What a week this has been - something going on every day. Other than a trip to the farmers market to stock up on lettuce, bread, and eggs and spending an hour out in the perennial gardens, I just woke from a nice nap and plan to do nothing the rest of the day. I also stopped at a garage sale and my only purchase was a Bluetooth keyboard and I am testing it out right now - why haven’t I gotten one before this - it is so much easier to use than the tiny keyboard on my iPad.
And now, to backtrack - Ben had the day off last Monday, so I went over to hang out with him in the afternoon. The girls were all busy with their friends. We went in to Excelsior, as Ben wanted my advice on some glasses that he had been thinking of ordering and the girls explored some of the local shops. When finished, we stopped and had an ice cream and then I headed back home.
I spent the afternoon with the twins on Tuesday, picking them up after camp at noon and then they agreed to ride with me to Litchfield, as I have been wanting to see Anderson Gardens and it was a beautiful day. I did have to bribe them a little and let them watch videos on my phone during the drive (an hour away).
I thought it would be cool to stop at the world’s largest ball of twine that is in the small town of Darwin (Tom and I checked it out back in 2018) and what a poor choice that was - there were detours everywhere and it took an extra half-hour to get there, although we did see a lot of pretty Minnesota countryside. When we did get there, the road was closed and under massive construction. There wasn’t a lot of activity, so I drove to it anyway and we got out and looked around - they weren’t real impressed. We did learn that it took 29 years to complete and has almost 80,000,000 feet of twine on it.
Back on more detours heading to Litchfield, we found the gardens that were quite small - a couple of acres, but very beautiful and we took a couple of loops around.
I got them back home just in time to get their clothes changed so Ben could take them to gymnastics.
My only activity on Wednesday was to drive Deb, Lisa and her cat JoJo to the vet (her first visit since Lisa adopted her a month or so ago). They had a real hard time getting her in the crate and she howled and howled the entire time, but survived the agonizing experience.
I cleaned for Ben on Thursday and hung out at home for most of the day on Friday. But Friday night was unlike most for me - I was invited to join Cathy and her friends Jodi, Karen, Susie, and Heidi for an evening at Jodi’s home. We all brought some food to share, sat out on her deck, and drank wine, ate yummy food, and talked and talked. We each brought a white elephant gift and played bingo for the prizes. What a fun time - I didn’t get back home until 11:30.
Jodi’s home is like being in an antique mall that is beautifully arranged and full of stuff everywhere. The main house has small rooms that are stuffed with very feminine patterned furniture and there is a huge add-on family room and a deck attached to it. We sat under a pergola that is covered in vines and there are flowers and garden art, statues, and flowers everywhere. The only drawback was that their house is on the MSP flight line and planes flew over us every five minutes. I told the gals that I will never complain about the traffic on Old Shakopee Road (the one that my windows face) again.
