Low Key

Today started (really really early, like 3a) with lightening and thunder and RAIN RAIN RAIN-yipeeeee! This means that our morning temperatures were lower. It was so so nice to sit on the backyard porch, enjoying the coolness and the freshness that follows the rain. Sadly, it'll be hot (95+ degrees) and steamy later this afternoon. That's what you get in North Texas in July :-/

After doing some "morning" stuff around the house, I called my mom around 10am to see if she wanted to go for an early lunch at a new place in downtown Garland. No surprise - she said yes (I love my adventure buddy!) and at 11:30a we parked in front of Paw Paw's Sweet Shop & Cafe (612 State St).
It's catty-corner and down just a little from the Corner Pocket Shop, if your familiar with downtown Garland, and across from the newspaper office.
Isn't this too cute! I love the small coziness of it and the folks are super super nice!
Here's my view. It started filling in a little after noon, plus several folks picked up to-go orders. I'll be taking advantage of the to-go option from now on rather than running to Subway. Now all the yummy details :D
Is my mom an awesome sport or what -- she ordered root beer ($1.59), a chicken salad sandwich with grapes and pecans (you're asked at time of order if you want either/or added to your chicken salad) on toasted wheat bread ($4.29). The sandwich came with a pickle spear and your choice of regular potato chips, sweet potato chips, potato salad or pasta salad. Mom choose the sweet potato chips on my recommendation (she had never had them). She really liked them-I knew she would!! She took home half her sandwich and the pickle spear. She wanted to save room for dessert :-)
I had the house tea naturally decaf and unsweet, Strawberry Hibiscus ($1.59) and the small salad and half sandwich combo ($5.69). My salad was the Cheri's side salad (spring greens, spinach, craisins, crumbled bacon, grape tomatoes, croutons and balsamic vinegar dressing). For my half sandwich, the chicken salad with grapes and pecans, lettuce, tomato and mayo on a home made Kaiser roll, with sweet potato chips....everything was FANTASTIC!! looking forward to the fall/winter to check out the soups (it's too hot right now for soup)!!! though, I'll return before then I'm sure.
Ok - you did notice the "Sweet Shop" part of the sign right?!?!? Mom and I shared :-) but as you can see I didn't take a picture until I got the left overs home....see how big the leftover is? thank goodness we shared this giganto piece of cake. They have regular desserts, but we didn't go for that. We made our choice from the 3 dessert specials of the day: homemade Apple Pie, Strawberry Cake and Chocolate Cake with a cheese cake ribbon. Obviously, we got the Chocolate Cake with the cheese cake ribbon ($2.99).

That's our low key Friday adventure. I would highly recommend Paw Paw's if you're around the downtown Garland area for breakfast (haven't had YET) or lunch or an afternoon sweet treat (they have a variety of ice cream treats too!) I sure hope this place makes it!! it sure is handy for both my home and my work ;-)

My Own Fault...

...but I'm gonna whine anyway ;-) and I should have done this last night but was just to tired.
Looks yummy! and it was. A good old fashioned biscuit with sausage,egg and cheese from Whataburger...so what's my problem?! the $2.50 it cost as opposed to...
$1.25 my normal breakfast sandwich. Same thing either with a biscuit or an English muffin (I pick up either/or depending on what's available at the store).

I wasn't paying attention and ran out and being spoiled and having a couple of bucks in my pocket I splurged on the drive thru rather than fix some toast and top it with stuff at the house. It's just the cheap demon in me. $2.50 isn't a horrendous splurge, it just bugs me that it's double what I pop in the microwave for 65 seconds.

My other whine (ha! thought there would be only one). I spent 2 hours grocery shopping last night....and I'm not a fan of any kind of shopping.....

My own fault again, I gave myself a limit - once Wal-Mart didn't have or quit carrying 5 regular items on my grocery list, I would let go of familiar and try Target. Last week I hit my limit. This week, shopping at Target. It took 2 hours because I wasn't familiar with where stuff was and had to hit all the aisle and look it all over. Gotta say, I'm pleased! the final cost was about the same and SURPRISE! NOT! Target had ALL the items on my list including the ones over the last few months that Wal-Mart had not.

