Day 250 - September 7

My mother speaks of moments where she absolutely must have liquid or else she will perish in that very instant.  It makes me look forward to getting older...but then again, she lives in the desert so maybe that plays a role.

I opened up the fridge this weekend to discover that my husband suffers from the same symptoms - but from the looks of the shelf, his "need-to-drink-this-instant" cravings must demand options.  3 flavors of Gatorade, 3 flavors of Snapple tea, and 5 flavors of beer right there, ready to grab at any moment!

Day 249 - September 6

Mike has been passing a sunflower patch on the way home from work all week, and then today the sunflower fields of Harford County got a write up in the paper.  We hunted one of the big ones down to snap some pictures today.  The place was hopping with people armed with cameras!  There was a Royal Farms across the street where everyone was parking, and we (along with everyone else, it appeared) stopped in to buy a soda in return for hogging the space.  Since the field is out in the middle of nowhere, I bet that store is enjoying the surge in people!

Day 248 - September 5

You see that caterpillar?  The yellow and black one?

It just made me fall over from my weed pulling crouch, jump to my feet, shudder, scream, and take many many steps away from the weeds.

You see, there are several in this weed patch.  And they happened to be waiting in line for something, and when there are 6 all in a line, they look like a snake.

But they're not. They're just a whole bunch of caterpillars.

If anyone happened to be sitting at their front windows watching me pull weeds however, they might think differently.  Mike says he's sorry he missed it.

Day 247 - September 4

We have two parties to go to this weekend, so we made our pretzel-chocolate-M&M snacks in mass quantities.  This is the peanut M&M cookie sheet, and we also did a sheet of plain.

Day 246 - September 3

This weekend is the first annual Bel Air Hot Air Balloon festival.  The actual festival with rides and all that jazz is tomorrow, but tonight they had a "Balloon Glow" to go along with an expensive fundraiser.  We (along with several other couples & families) had the idea to go catch a glimpse of the balloons all lit up by going around the back of the fairgrounds and walking on the trail.  50 pictures later, this is the only one that even shows what we were trying to see. :)  This balloon was having the most gas bursts, so it was lit up the most often.  It's celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz. I wish we were going to be around tomorrow when they all take off!!!

Day 245 - September 2

Proof that fall is coming - it isn't sunny when I get to the park 'n' ride anymore. :(

Day 244 - September 1

We've all seen "Xanthan Gum" in the ingredients list of foods.  But this caught my eye as I was running into the grocery store for super cheap ground beef today. Turns out xanthan gum comes as a powdery substance in a bag. I never would have guessed that!  Got lucky and got a bunch of 93% beef for really cheap this week.  The bad-for-you kind goes on sale all the time, but this is the first time we've been able to stock up on the lesser fat kind.