Nutritious and ... Disgusting

I dare you to guess what this is:



Macaroni and cheese, you say? Penne pasta with a light cream sauce?

Oh, no. Not for this gluten and (after a visit to my doctor this summer) dairy-free girl. Here is the box this blasted meal came from:



That's right. Chreese. It was so foul. I barely managed to eat one bowl. If you wondered what cheese made from ground rice and lentils tastes like, I'll clue you in: like ground rice and lentils. And shoedust.

Chicago-Bound

I started my weekly commute to Naperville a few weeks ago and have loved staying with my sis and brother-in-law. I've also started weekly one-on-one dates with my cousins. This week, Sean was the lucky winner of time with me. We walked downtown and got an ice cream and a latte and fed the ducks at the riverwalk. We also named them: Frumpy, Captain, Emperor, Fuzzy Wuzzy, and Cinnamon. We stopped by the bookstore where Sean entertained himself on the escalators and then snuck into the new auditorium with a beautiful new stage. Someday, Sean will be a world famous Irish flute/piano/violin player. It was a lovely afternoon that felt like it had been ripped from one of those Family Circus comic strips showing the loopy path kids take whenever they go anywhere. I loved it.

Victory Tastes So Sweet

My pops came to visit a couple of weeks ago and it was one of my favorite ever weekends with him. We were lucky to have an extra day on each end of the visit which gave us more time to relax, play farkle, take friends sailing on the hobie cat, and spontaneously stop by a putt-putt course where I defeated my father for the first time with a dazzling, last minute hole-in-one on #17. Oh, yes. Victory tastes so sweet.

I couldn't find my ball because I couldn't believe it would be in the hole. No joke.


Overall, he was an excellent sport.

On the Street

Before the undergrads came back to campus, it was easy to wander from the parking ramp to my building and notice little things that tickled my fancy. Now, it's too tempting to people watch and I doubt I would have seen these gems.

A determined petunia growing up through the cracks in the concrete:

Evidence of a frustrated (and perhaps a bit melodramatic) skateboarder in need of a spelling lesson: