I’ve decided that, since I broke my Sodabriety earlier this month, I’m not going to go back and give it up cold turkey again.

But I’m also not going hog wild drinking it.

Being July 11, today was 7-Eleven Slurpee Day! Did you go get your free Slurpee? What kind did you get?

While I’m  still upset that Five Below (and just about every major retailer save Amazon) seems to have ditched out on Tapatío flavored Doritos, at least I can say that I found these.

We went to the pool today. It was a brief visit due to storms that decided to come crashing through from out of nowhere. But it was almost briefer for me.

At the pool today, Nathan and I were playing catch and I heard two tween girls near us gauging the level of their friendship with questions about each other’s favorite this and that. Favorite movie, band, chip, etc.

Nothing like being the last ones to leave a theater at closing time. Yeah, we did that tonight when Katie and I went to see The Fall Guy with my brother and his wife.

Eddie and Dustin are finally done! This one took a little longer than expected. But once we hunkered down and focused, we got it.

Yesterday, the three of us went to the Eras Night (Cougars Edition) at Northwestern Medicine Field. No, it was not a Taylor Swift concert. But it was a Taylor Swift-themed night at the ballpark of our local minor league baseball team, the Kane County Cougars.

I woke up this morning and saw this on our kitchen table…

Let me introduce you to our one and only hanging plant this year…

And, just like that, we are done!

It’s been a couple months since we finished our last one, but we’re finally getting back in the puzzle game with one we bought for Katie for Mother’s Day…

Which one do you think I am?

I totally forgot to celebrate my one year of sodabriety back on May 28! Get it? Soda + sobriety = sodabriety. If it wasn’t a thing before, it is now. Deal with it.

We went to the library yesterday to sign up for the summer reading challenge. I walked up to the table and announced our intentions, she said hi, and then she started typing in her laptop.

For about five minutes yesterday, my house was getting pelted with hail. And probably the most limited scope hailstorm I’ve ever experienced, to boot.

I guess there really wasn’t anything to worry about. Crossing the border into Canada at Blaine, Washington, was a breeze.

Why do I feel so much more anxious about this trip we’re leaving for today than any of them in the past three years?

Mister Nathan’s Dad. That’s me.

My beloved Keurig K Supreme brewer died last Wednesday.

At the bus stop the other day, one of Nate’s friends was trying to razz me. She’s been doing it for a while now calling me “crusty” and “dusty.”

C2E2 was today and it was, well, less than great.

When I was a teenager, I loved SCUBA diving. I went twice and was, at the time, sold on the idea of being a marine biologist.

It’s done! The classic book puzzle is complete!

Yup, we’ve started another one. Actually, this may be a case of us having restarted a puzzle as Katie is pretty sure we’ve already done this and, the more I build onto it, the more I’m agreeing with her.

Admittedly, many birds are majestic the way they seemingly float on the air, the speed and control they achieve when swooping in for the kill, and just how beautiful they can be.

Well, it certainly wasn’t a lack of desire to build that thwarted us with that Stranger Things puzzle.

Y’all know the comedy and the tragedy, right? The two masks with faces representing the two primary genres of literature?

Four weeks in on that Stranger Things puzzle and we haven’t even been able to complete the border. There are too many pieces that have the exact same coloration and even the same fit. So we’d think we were making progress only to undo what we worked on. We just were not enjoying it.

A power outage due to a really bad storm or an accident or something tangible is one thing.

For the first time ever, all three of us here filled out an NCAA men’s basketball bracket.

My nextdoor neighbor had her car towed today from her driveway… for a flat tire…

The hole in the ceiling is bigger.

And we’re out $746.

In anticipation of the plumber coming in to check out the leak in our utility closet, I decided to do some cleaning of the house. But since I was also working, I had to implement what I call “firecleaning.”

It’s always fun to discover that you have a leaky pipe in your house causing damage to lord only knows what.