Answer Me This

I'm linking up earlier than usual today because it's our anniversary and Jon and I are headed out on our annual date of dinner and errands that are easier to run while the girls are at Grandma's house.  This year it's choosing  concrete stain for the sunporch and most likely Mexican food.  Don't be too jealous.


1. What's your favorite grocery store splurge?
Staying under the grocery budget each week is far more fun for me than splurging, so this is a hard one for me.
I don't know if it counts as a "splurge" since it's healthy, but summer fruit is something that I have a hard time resisting.  After a winter of eating nothing apples, oranges, and the occasional discounted bag of clementines, I tend to go overboard on all of the summer fruit.
I did splurge on cheap popsicles this summer.  Mostly to see the look on Meredith's face.  She'd been hintly not-so-subtly about how fun it would be to have popsicles throughout May and part of June.  I was feeling guilty about the high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors and flavors, yet didn't have enough wiggle room in the grocery budget to spring for the all-natural kind.  The one week she didn't mention them, I gave in and bought them.  She was shocked and so thankful (how did I end up with a child whose love language is gifts??).  I shouldn't have felt so guilty about buying them.  After a month of having them in the house, the girls have each eaten three....and Meredith has moved on to harassing me about the box of 100 ice pops the grocery store sells.  I'm not caving on that one.

2. How's your penmanship?
Like the love child of Zaner-Bloser and D'Nealian.  I had atrocious handwriting right up through my first year of college.  I thought I'd better fix that if I wanted to be a good teacher.  So I slowed my writing way down and forced myself to write neatly.  Now it's second-nature for me to write that way.  I prefer the clean lines of Zaner-Bloser, but I'm lazy and don't like to pick my pencil up as often as that style requires so a fair amount of D'Nealian sneaks in.  Plus monkey tails are fun.
I've always envied those who have artsy handwriting, but since I'm not artsy enough to pull that off, I'll just stick with my boring by-the-rules penmanship.

3. Do you have a "Summer Bucket List?"
Sort of.  After having summertime overplanning backfire on me a few years ago, I stick to a "Wouldn't it be fun if we did some of these things but not all of them and no pressure and mostly let's just focus on being outside as much as possible" list.  This week we're going to try to go to a free sprayground one day (to make up for the meeting with my investment advisor I'm dragging them to beforehand) and maybe walk to the nearby public flower gardens.

4. What's the best thing on the radio right now?
I don't listen to the radio a lot during the summer as I'd rather soak in the sounds of outside, but I do enjoy listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me on Saturday mornings. 

5. Ice cream or frozen yogurt?
Yes please.  I like both, but if I'm not making it or buying it from the grocery store, then ice cream.  Because of the pricing.  I can go to an ice cream shop and look at the menu board and pick out the cheapest option.  Around here all the frozen yogurt seems to be sold by weight.  I haven't been to one of those places because I'm afraid that I'd put too much in my cup and then panic at the register.  I doubt they'd let me put any of it back and I'd have to pay for it and then I'd stay up all night worried that I need to find a job to pay back the money I frivolously spent on yogurt and then I'd be cranky the next day because of the lack of sleep and a few bites of yogurt just aren't worth all of that.

So ice cream.  Mint chocolate chip preferably.  Or cinnamon.

6. Have you had that baby NOW? (Again, you can skip this one if you want.)
No baby of course, but congratulations to Kendra on her newest blessing.
Meredith did harvest some baby peas from the garden though.  She wanted to grow peas and carrots this year.  After fighting chilly temps and flooding rains this spring, rabbits who managed to get through the picket fence lined with chicken wire to eat the young, tender plants and blossoms, and squirrels who made off with my first batch of cucumbers, it was exciting to finally get a bit of produce of our own.  The carrots aren't quite ready yet and Mer and I have differeing opinons as to whther we'll get more peas, but she was so happy to pick and eat the two peas we grew.  As you can see, the cucumber plants are doing well.  Chasing down a squirrel and taking back my cucumber seems to have stopped them from poaching produce from my garden. 

Go visit Kendra at Catholic All Year for more answers.