No Labor Whatsoever Weekend

Maxine is summing up my whole weekend. I even took Friday off so I'd have even more time to do "nothing." It's awesome.

My Friday was highlighted by going to the town of Rome Farmers' Market. I convinced my retired golf partner Thursday night that we should check it out. It's huge! I mean easily 4 times as big as the one we have in Rapids on Thursdays and Saturdays. 

Saw lots of people I knew so either no one works on Friday. Or they were getting into the holiday weekend vibe. (Or they're lucky to be retired like my friend Marigene.)

I didn't really NEED anything, but I was on a mission to find some things to put together for raffle baskets for my sister Rachel's benefit at the end of October. Success! 

Friday night was our first Royals football home game. Not too pretty score-wise, but I got some decent pictures.

Today, hubby was golfing at Sand Valley with some friends so I had the labor-free day to myself. I ended up running around getting things for those raffle baskets and as of tonight, there are 7 put together and labeled! Here are two examples...

My farmers' market finds included this double-sided "cabin theme" table runner, a Cozy Cabin candle from my dear friends at Midwest Nice Candle Company, and this really cool cabin-vibe Bluetooth speaker. I just added the "cozy" sign and ta-da! A basket is made!

There also was a vendor selling homemade rugs and coasters like rugs. So I bought 4 of those and today added a few mugs, some Dunkin' Smores and Pumpkin Spice coffee – highlighted by a Sweater Weather gnome and boom! A basket!

It was a little time-consuming but fun. And really, since I had an extra day in the weekend, it didn't matter. I can be productive tomorrow. 

I mean, if I feel the need to be.  

Hope you're able to have a "no labor whatsoever" type of weekend, too!

Fox on the Run

Readers of a certain age will recall the song "Fox on the Run" by Sweet. And if you don't recognize it, take comfort knowing it's never applied to anything in my life until now. It's a cool song, though, so Google it.

Taking a cue from my golf partner, I ordered the exact same push cart as she has – hers is lime green and mine is magically a perfect matching blue to my bag. I was so excited to take it out for its inaugural run tonight for Ladies Night.

Not to be upstaged by my golf partner, but Marigene just bought a new "monstrous" head cover to go head-to-head, so to speak, with Mr. Fox.

Thus, we have the "fox on the run" photo with her Ricky Fowler Orange-inspired monster head cover chasing my fox.

No worries. Mr. Fox survived just fine. 

We played decent and were grateful the rain came before our round and is scheduled to resume later, much after our round.

After golfing 5 of 6 days last week, it's pretty strange to just have 2 tee times this week. Of course, after a last-minute decision to take tomorrow off – plus a long weekend – that could (hopefully) change.

Hope you all have some exciting long-weekend plans!

Midwest Mexican Murder Mystery

It just happens that we met for Book Club tonight at El Mezcal. But the book had everything to do about Wisconsin and absolutely nothing to do with Mexico. Still... the Wisconsin version of Mexican food was muy bueno! 

As for the book... not as spicy as the food but very interesting!

I love that "Home is Where the Bodies Are" is set in small-town Wisconsin. I can totally relate. It also has siblings at odds with each other for a variety of reason. Which I can partially relate to but at the same time am grateful that all 8 of us still talk to each other on a regular basis.

If you like a mystery with a (for me) surprise ending, check this out. And it's always good to support a Wisconsin-based author – even if her name isn't Robyn Austin. 😊

Side note: It was great to get together with girlfriends and hear updates on life – including once in a lifetime trips to Iceland. Books just tie our lives together. And I'm so grateful!

An Above Par Tuesday

When a person plays golf on that 6-inch course between their ears, it can be stressful sometimes. Well, a lot of times. But when you are trying to escape stress (aka work situations), sometimes it works to ignore the "golf pro" on that course.

In other words, even a not-up-to-par round of golf is better than a day a work sometimes. Like today. Feel so fortunate that my escape course is the beautiful SentryWorld.

