Menu Plan Monday

 Happy 4th of July everyone!   I am really looking forward to getting together with some family and friends later today.  We are planning to attend a concert in the park and bring a huge picnic spread.   The fireworks will be after the concert, so it should be a great evening.   

Thanks for stopping by!




Monday- 4th of July Potluck Dinner!   I will be taking Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies,  watermelon, and sandwich tray.

Tuesday- Crustless Broccoli Quiche, garden salad, and garlic toast

Wednesday-  Chicken Satays with peanut sauce and stir fried vegetables

Thursday- Cheese, olive, and onion enchiladas with rice

Friday-  Grilled steaks, baked potatoes, mixed green salad

Saturday-  Grilled chicken lettuce wraps, Cucumber sesame salad

Sunday- YOYO

this post is linked to Organizing Junkies : Menu Plan Monday

Darth Vader loves fireworks

Yesterday,  my husband volunteered to help out a local fireworks stand.   He agreed to come out in his Vader costume to help the stand raise money for the local Shiner's Childrens Hospital.    I have to give it to him, he is a real trooper.  The Vader is unbearably hot and the temperatures were in the 90s yesterday.    I didn't dress up this time.  I opted just to be his handler.  I always worry about him getting overheated when we do events in the summer. 

We had a lot of fun despite the heat and the crowds stopping by were good.  So hopefully, we were able to help them raise a little extra money.

Food from roadside stands just tastes better.

I grew up in the South and my husband grew up in the North.  As you can imagine, we look at things slightly differently.    Yesterday, we decided that we would stop by the flea market.  I wanted to look around and pick up some produce.   The flea market is one of the best places to get local produce and its cheaper then the grocery store a lot of times.   

Well it was getting close to lunch time and I suggested that we get some tacos and Mexican sodas from the little taqueria.   Every time we are there, the smell of the tacos is just beyond words!! and they make homemade tortillas.   My husband was looking at me like I had 3 heads.   He was like I don't know.....   I was like it's ok.  I said look, they have a sanitation rating.   Clearly, they have been inspected.  

So this set us off on the discussion about buying food off the side of the road.   In my world, there are certain foods that you buy off the side of the rode and nowhere else.    They are: peanuts (roasted and boiled), produce of all kinds, snow cones, and BBQ and/or hash when available. 

It just tastes better that way.  My husband just can't wrap his head around the fact that not everything has to come from the grocery store.  No, I don't want Mr. Peanut.   I want Cajun roasted or boiled peanuts with extra hot sauce from Mr. Murphy.   Mr. Murphy has sold peanuts at the same spot on the side of Reidville Rd for at least 30 years.  I remember us buying them from him as kid.   Why would I buy elsewhere?

I get my peaches from Mr. Reed and his family.   I know them.  Why would I buy unripe peaches at the grocery store?  You can't eat them, they are never ripe.   Mr. Reed picks them and they ripe and ready to eat. Plus, I get a whole bushel basket for like $8.

I just don't think he will ever get it!  He thinks macaroni and cheese comes out of a box for goodness sake!   I made my husband go cross eyed when I unleashed the fury of my Miracle Whip sermon on him.  

It's a Southern thing

Sunday Scavenger Hunt

These are my pictures for the Sunday Scavenger Hunt.  If you want to join in on the fun, visit Ramblings and Photos: Sunday Scavenger Hunt. 



X-ray

Crossing Threshold


Toy

Farm 



Pop of Color

Thrift Finds - A shirt so awesome and hideous all at the same time, that it had to come home with me!!

With it being a holiday weekend, my thrift adventures have been slowed down a little bit.   I did manage to venture into my one of my local Goodwill stores yesterday.   This particular store, I really don't like shopping at it.   I swear that it is a blackhole of handmedowns.  They go in, but never come out!  The selection never  seems to change and the prices are ridiculous!!  So when I stopped, I wasn't planning on buying anything. 

I  just was casually looking around and out of the corner of my eye, I see this guy holding up a shirt.   He was joking with his mother and sister.  The sister who was probably in her early teens, sporting a Pikachu shirt,  was instantly delighted and began begging her mother for the shirt.   The mother said, "NO!" in that way only mothers can pull off.

This leaves me going YES!! SCORE!! because I seriously love Harry Potter.   So, after they moved down a little ways,  I whipped out my handy phone and snapped a picture to send to my husband.   The message read,"  I am coming home with this treasure.   It will be referred to as, "the shirt that shall not be named"......

The story gets better and I haven't even paid for it.   So, I grabbed the shirt off the rack and begin walking around the store, only to be stalked by Pickachu!   I stop to look at something and there she was.  This didn't happen once, but several times. 

  I know she was waiting for me to put it back.  That wasn't happening!  I was starting to think that she might jump me, then we would have some sort of  fist fight.   One shirt and two rabid pop culture wolverines going at it.   It would have been interesting and hopefully somebody would have caught the video and youtubed it. 

I guess the best way to describe this shirt, is as a Harry Potter Hawaiian shirt.   It has great colors and graphics, and it is pretty loud as far as design goes.   My husband's reply was, " Are you serious?"   "Absolutely! There is a new HP movie coming out and I am sporting this to the show."    To which I get the reply, " you are so strange sometimes"  " I can't help myself.  I love the bizarre, and  you love me for that."

For the grand total of $4 I bought the wizard resort wear.  Will it see the light of day after the movie?  Probably not, but it is totally a fun piece and I am happy to own it, at least for now. 

I also hit a little yard sale where I picked up a Disney trading pin and 2 packages of All My Children trading cards (who knew there was such a thing?)    All My Children was one of my grandmother's favorite "stories" when we were growing up.  I lost my grandmother a couple of  years ago and now All My Children is getting canceled, seeing them just made me sad, so I wanted something to hold on to I guess.   I spent a grand total of .50 for the 3 items. 


The pin was totally worth that.  So hopefully, in the fall when we go to Disney World, I will be able to find someone interested in trading for it. 

I did manage to make it to the flea market on Saturday.  I mainly went to pick up some produce.  I really didn't see anything that screamed, "TAKE ME HOME!"     But this must have been the week for the awesome and the hideous. (Awdeous or how about Hidesome?, I am not sure how to combine them)

I did stumble on this, which prompted me to create a new Facebook album, titled "What you might have missed at the flea market"    It is mainly to celebrate everything weird and wonderful that you might find at a flea market.

This is a large carpet portrait of Ronald McDonald.  I mean, it does have that certain I don't know what quality.   It made me laugh, so I snapped a picture of it to share.  No, I did not buy this.  Rest assured my husband would have had me committed if I had suggested that. 

Hope you have a great 4th of July weekend and found some great items yourself.  Or at least something that made you laugh.

This post is linked to Her Library Adventures       
and Magpie Monday 
and the Penny Worth Project

LEM Photo Challenge: Red, White, and Blue

Cake Decortating Class- final project

I have had so much fun taking a Wilton Cake decorating class this month.   It is something  that I have wanted to do for a long time and I really have learned a lot from it.    It probably would have been better if I had taken the class when the temperature was a little cooler though.  


I had a lot of trouble transporting my cake!  Yesterday, the temperature was close to 100 degrees and well the frosting just can't handle that kind of temperature.   So the final project looks kind of like a cake slide.  Still, I am really proud of what I have accomplished and I can't wait to practice more.   I am definitely going to take some of the other cake decorating classes that they offer.