Mostly a Tomboy

 

It's kind of funny that when I was growing up I was 100% a tomboy – even with 6 sisters. I didn't mind sweaty bike rides or pony rides and absolutely hated wearing dresses for any occasion. 

That hasn't changed much over time but I do wear dresses for important occasions – mainly weddings, I guess. And important occasions like it's Thursday and I am bringing a trifle to work.

I've never worn a dress at work but I remembered when I bought this (with gift cards, yay) a few weeks ago, the mother of the shop owner said the dress would pair nicely with a light, white sweater and sneakers.

For half the day – as a 5-decade tomboy – I wondered where my pants were! Still it was comfortable and made me feel a bit sassy.

Don't be afraid to embrace your sassy feminine side – no matter what your age. Now I am actually looking forward to two weddings on Saturday. My real fancy dress is ready. But can I get away with sneakers??

Thinking of Going to Kokomo

 

I'm kind of embarrassed that Kokomo is not a real place in the Caribbean but a fictional place of dreams.

When us college girls went to the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail, we just went along with it.

In reality... "Kokomo" is a soft rock/yacht rock classic written by John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, Mike Love, and Terry Melcher. It was featured in the 1988 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail.

Still... when I make my "Coconut Dreams" trifle with thoughts toward remote islands and tomorrow, I am a little bit miffed at what is happening!

But I did soldier through and this trifle – from the ground layer up – includes brownies, coconut creme pudding, and chopped up Samoa cookies and my newly discovered Milano coconut variety. I'll let you know if any is left for a drive-thru tomorrow!

Summer Sweets and Treats

Summer is always full of cool treats – and some that are just delicious room temperature ones! Three examples:

1. I forgot to mention that after we all went to an early dinner after the dance recital, we (Ken, RoAnn, and I) were on a mission to find some good "hard" ice cream on the way home. However, there were so many detours just to get back home that we said screw it – let's just get it at the grocery store near Pine City!

Of course, after being in air-conditioning and walking into their very cool house, Ro and I said we needed to light the fire "pit" on the deck before we sat out there and ate the ice cream. Sometimes you have to warm up enough to eat ice cream, ya know? Smile if you understand our logic!

Side note: It was Cedar Crest Blueberry Waffle Cone. So good!

2. Both mornings I was there, I had a slice of delicious Amish Friendship Bread for breakfast. Amish Friendship Bread is like an adult chain letter for people who like to bake! Once you accept that batch of "starter" you cannot leave the cult. You can only break the chain by throwing away whatever starters you can't give away – including your own! So I resisted getting back into that (been there, done that) but did take a half-plus loaf home.

Got home from work today and this is what is left! So I guess hubby does like it. I remember that now. Should've rejoined the damn cult!

3. On my way home from work, I had to hunt and gather ingredients that may or may not be used in a trifle soon. (Hey, gotta get one more in before we're all working from home for 6 weeks!) And that's when I met my sweetest downfall.

Hadn't seen these before nor purchased them. But they fit my "theme." I am a huge HUGE coconut anything and everything fan. But I still felt I should taste test one when I got home. Just to be sure it would blend with the rest of the flavors and all that. I demand quality in my creations! 

Or something.

Anyway, I kid you not, I moaned out loud at first bite. Holy perfectly delicious flavor combination! Good thing Jim is golfing or he'd wonder what the hell was happening in the kitchen!!

I quickly shoved them in the fridge to chill with the other cookies – you have to do that so they cut up nicely (rather than mushy) the next day. But you know that from my previous Trifle Tutorials. I don't know how I can stay away from them! This will be my biggest test of willpower strength in recent days, that's for sure.

I mean I do have another cookie type to cut up as well for the cookie layer, so I might not need to "use" all them. #MeJustifyingANewAddiction. Bwaahaa.

Just... if you love coconut like I do, get yourself some of these!!!

I mean it is a flavor of summer after all... at least tropical islands that are summer year-round! Enjoy the treats of the season!

Just Go With The Flow of Happiness

It's crazy what makes us happy – or mildly content. For me after two evenings and mornings on my sister's back deck, I was thrilled to capture one hummingbird in action. Though the bird is not in clear focus.

Still... yay!

The focus of the weekend was getting to my sister RoAnn's on Saturday so we could see he granddaughter – my great-niece – Kenlee dance in her recital Sunday.

Let me just say, that was the most awesome experience! You were so good, girl!