It was pretty warm, but our golf league foursome still managed to put work (or other) stress behind us and have a good time. How can you not with our surroundings?

Per usual, I have up days and down days. Today was a return to my typical double-bogey golf. And you know what? Who cares? It wasn't stressful compared to some things! 

Our man P-Daily couldn't make it so we had 3 women representing marketing tonight instead of just 2.

We're smiling here because we're done and can go home and take showers! Just your typical 80+ degrees with 123% humidity!

Frankly, we can't really tell. We're just grateful to golf there, where it's beautiful at every turn. Yup, even ugly golf looks pretty!

Hope it puts us all in a positive frame of mind to push through the second half of the week with some joy. We got this!

A Trifle Hot

We are in a heat advisory in the Midwest so I became a trifle bit of fraud when making this trifle. Trust me, I would've been arrest or, at a minimum, kicked out of the house if I turned on the oven to bake the cake and cookie layers.

So I cheated.

I mean look at this. Not only was it 94 with a real feel of 106 degrees at 5 p.m. But it's only getting down to maybe 85 at 8 p.m. Uffda! 

So about the trifle... I made it a friend celebrating a huge personal milestone in her life. She deserves to be treated and happens to enjoy peanut butter & chocolate. Who doesn't? Making this trifle, I found my new secret ingredient (well, until I tell you) for PB & C trifles. Here you go:

• Bottom layer if store-bought (gasp!) chocolate cake with Reese's THINS Peanut Butter Cups cut in half and outlining the trifle bowl.
• Next layer up is Cheesecake-flavored pudding that I added PB2 (a TB of powdered peanut butter powder) to make it Peanut Butter pudding. I'd recommend White Chocolate-flavored pudding if it's available. It just blends better with the other flavors. (In my opinion – no one complained.)
• Next layer on top of pudding is just a smattering of crushed Chips Ahoy Peanut Butter Cup cookies (again with the store bought!) and... for the win... chopped up Little Debbie Nutty Buddy bars. Game changer, folks!
• Repeated those layers then added a thin layer of Cool Whip on top with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup minis scattered for appearance – and added flavor of course.

And yes, it was as delicious as it sounds. Still, it's almost too hot to eat anything. But, if I'm going to go for it in an extreme heat advisory, I'll take a trifle every time.

Wouldn't you?

Be careful out there, friends! 🔥

This Heat is for the Birds

Late this morning I had a few photo places to scout out for a shoot tonight. I have my "usuals" but when a girl wants flowers, I had to take an area tour. The downtown park flowers aren't looking pretty with this hot weather. And the sunflowers are now past their prime. But guess who still has flowers? Our city zoo!

And when I got there, only the cocky peacock seemed oblivious to the heat. 

And darned if those flowers weren't in survival mode! Hurray!

Later, as the photo shoot approached, I figured we'd all be melting. Then I realized the chick on this app is wearing a long coat when it's 88 degrees and "feels like 95," so what does she know anyway?

And Laura was a tough super model. She handled the heat with poise. Must come from so much of her life in the heat – and on the water as a skier for my Shermalot team!

Which is a good thing, because we ended out evening in a lake. I mean that literally. Since she was standing in the water, I figured I'd joined her. Ooooh, that was pleasant when it was still 83 degrees at 8 p.m.

I just feel blessed that was the only thing I HAD to do.

You know I love the sun and warmth. But after yesterday's nearly 6-hour marathon in the sun, I needed a break. Maybe this heat really is for the birds.

Just not every Robyn bird. 

Be careful out there this week!

You Can't Beat Fun -- You Can't Even Tie It

This is such a perfect quote to have on a bench at a golf course. Because you really can't beat fun, can you? And golfing with friends sure is a good way to have it!

Today was the annual golf scramble to benefit our Royals Football Program. Does this mean I was golfing for the 5th time in just 6 days? Darn right!

This year our new friends Mark and Trisha from couples league rounded out our foursome. What a fun day!

