Today our youngest son came over for the day for a short visit. He brought his girlfriend with him, and we had a nice visit. My wife actually went to pick them up at his apartment; he lives about an hour away from our house. On the way home they stopped in town and went to the 34th annual Spring Festival in Old Town. Although we’ve lived in this area for over five years now, we’ve never gone to any of the street festivals that have been held up until now. My wife has always asked me to go with her to some of the festivals, but I’ve always resisted going, so it was good that she got our son and his girlfriend to agree to go with her to the festival this year.
When they arrived home from the festival, my wife was excited to show me that she had purchased some hickory syrup from a vendor at the festival. Neither one of us had ever even heard of hickory syrup before, and she said that the booth caught her eye. Having lived in New England for much of our lives, she was familiar with maple syrup – but what was this hickory syrup stuff like? The vendor was giving out free sample tastes, and all three of them had a sample. They all agreed that it was quite tasty, and bought a small bottle of it to bring home to share with the rest of the family. They told me that there was live music, and a lot of vendors and free food samples. And lots of funnel cake booths! Back in New England we called them “Doughboys” and they are so tasty! I guess that the next time my wife extends invitations to go to a festival I should accept it and go along.
After the festival they stopped at a grocery store to pick up the fixings for lasagna for dinner, and when they arrived home they prepared a really nice lasagna and served it with garlic and cheese bread. We created our own dessert by combining lemon cookies and vanilla creme cookies – the combination of the two cookies was much tastier than either cookie by itself. We talked about putting some vanilla frosting in between the cookies to make them stick together, but decided against it for today. Maybe next time!
Today is Mother’s Day. I called my mother to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day, and she was glad to hear from me. She was spending the day with my daughter and her sister, and planning on having a good day. I felt badly that she had not yet received the card that I sent her, but things have been hectic around here lately and I just lost track of time. We had my mother-in-law come over for lunch in honor of Mother’s Day, and several of my wife’s siblings came over as well. One of them came over on his motorcycle, and we spent some time taking pictures of our bikes and took some of the folks for a ride on our bikes. One of the brothers came over with his wife and that was a mistake – the wife and my mother-in-law had been having some communication problems over the past couple of months and so there was a big family spat that erupted. My poor wife – she tries so hard to accommodate everyone and keep everyone happy, but there is always at least one of her family members that has some kind of axe to grind and all of my wife’s efforts seem to go up in flames.
I hope that everyone ELSE had a good Mother’s Day!
My favorite sweet tea is the sweet tea from McDonald’s. I love the fact that I can get a large sweet tea from McDonald’s for only one dollar. The thing that bothers me about it though, is the thought of exactly how many calories are IN that large sweet tea? I just found out that there are 280 calories in a large McDonald’s sweet tea. There are 15 calories in a teaspoon of sugar. So that means that there are almost 19 teaspoonfuls of sugar in a large sweet tea!
When I go to any other place that sells sweet tea, it is not nearly as sweet. In fact a lot of the times I order a sweet tea and I would have to say that the tea that I get had no sweetener in it at all. So I end up dumping three or four sweetener packets into the tea.
I wish that McDonald’s would sell a sweet tea that had a sugar substitute in it. I like the Truvia and the Splenda sweeteners, and if they would use those sweeteners in their sweet tea I would not be so worried about the calorie count in it. Now that I know how many spoonfuls of sugar there are in their sweet tea I might start ordering the tea unsweetened and just add my own Truvia or Splenda. I gotta watch my weight!
Have you ever noticed that in rural areas that most houses do not have any address signs other than a number on the rural mailbox at the end of the driveway? And sometimes that number is written on the side of the mail box that is facing the opposite way of regular oncoming traffic? That never made a lot of sense to me, because that would indicate that the rural mail carrier is driving on the wrong side of the road, and it seems to me that is illegal – even for mail carriers!
To make matters even more confusing, sometimes the mail box is on the opposite road of the house that is receiving the mail, and that makes it even more difficult to find someone’s house if you don’t already know where you are going! That is why I think that every rural house should have an address plaque at the end of their driveway with their entire house number clearly visible from both directions.
Properly placed address plaques are not just to make life easier for visitors coming for a social visit, they are important because in rural areas it can be difficult for rescue services to respond to an emergency if the location is not clearly marked. Every house should have clear identification, down by the road, and on the house itself. It could save a life!
Recently I was invited to participate in a corn hole tournament. To be perfectly honest I had no idea at all what in the world a “corn hole tournament” was! So I went to Google and typed in “corn hole tournament” and discovered that it is a competitive game of bean bag toss. When I was a child I can remember going to school fun fairs where they had a bean bag toss game set up, and the targets they used DO look a lot like the targets used in the “official” corn hole game.
Apparently this is a game that is increasing in popularity, and it really surprised me! On the one hand it seems to me that it would be considered “lame” by many of the adolescents that I know. But on the other hand, it seems to me that it is a portable game similar to horse shoes, and I have seen quite a few people playing horse shoes lately. That in and of itself really surprised me, but there it is, what can you do?
Food, Fun, General life, Relationships, Shopping, Sports and outdoor fun | Dean | 
May 19, 2012 10:06 pm | 
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