Backsies Is What There Is Not: boba smoothies

I seem to start a lot of my Ten Things of Thankful lists with "boy, am I tired after this week," but boy, am I tired after this week! What happened to relaxing over the summer? I need to go back to work to get some rest! But until then, here are my Ten Things of Thankful:

1. As some of you may already know, my daughter and I got the bright idea to foster puppies for the humane society. If you'd like the details of this, please read about them in Puppy Tails, Part I right here. I am still not a dog person, but the experience has been pretty good, and I'm glad we gave it a try (fyi - it's not over yet). By the way, when you endlessly stand outside in the grass, trying to convince two puppies to evacuate their bladders and bowels, you get eaten alive by mosquitoes and chiggers, including a big, itchy bite right on my ass. How did that happen? I WAS NEVER NAKED OUT THERE, I SWEAR!

Audrey

Olivia

2. My cats are being pretty good sports about the whole puppy fostering thing. They aren't happy, but they aren't off sulking all the time either.

Bathtubs are fun, unless the water is running.

3. Volleyball try-outs were this week, and my daughter made the junior varsity team. She was a nervous wreck the morning of try-outs, although I really do not believe she had anything to worry about. And I was right! Their first game is the second day of school.

4. And speaking of school, the superintendent has promised not only will the high school be ready for students on the first day, but the gym will be ready for the home opener volleyball game that second day of school. How awesome that they will get to be the first sport to play in the new school! (In case you didn't know, our high school was destroyed three years ago in an EF-5 tornado.)

5. I accidentally hit "delete" instead of "publish" when approving a blog comment, and I FIXED IT and didn't have to contact Marisa to say I totally screwed up and would she mind resubmitting her comment. Take that, technology!

6. It's time for Marian Days in the neighboring town of Carthage! This is the 37th year for the event, during which approximately 60,000 Vietnamese American Roman Catholics pilgrimage here to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. We attended last year for the first time and loved it! In fact, I devoted my entire TToT entry that week to Marian Days. This year, we took my son with us one day. He was brave enough to try frog legs and said he enjoyed them, but a few bites were kind of "pondy". Yay for him for trying something new, as he is a pickier eater than I am! Even better was the teenaged Vietnamese girls who were following him around, giggling and taking pictures of the tall, good looking ginger.

7. We also discovered a delicious drink at Marian Days this year - the boba smoothie! While not brave enough to try some of the flavors offered (unidentifiable fruits, avocado, taro root), they did have strawberry and it was yummy!

8. I love pho! I have decided beef is my favorite, as it is very lean, and there are no mysterious pieces of uh, stuff, as there is the chicken pho. There are no Vietnamese restaurants anywhere in the area to get this bowl of deliciousness, so we have to get our fill once a year. Isn't that odd, since there is a Vietnamese monastery on the grounds of the church where Marian Days is held?

Pho. Yum.

I suck at using chopsticks.

9. My husband and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary this week. Well, we didn't exactly celebrate it; we were on our way to have lunch at Marian Days and realized it was our anniversary. We're pretty low-key about that kind of stuff.

August 7, 1993

10. I've taken the puppies outside to potty about a thousand times today, given them baths, picked up puppy poo from the yard, changed my hair color, took a couple of short cat naps with an actual cat, and have plans to go out to dinner with the College Boy this evening as we count down the days (four) until he goes back to school. Life is pretty good. That's a lot of thankful right there.