On the plus side of all this, if picking between 2 grocery stores is the worse thing in my life, I'm glad to say I'M DOING REALLY WELL!

Coulda Woulda Shoulda...

...but didn't - didn't do a lick of my "to-do" list of household chores, yard chores, etc. Instead, I gave into the heat (101) and spent the afternoon in the pool listening to an audio book-6 chapters worth. I feel so rested :D How do I get this gig full time?!?!?!

DPS and Babe's

Bright and early my youngest (17 on Monday) and I headed to the DPS office in Rockwall to renew is driver's license...yes-we drove past the one here in Garland and over the lake to Rockwall. Why? lines in Rockwall are not nearly as long. We left our house at 8:30a, parked at the DPS office in Rockwall, went straight to the counter, finished, and home by 9:15a. It would have been hours at the Garland office.

Once we got back home, my youngest went back to bed - ahhhhh summertime :-)

This evening was the family birthday dinner get together for his birthday too. He choose Babe's. No arguments from anyone. We all like Babe's!!!!! by the way, those are just random strangers in the above picture. We were all sitting in the air conditioning of the Explorer waiting for them to open at 5p.
The birthday boy sat for a picture so I wouldn't embarrass him to much inside...
A couple of pictures of a FULL table and FULL plates !!!!
We got desserts to go - 2 chocolate pies and 2 banana puddings....yummmmmmmmmm!

Go Early - Beat the Heat

Me and my oldest went to the Dallas Zoo today. It's been FOREVER since he's gone with me :-) and a couple of years since I've gone. We got there at opening 9am, used my AAA card for a $3 discount each, so $5 for parking and $7 each to enter wasn't too bad. Normal admission for adults is $10 each.

I don't know which gorilla is in the above picture but it was so cool to be nose to nose at the viewing bunker!! and I could have sat there all day watching the children in awe of being so close to him.

If you haven't been to the zoo in a while, check it out!! They've "prettied" it up and have added several new exhibits...new for us was anything installed after the penguin addition. My oldest took the majority of the pictures while we were there. I thought it was cute and funny that he took the camera and kept it :D The link for all the pictures is on the right side bar with this date and title.

Like I said, we were there when the gates opened at 9a. We were home by noon. After 10:30a it started heating up pretty quick, but then it is July 4th weekend and triple digit temperatures are in the forecast for several days.

Momma had a WONDERFUL morning!!

Fun Friends and Fine Food

A group from work sent out the word that they were eating out for lunch yesterday - all are welcome and any suggestions on where to go. I had been watching for Genghis Grill near us to be "opening this summer" and WOOHOO it opened Monday!!! My friends are such good sports. They readily agreed to eat there :-) The table is empty because we are either "filling" our bowls or watching our bowls on the grill.

Grill master hard at work - mine's on his left hand side and not in the picture. You can see the lunch crowd hasn't arrived yet, there's still space on the grill. Feels like 10-15 minutes later the place had filled up with the noonday crowd.
I asked for my fried rice on the side. There is so much of it that I can eat 2 "meat and veggie" bowls with the rice from 1 bowl. My first round (and I'm the only piggie that went back for 2nds) was chicken, marinated steak, lemon pepper spice, carrots, cabbage, green beans, squash, onions, zucchini, mushrooms and teriayki sauce -- yummmmmm. Second bowl was crab, cabbage, water chestnuts, pineapples, mandarin oranges, spinach, mushrooms and teriayki sauce.

Thanks friends for a wonderful lunch and fellowship!!

Muffin Fairy

The muffin fairy came by this morning - yippee for me! Mom/Grandma has been on a quest to find/develop the best muffin recipe for her. And, lucky me and my boys, we get to eat some of the tries. Personally, I've enjoyed each and every attempt - apple cinnamon, blueberry, double blueberry, bran, banana nut, and cranberry - so far....

Anyway, the latest batch is cranberry :D The 3 questions she has for all "tasters" are:
1)enough cranberries ?
2)add nuts ?
3)more sugar ?

For me -
1) always!! I LOVE CRANBERRIES
2) pass on the nuts-I wouldn't turn down muffins with nuts, but don't see any need for them
3) the sugar sprinkled on top was good for me
plus like I've already told her - the recipe is what pleases her!! I'm gonna eat them regardless ;-)