In addition to her fans who were there to cheer her on, we all had a late lunch with Sunday. Then, it was a nice relaxing treat at my sister's to just relax by the "fire" in the evenings on the back deck.

Today I headed home and seeing my parents' grave was the only non-detour. Was glad about that. Also it had been pouring rain and it stopped for approximately 8 minutes so I could visit Mom and Dad and then it started within seconds. It was insane. So grateful!

As for the rest of the weekend... I am thrilled to be back home safely (with some parts only $4 per gallon of gas)... and craving to do more for more my nieces and nephews. A project for another day!

I Could've Made That

I am heading to Minnesota tomorrow afternoon and am excited to see my great-niece's dance recital on Sunday. All I was looking for after work was some card that said something like "Good job!" or "You're a rockstar!". But no, Walmart has apparently given up on keeping 70% of their cards in stock. So onto Walgreens I went. 

Nothing 100% applied. But I found something I could make up words with that a 10-year-old would understand.

Thank goodness hubby is out of town with some high school buddies for dinner or he'd say, "Well, you can make a card, can't you?"

Yes, I have the rubber stamps with the unfortunately dried-out ink pads and the actual blank paper cards and envelopes. Someday (in my free time) I may return to that hobby.

In the meantime, thank God and Amazon that there are "dance girl" gifts I can give her and a matching gift bag!

A few dance t-shirts will fit into this bag nicely. SHHH. Don't tell her!

I'm just excited to finally see my Kenlee dance. She has sort of invited me several times! 

Now I just have to figure out what to pack for 88 degrees vs A/C for the next three days. I am so up for the challenge!

A Par-tial Improvement

So tonight was our second week of Ladies Golf League for my friend Molly and me. This time we were in the last grouping at 5:20 p.m. so that meant "normal/regular" golfers had tee times behind us. We were well aware of that. And hoping those guys behind us realized that we were held up by the ladies in front of us and so on.

They never FULLY caught up with us and gave us grief. And for that, we're grateful.

It also helped us maintain our more "relaxed" vibe compared to the first week. It certainly helped that one of us is done with work for the summer (thanks to a school district job) and the other of us was more serene (thanks to a decision/action at work).

I think we both knocked off 7 strokes from our week 1 performance... which is a big deal with just 9 holes. You wouldn't even recognize us... except for our matching clipped up hair. Ha.

We don't normally take a cart because we like to get our steps. But there was this threat of rain. And our hair, OMG, what would we do?! In the end, we did not get wet. AND we had more time to visit than when we use our own pull carts and zig and zang to the green.

Even though some mock lady golfers, I'm grateful God recognizes the importance of female friendships. Any where. Any setting.

Take advantage of those, ladies! 💗 

Those Darn Bad-Luck Bowls

There are some baseball fields we just call “bowls” because they are situated at the bottom of a park ringed with banks of grass where fans could sit and watch the action from most of the sides of the field. For the longest time, the Pittsville “bowl” was our perennial nemesis, almost always knocking the Royals out of the postseason playoffs—while exhibiting highly vocal, annoying behavior from their dugout.

Somehow conferences and possibly divisions have realigned in recent years. So this season, after soundly defeating Gresham in round one of Regionals, we headed to Iola-Scandinavia. My old stomping grounds if you recall me blogging about our 100-mile round trip to work for a dozen years.

As someone with certain sports superstitions, I immediately recognized the similar “bowl” setup to P-town. That was unnerving right away.

But the game was so close. Not a runaway score by either team. We were ahead by 2 then the Thunderbirds caught up. Then we’d make a mini-surge, but they’d catch up. It came down to the last batter for the home team. And they ended up defeating us 6-5 and knocking us out of the playoffs in what was one of our better season record years of late.

For me, though, the fun was running into some of my “Iola people”!

I left the publishing house some 10 years ago now. But Cori the ticket taker who worked at the Fitness Center there remembered me!

Then I ran into Miss Mandy, one of Carter’s first daycare people in Iola. And her mother, Judy, who worked with Jim and I at Krause. Just great to get long overdue (though you didn’t realize they were overdue) hugs!

Of course I then had to check out some of our favorite haunts…

Including Carter’s favorite ice cream place Shivers. Per usual, a long summer line.

Then I took the route home through Scandinavia, which always seems like I just earned another stamp on my passport. If only! Still, all was a great reminder of how we can forge great bonds in the workplace when we work in a friendly community and we, by nature, are friendly too.

Side note: I absolutely do not miss that commute.

Side note 2: Thank you, seniors! What a great season!