You're Doing It Wrong

This is a hardboiled egg disaster. I wish I would have had some of my googly eyes handy.

We’re having a family visit this weekend.

I started to make cookies on Thursday and I added in an egg and it looked just a teeny bit off and smelled just a teeny bit off. Not bad but not right. I went back and forth a few times but elders were going to be eating these cookies, there was no room for error so I threw the dough away.

It always hurts to throw out something like that.

And. I remembered my lesson from 7th grade Home Ec — break the eggs into a little bowl before you add to the mix in case you get egg shells in there or the egg is not good. OOPS! You were right, Mrs. Wheeler.

I did a do over on Friday.

My friends in Chicago are donut people. This is not the only collection of donuts from the visit.

My grocery store trip was also eventful.

As I was going in I saw a guy with at least a pallet of bottled water. He saw me noticing and ran over to ask if I needed concrete work.

Inside, there was a person who seemed to be having a mental health crisis. I finally went to ask a manager if there was something we could do and I was informed that they are a person with a disability, they are a regular customer, and they are fine. Which is great, I am happy to be educated but the person explaining this to me was a total witch about it.

How am I supposed to know?

Later I watched a person fill their pockets with drinks and snacks and walk out of the store.

Then I got into an argument with my regular checker about whether my tribal ID was okay to check ID. They require ID on all alcohol purchases now. Fine – I understand why they have to do that, but also a tribal ID is a legal form of identification. The checker told me they’ve never even heard of a tribal ID. I wanted to punch them in the face and tell them to learn something about the first people where they live. 

Space is freaking awesome.

Happy Fourth of July and Dad’s 92nd birthday! Hopefully I will insert more photos later.

via GIPHY

When I was young, like middle school, I really, really wanted long fingernails.

I have no idea why this was so important to me.

Like, I thought I could be more popular and pretty. For real.

But instead, I was a nail biter and my nails were always weak and the minute they grew a tiny bit they were bendy and would break. Plus the way my nails grow, the nail bed is low on my fingertips so the free edge has a long way to go to even reach the ends of my fingers.

Now I hate if my fingernails are even the tiniest bit long. I cut them the second there’s enough free edge to grab.

And they seem like they grow faster than ever. Do they grow faster as you age? Or is it more like how different time goes by now, like when I see a photo of myself and think it’s from a year or two ago and really it’s like 10 years old?

Finger nails are no longer a priority.

We went to Chicago to visit friends. Well, I went to see friends. Bob went to have adventures.

The trip went as well as you could want. The travel went smoothly. Our lodging had plenty of space and a great location. We all had a great time catching up.

If you were going to complain, it would be about the first morning when it was cold and raining sideways but that was over quick.

I didn’t keep track of any funny stories and took hardly any photos.

One of the highlights was the Chicago Architecture Foundation Center River Cruise where you cruise around and the guide tells you all about the buildings in the downtown skyline. Super interesting. One and a half hours and you know how there’s always that one person who can’t resist talking the whole time? Not on this tour. Everyone rapt.

We also went to a Cubs game. I am not a huge baseball fan but I wanted to see Wrigley Field and it turned out to be fun. Since I spend so much time at soccer matches it was interesting to see how the rituals of a different sport played out.

That was the trip.

I am still trying to get the yard under control. Every spring I mildly panic because the work seems so overwhelming and it is particularly crazy this year due to all the rain. I finally managed to out in the berry patch to get it cleaned up and look what I found!

Lots more coming in soon. This is my favorite when we go from a few berries in a bowl to more than we can eat.

Also while I was out there one of my earbuds fell into the berries. I had to crank some loud music to the highest setting and then crawl around on my hands and knees with my face in the dirt and brambles in my hair.

I found it!

One night the Raccy with the mangled tail stuck his head in for a peek. Decides to back out.

This place belongs to Stinky.

Another matter that is overwhelming me is my apple tree. There are so many apples, and it’s leaning, and the branches are flopping. All the helpful tips online are from people who have property and orchards and stuff around to stake or prop up a tree. They are not considering the urban home with one measly little apple tree and nothing but a drawer filled with toothpicks and rubberbands to problem solve with.

Also, no spoilers but I am catching up on the latest season of Stranger Things. I love the content warning: fear, language, disturbing images, gore … and

smoking.

I don’t know how I always manage to be out taking photos in such ghastly light. Sorry.

The apple tree seems to have a million apples on it right now which is about 999,975 more than it can handle.

I have to keep an eye on it and read up on apple trees. Hopefully it’s smart enough to drop off a bunch itself.

But already we can see it’s leaning. We gotta devise a system to prop it up.

I’m sure YouTube will have more info than we know what to do with.

Last year we had 5-6 apples and they were delicious.

The bro house across the street was empty for a couple of years and now it’s an Air BNB. It can fit a lot of people so almost every weekend there are lots of cars over there.

I’m not complaining. So far it hasn’t caused any trouble.

This weekend there were 2-3 cars, 2 big pick-ups and 2 flatbeds – is that what they are called?

This morning I heard funny noises out front and peeked out the window and they were loading up classic cars on the flatbeds.

Not like olde timey cars and not like muscle cars.

Like slicked out 80s Chevy Monte Carlo or 80s Cadillac. (I don’t know cars, that’s my best guess.) I thought it was kind-of cool. There are a lot of car events around here so maybe that’s what they were up to.

This represents about 90% of the gardening I have done so far this year.