Another Scorching Day in Paradise

I survived the bus ride home last Thursday. No incidents, no strange 30 something women telling me they’ve lived in Kansas City for 129 years (guess she’s using dog years). Our 4th went without much bodily wear and tear. The lake fireworks display was fabulous and the kids even got a bag of fairly safe incendiaries…I guess they were safe anyway, no one got burned.

Friday we spent a few hours at the swimming beach at the lake. I prefer the pools, but we wanted to take our standard poodle, Thor, so he could swim. After all, he IS a water dog! For the first time he got to play with a couple of other large dogs, a big dobie named Sage and a boxer…don’t remember his name but he was a retrieving fool. He had a soft floatie ball like Thor’s and he was an even more intense water retriever. Guess he missed the memo that boxers aren’t water dogs! We discovered that you don’t get close to the front of the dog when he’s swimming or you get clawed. I have big scratch marks and bruises on my arm and thigh and Heather has one on her back. We look like we were in a barroom brawl.

I learned that SPF 25 only means that if you can stay out 5 minutes and burn, you can stay out 25 times that…and after over two hours, I burned. Instead of bright white, I’m bright red. My hubby normally calls me the sun screen queen and thought it was funny I got burned. At least until he had to put blue aloe goop on me.

Found out yesterday that my Celtic Knot quilt and Snow Queen art doll tied for second place in our company art show. That’s cool.

There was a great photograph titled "Harvest Hands" taken by Jen Stickney. It got third place in the photography category (I voted for it!) I may try to get an enlarged copy to frame and hang in my dining room or kitchen at the lake.

Everyone who knows me, knows I don’t cook. At least not well. With fuel and food prices climbing, I realize the time has come that I learn to make dinner every evening instead of going out or picking up carry out. How do people know what to cook? How do you decide every day what to fix and what main dish goes with what sides? More importantly, how do you cook healthy and affordable things your family will eat instead of staring at each other in horror as if there is a fried slug on their plate? Seriously, where do you get this sort of knowledge? Are some people born with it and the rest of us survive on take out? Trust me, I have cookbooks. Shelves of them! They have pretty pictures and lots of cool stuff. I’ve found maybe three or four things that even tasted good. But I can’t fix those few recipes over and over every week.