Parrot Costume

The other day I got my first letter from Kaitlynn, my 7 year old niece. It is now hanging above my desk and makes me smile every single day. She has a lot of faith in me.

Apparently I will be making a parrot costume this year. Thank goodness I found Pinterest before requests like this started coming in.

200K

If you've been following this blog or my life at all, you probably know I love my car. Go ahead, search my blog for "Altima" and see how many posts come up. A lot. In October, I'll have had in for 10 years.  The only time I don't love it is when a BMW zips past me on a freeway entrance ramp. (And it's ALWAYS) a BMW.
I've replaced a lot of things on my car myself, and I just recently had a lot more things done to it. But she runs like a champ, and has been everywhere with me, so I was pretty excited when she turned 200,000 miles the other day. I realized I could make it to Target just as the odometer turned, which seemed appropriate, so I made a lady in the parking lot take my picture with it.
The next day, the "check engine" light turned on. But it went off a few days later. Not worried. :-)

I was at a stoplight, mom.

Self-portraiture not working

YAY!

"Check Engine." Nope. 

Dad Comes to Town

I posted a little bit about this earlier (and found out that, unfortunately, he wasn't at Whole Foods, he was at AJ's, which explains the Diet Pepsi. AJ's IS the snootiest store in Scottsdale, but definitely NOT the most "granola," but, anyways, my dad came to town a few weeks ago. We had a great time together, and it was so good to see him. Unfortunately, I had to do a lot of working and couldn't take any time off, but we did spend our evenings hanging out. Dad's biggest gripe about coming to see me is the fancy places I take him to eat. So this trip, I chose two barbecue places with one fancy place in between. He didn't like the fancy place, but the other two I would say were a success.

At Joe's Real Barbeque. I love their beans and turkey.
Dad even liked their turkey. 

My Butternut Squash Enchiladas from The Herb Box. So So Yuummy. 

Jonmark came with us here. They both had the New York Strip. They were both disappointed.  The should have gone with the "marinara from Narnia" our server suggested (he was kind of a fruitcake. Jonmark and Dad were trying not to laugh at him. They almost succeeded.)

Doesn't he look excited to be here?

That's a better fake smile. 

 Vanie came with us to Rudy's. I went to Rudy's in October in Austin with Byron. It's about as Texas as it comes, and it just came to town. Dad said he would have seasoned the brisket more, but, overall, it got 3 1/2 stars, I think. Vanie, however, was appalled at all the meat and has sworn off meat for the rest of her life.

Delish.

"Sissy Sauce"

No Plates, just food. Best creamed corn ever!

Getting Ready for Guatemala!

Picture taken mid-injection :-)

So I meant to post this like 2 weeks ago when it all started, but....
I leave for Guatemala in 3 hours. So now the excitement/panic is really crazy. On the 12th, I had an appt with my new doctor. My pre-Guatemala doctor. I got a Tetanus shot in one arm and typhoid in the other. I got my prescription for Malarone, so I don't get malaria. He also recommended Cipro, Azithromycin (both antibiotics) and Phenergan, an antinausea med. Man, am I glad I went to see him. (He'd been there before and had so many stories and useful info.) And I now have more prescriptions than I may have ever filled at one time in my entire life (not trying to jinx anything here).
I am partially in charge of bringing medical supplies. I didn't think I knew how to get people to donate, but turns out I had like 9 boxes of stuff to go through today (lining things up was a pain in the butt). Four hours later, my living room went from this:

To this (still not calm about checking these boxes):

 And my bedroom looks a little like this:

Yes, those are Cynthia Rowley Band-aids. And the best sunscreen ever.
SPF 15 Target never burns me!

Treats!

In case you're wondering how to pretty thoroughly undo a few months of hard work, I have a few steps for you.
1- Ask all your friends what their favorite treats are from Trader Joe's.
2- Go there.
3- Buy all of them. Plus a few of your own favorites.
Here are my glorious finds. (And oh my gosh have they been worth it). What are your best summer/trader joe's treats?

Apparently you are supposed to defrost these
for 40 minutes. I did that once. 

I had these first at a sushi resturant.
Luckily they are perfectly portion-controlled. 

It not only sounds fancy, it tastes fancy. So, you know, I love that. 

Cookie Butter. JVizz's contribution. It's like ground up shortbread
cookies mixed with peanut butter. Hard to explain. Amazing. 

They're like otter pops with mashed
up peaches. Seriously. 

I find it quite entertaining that the best picture
I could find of this on the internet was a container
with only one left. Mine also had only one left so I gave
 up taking the picture. 

Ron in Whole Foods

My dad is visiting AZ for work, and lucky for me, he gets to visit me, too.
But weird things can happen when your dad's hotel is in "North Scottsdale."
My dad today was hungry and drove around until he found a store that said "food" on it.
To my great delight, this was "Whole Foods," a store I find fabulous and my dad finds ridiculous. And, until today, somehow did not know existed.
And I'm sure all the employees wonder how on earth he ended up there.
Like when he asked, "Do you guys have any real food in here?" (He was looking for almonds. They did have some.)
Or when the cashier asked, "Paper or Plastic?" and he responded, "Whichever one is closer." And she said, "Well we should use paper- it's better for the environment." And he responded, "Who cares?" (Not everyone, but everyone in Whole Foods....) :-)
I'm still not sure how he found a Diet Pepsi in that place, but I'm sure glad he did.
That was the highlight of my day.