Yes, it was hot and we were melting by the end, but scrambles are just so fun. No pressure when you know the excellent golfers will be finishing at least 10 under par. We weren't, so we just made it a good time on the course. The guys did have the distance in shots, but we girls each had a birdie putt in the final holes. So that was worth dancing over! 😎

This scramble is usually the only time I play this formerly private course. So it's always a treat.

It's right along the Wisconsin River so there's some pretty views, too. Makes for a great day!

Of course, since this event is a fundraiser, there's all sorts of opportunities to buy raffle tickets. My luck this year continues. Good thing Jim brought the truck! We hauled home two big raffle baskets! We'll just keep those sealed up and take them Up North for my sister's benefit at the end of October. Winning them is so much easier than putting them all together, ha. But I'm having fun with that, too! 

We also won one skin on a hole we birdied. Don't ask me to explain skins, just know that my birdie putt got us those winnings. Yup, I'm never humble when it comes to golf. I have too many bad shots and rounds that are NOT brag-worthy. 

Yet, we all keep coming back. It's still fun no matter what. And you can't beat fun. You can't even tie it!

How to Get Out of a Broody Mood

Our new neighbors are a bunch of turkeys! I mean, literally. I think there are a few broods that have taken residence down the road. Because this is not the same group I saw yesterday. They had smaller young 'uns. (If you pay me during turkey hunting season, I'll show you where!)

But there are easier ways to get rid of a brood, er broody mood.

This morning after a I finished a slightly stressful work project, I thought, "What a nice day to take an afternoon off!" So I did.

Yes, the rest of my steaming pile of work will still be there Monday, but it was just such a nice, upper 70s temperature kind of day that will be fleeting before we know it. So I logged off, took a nice lunchtime walk with my friend Jenny, then did some weeding (very tall weeds) in front of the house, rested in the sun a minute, then decided to go golfing. 

Now that my golf partner is retired, I thought there was a chance she was free! That worked out great!

So I evaporated my broody mood by splitting my time between Mr. Deck Chair and Mr. Fox. Sorry, no time for Mr. Austin today! Plus he's taking stats at the Royals' first football game of the season down in Markesan. (Don't worry, I had to Google it, too.)

Of course, coming off my best round last night, I was expecting greatness on the course. Guess that's an every-other-day kind of thing. Ugh. The good news there is that I'll be "on" for our golf scramble tomorrow! 

After our round, Marigene and I grabbed dinner at the clubhouse. This week's hot honey spiced chicken sandwich is mucho yummo! Loved it so much, I brought half of it home so I could enjoy it for another meal. 😋

Now I'm relaxing at home, taking care of a bit of laundry, and might catch up on a little Emily in Paris season 4 while crocheting a raffle basket blanket. 

And that's how to uplift your mood. Any day. Follow me here for more stress-relief hacks. 😆

Close to Picture Perfect

I apologize in advance to any of you who don't golf or have the faintest concept of the game. Because I had a good night and it made up for any possible negative feelings I've had about anything in recent days!

Tonight was our ladies golf league. It happened that my partner and I had a bye week but for sure were going to golf in our time slot since we got rained out the last 2 of 3 weeks.

Close friends of mine were golfing right after us – but with their hubbies since their opponents forfeited. So by the 4th hole, when we were all waiting for the group ahead of us to GET MOVING (my impatient emotion at the time), we decided we'd just golf together as a six-some that would move along much more quickly than the four-somes ahead of us. 

Against most golf course rules, but still it made sense.

And that made it fun. And maybe all the waiting between hits made me settle down and focus on each shot. Either way, it combined for a really good round for me. In fact, the first time I broke 50 this season.

Now you non-golfers might think about PGA scores. But for 9 holes pretty much anywhere, that's decent. Not great. But acceptable.

And for me... AWESOME!

Add those amazing sunset colors above and we're good for a top-notch Thursday.

Let's finish the week strong, friends!

