My sister's awesome map (At the beach -part two)

In case you've forgotten my last post, I was talking about a recent trip to the beach with my friends.  It was so cold that my feet wished that they were in Tampa Bay.

Thankfully, my sister had a solution.

Actually, she, too, was cold, and did not see any point in freezing herself further by wading in the water.  Instead, she drew this amazing map in the sand: 

 See her up there in the corner?  She's drawing Alaska.  This is Hawaii, which was off to the left and much closer to the waves.

 Alaska, complete.

 Once upon a time, I also knew how to do this.  I'm afraid that my map falls apart at Kentucky and/or Wisconsin whenever I attempt.  I was impressed by her memory, and also the look of it in the sand.

Good work, Allison!

At the Beach- part 1

It was a beautiful, sunny day.  The first we'd seen since we left home.  Seventy-four degrees felt warm, so we headed to the beach.  We forgot one thing.

Following stormy days of sixty degrees, huge lakes are cold.

I suppose that blaming our memories is a bit unfair.  We hadn't forgotten.  Last year, the water was cold, but we'd waded out to where we could body surf.  Our chaperones told us not to go out that far this year, since rip tides were a concern.

"That's okay."  Some of my friends said.  "Julianne is a lifeguard."

Except that Julianne is a lifeguard who does not deal with rip tides or rescuing people without her floatation device.  "If you get caught, swim parallel to the shoreline."  I told them.  "Then I'll call the coast guard."

I also found out that I don't do well with cold water on windy days.  Behold:

The water is up to my ankles.  That's as far as I ventured.  Still, I was glad we went.  There's something about the beach that makes me happy.  What's your favorite beach memory?

To my blog

Hey there.

It's been a while.

I just want you to know that I haven't forgotten you.

I'll be back soon.


Sincerely,
Your Rather Negligent Author

For love and money

 There's something you need to know about me.

I enjoy making things.  I love thinking about something, the rush of excitement while I'm doing it, and surveying my finished product.  Still, I'll be the first to admit that my creativity has limits.

I can't draw to save my life. My food will never be in a magazine.  And I am the world's worst at gift wrapping.  

Just keepin' myself humble, folks.

Given the fact in purple above, it's rather ironic that my father asked me to wrap his gifts for my mom's birthday last week.

A lot of jokes go over my head, but irony gets me every time.  I normally would have laughed and gone to find my sister.

Except that last week, I was broke, and Dad knows the magic words:

"I'll pay you."

 I accepted the job.  It was going much smoother that expected, until one of her presents would not fit in any of our gift bags.

It was time to pull out the mod-podge.

Let me tell you, I definitely felt like he got his money's worth out of this bag.  I had to take a lunch break while I was working on it.  This is intense decoupage, folks.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better for a job that my mother said, "should have been done out of the goodness of your heart."

I hope there's goodness in there, I really do.

But I'm keeping the money.

I've already spent some of it.

Homegrown Edamame

    As I believe I've mentioned before, this year I requested the my daddy order soybean seeds for his garden.  Allison and I have been excitedly anticipating the day when we would be able to enjoy it fresh from the garden.
     A couple weeks ago, Allison told me to go out and get a picture of the "baby edamame."   It doesn't look too small in these pictures, I admit, but we weren't exactly sure when to pick it.
    

For anyone who may be in the same predicament, I found out today that it is not enough to wait until the pod starts to budge out a little.  It's better to wait until the beans are visibly large, because what you see is apparently what you get.  Believe me, I've eaten many pinhead-sized soybeans today.  :)
     We were excited to try our new treat today at lunch.  Sorry that the picture is foggy, that's the steam from my edamame.  The larger beans (like this) were quite tasty, although our particular variety apparently has hairy pods.  (You can see some of the fibers in the picture.)  Does anyone know if this is normal?