat down to watch what I wanted on TV, that night, all by myself, I was delightfully exhausted. (I picked “American Greed.”)

Meals this week:

Sunday: Something at home, followed by ice cream out at Hershey Shake Shack in Bellmawr (you can find them on the socials)

Monday: Spaghetti and meatballs

Tuesday: ?

Wednesday: Chick Fil A; PB&J for me

Thursday: cheese steaks and wings from local place

Friday: Birra restaurant (for me)

Lunches: purchased at work all three days. True indicator of a week off the rails. Must do better this week!