Mafia Redemption

Oh yes. The Swedish Chef Mafia is back! After a winning our fantasy football league 3 years ago then finishing 2nd last year, it's time.

Naturally, I didn't spend a single minute preparing for tonight's draft. Sadly, we do it all online so we can only interact via messaging trash talk. But after having to auto draft last year since I was on a plane, this should have been a better situation.

Only now I can only blame me, not the computer, for my choices. Ugh.

Anyway, it's a work league with no money involved – just a glamorous trophy and bragging rights for a year. But I do want that trophy back, so badly. A side note: We have 16 teams I think so it's the "top" 256 players!

I did get Patrick Maholmes for my QB, so we'll see what how the other 15 picks pan out!

Go, Swedish Chef Mafia! Show no mercy just because they're your co-workers!

Same Space, Continued Pace

The glorious full moon (aka August moon, aka blue moon) late last night made me feel anything was possible today.

After a mildly stressful day at work, our same foursome from yesterday headed to Golf League night at SentryWorld. Since I only captured flower photos yesterday, I concentrated on the the water views today! We played the back 9 tonight so this was our 3rd hole – the par 3 12th hole over water and unto the green.

I was thrilled to hit the green. But it is such a massive green, it took 3 strokes to sink a putt. So a bogey on a beautiful hole!

Looking back at the 17th green, you can see how it slopes so far that it's impossible to par – even after my great drive. Still, we just had so much fun it didn't matter our scores. And we felt great to be back in the same space as yesterday.

Plus, I was treated to a beautiful drive home. No balls lost and I can still smile!

Hope you all can do the same this week!

Cursing, er Golfing, for a Cause

It's not a bad Monday morning at work when you're hanging out with the CEO. On the first tee that is.

Thankfully, he's a good golfer, too, and we could use his drive on the first hole, too. For a good cause.

Today was our second day of golf outings to support the United Way (plus we'll have 2 weeks of activities in September). Last Wednesday and today. But today was like, hey, it's MONDAY, what else would you rather be doing??

Our foursome was our usual golf league foursome of marketing co-workers Tom, Patrick, Lisa, and me. Since we knew we had notchance of winning versus those 18 under par types, we could curse our bad drives/putts and just had fun!

On a few holes we could "pay a pro" to get close to the hole. I mean, they are pretty good! That included our famous Flower Hole at SentryWorld. We were fortunate to play it in it's prime bloom!

Plus, we birdied it, so that added even more to the beauty!

I pretty much couldn't stop taking pictures of the flowers. But we did get through the last 2 holes – and finish 6 under par. Great for us!!

The only downside was that we had to return to actual work the rest of the day. For a good cause, right?

A Bit of Corny Fun

There's this unincorporated wide spot in the road that we call Kellner. I didn't know it was so popular until I attended my first Kellner Corn Fest Parade yesterday!

There were people lining both sides of 80th Street/Country Trunk W for the half-mile-ish parade route.

It was fun to see our neighborhood farm and "pumpkin shed" have float. The theme this year was something about the wild west.

Got to see our friend Bob (aka Jingles) – the clown in the middle.

I had to laugh a skeletons representing the beauty of the House of Glam!

Our nephew Colin had his race car in the parade too! His wife and kiddos were throwing the candy.

Colin also delivered a few toy cars to kids in the crowd. That's pretty cool!

On the way home, we just happened to follow our neighbor's float! I don't think seat belts were invented in the old west, so Trevor here is perfectly legal, right?

That was pretty much our excitement for the weekend. Worked on some raffle basket things yesterday. We both had church. I had a senior photo shoot tonight for a boy named Carter – so you have to love him!!

He didn't necessarily love to smile. But I loved the challenge of trying to get him there! I might have used up all my CORNY (to stick with the theme) charming material for the week! Good thing I've got love-to-smile girls in my foreseeable future. 

Though I'm sure Carter had the super model vibe down by the end of our session. Just don't tell his friends!