Book 1 of Maine vacation.
FIVE STARS! Loved this book. Loved Vera—everyone needs a Vera in their life! It was utterly delightful. I enjoyed it so much I might listen to the audio version!
Vera Wong is 5 stars!
Category Archives: House & Home
Felted Ghosts!
Four people, four different ghosts! Mine is the tall one on the right! It was the first time any of us felted!
Friday Fave: Rum punch
I always thought I didn’t like rum…but as it turns out I don’t like SPICED rum or coconut rum. So when we were on our family cruise in 2019 and our snorkeling with the turtles excursion came with unlimited rum punch, I learned that I actually quite liked rum punch. But it wasn’t really a drink we made ourselves.
Fast forward a bit to our friend David saying he made the best Trinidadian rum punch…and by golly he did. Wow. So every now and again he’d make a batch for us and we actually drank it so much we kinda tired of it. (It was even a favorite drink at the 2022 Hudson Summer Bash.)
But every once in awhile now we’ll have it again…but there’s no way the four of us can finish it these days, so that means we get leftovers! So I know what I’m drinking tonight!!
Are you a rum punch fan?
Big Little Lies
Loved this. Five stars.
We might have too many spices.
Linda helped me reorganize all our spices. We may need an intervention.
Finally wearing a back to school shirt
This is what happens when we get visitors.
Friday Fave: Glade room spray
Y’all. If you haven’t tried these automatic Glade room spray air fresheners… Go do it now. I love them.
They have a variety of scents and right now we’re into the fall ones…so give me all the apple and spiced pumpkin.
Do you use anything to scent your house?
This is how olive helps clean up.
The single photo I took.
I just didn’t take any pics during the party this year!
Oops! And forgot a took a selfie with my frozen margarita!
But that’s it!
As it turned out, it was our least-attended party ever. Disappointing to say the least after all the work and money we put into it.
Everyone was cleared out by 8 and we had soooo much food and drink left over it was exhausting putting it all away at the end of the night.
We’re definitely rethinking the idea of the whole party—but we know for sure if we continue, the waterslide isn’t coming back since barely anyone used it and that’s a huge chunk of money.
That’s a lotta butt!
Prepping 35# of pork butts
Our annual Hudson House Party is this weekend so they’ll be going on the smoker about 4am and we’ll be eating about 5pm.
The frozen rum punch was delish!
We made it the night before just to make sure it turned out okay. And boy did it! Tom kept sneaking back to take little tastes of it all night.
Exploding watermelon!
Well this is a new one. I had the watermelon sitting on the dining room table for a few days in preparation for the party. I went to get it today to cut it and saw the entire table was soaked. And then I heard bubbling and gurgling…and I went to roll it over and it exploded and gushed all over. Dripping through the table, puddles on the floor!
Turns out it’s a real thing. Lots of people have been posting videos of this craziness.
The rind was paper thin and was just so bizarre.
Outside party prep!
Thank heavens it finally cooled off today after two long days of 100°+ temps where you couldn’t work outside for more than five minutes.
Things don’t last like they used to.
So this is happening. Which is actually a good thing—he’s completing a heating element recall we didn’t know about that could prevent future leaking… But he’s only here because the plastic pull handle busted (which of course we are out of warranty by 6 months and costs $250 to replace since it’s the entire door panel). So we’re just gonna pretend the heater replacement recall is costing us $125 (the service call fee).
Friday Fave: Crab Rangoon + Year 22 of Chinese
Our annual tradition of Chinese on our anniversary (we’re at 22 years!). Sometimes it’s dinner, sometimes it’s lunch. It’s usually Crab Rangoon and General Tsos chicken but today we went outside the box with coconut shrimp and it was super delish!
BTW, if Crab Rangoon is on a menu I’m getting it. And especially if it’s our wedding anniversary—we randomly had Chinese after our wedding and then randomly had it on our anniversary for the first few years so now it’s obviously a tradition!
They approve of the deck project thus far.
Any bets on how long it takes them to pee or poop on it?
Get your own taco!
This slushie machine is no joke.
We’ve been looking at these and researching them for a long time. Unfortunately the best ones are professional models that are expensive and huge! We finally bit the bullet for our upcoming annual end of summer party…
Good morning!
I’m a fast reader.
A lot of people ask me how I can read so many books so quickly (I’ve finished 116 so far this year). I say I’m a fast reader.
So I just did a test to see.
I listened to 30 minutes of an audiobook at 1.25 speed (the fastest I can stand) and then read the same book for 30 minutes.
Audio book? 30 pages
Visual book? 60 pages
(I don’t have time for audio on a regular basis but listened on my walk this morning. I rarely listen to audio books because I have a hard time keeping my mind on task. Walking is about the only thing I can do.)
There are a bunch of websites that will test your reading speed — the one I took resulted in 387 WPM (Words per Minute). Take this quiz now to check yours!
New driveway: Day 1 demo
Adulting. Booooooo. But now the driveway will be good for the next 20ish years. It was shocking how quickly the whole thing came up!!
Ivy has to be touching Olive.
Road trip with doggos day 2
Well, getting the first nap in before we leave… They were up often throughout the night barking at every noise they heard.
Watching me go into Walmart. They’re always very concerned when one of us leaves the car.
And Ivy having to touch Olive…
The girls just got their first road trip pup cups!
We stopped at A&W about an hour out of town. They asked if we wanted pup cups. Why sure!!
Watching and waiting…
Seriously, Lansing?
We decided to stay the night in Lansing on the way home so we wouldn’t have to drive the full 6 hours at night…plus we’d get a chance to stop and visit with Beth and Jim and shop at our favorite Horrocks in the morning.
And then we noticed this when we were heading to dinner. Ughhhh. It wasn’t like that when we left Reese… So in the half hour we were in the hotel room, this happened in the hotel parking lot.
AND THEN! I realized that someone stole my unicorn magnet, too! Like, seriously?!
The Len Christmas in July is over!
It’s now just a gathering with food (lots of food!) and catching up…and euchre!
Plus we get the chance to get the kids together for comparison pics!! (They were all really good sports about it, too!)
Friday Fave: mom’s back yard
This is the back yard I grew up with — mostly. Some trees and stumps have been removed over the years and there’s more green now…but it’s the place of family picnics, birthday parties, campfires, s’mores, reading, croquet, sun bathing, the tree swing, kiddie pools, leaf forts…and tons of photos.
Backyard reading views!
