Weekend sendoff

This morning my weight was 204.0.  I'm good with that.  It's 1.6 down from last Friday, though .8 up from Wednesday morning when I weighed.  Whatever.  I'm going in the right direction.  The weekend is almost here and I plan to stay mindful of my goals when the inevitable food choices present themselves.  I spoke earlier in the week about adding the goal of not abandoning my program on weekends to my 101 Days Of Summer Challenge.  I haven't done that officially by emailing Biz, but when I do my weekly update tomorrow, I will.

The funeral yesterday was ultimately uplifting, though unbearably sad at times.  It was untraditional with no format other than a number of the man's family members and friends speaking about their memories of and relationships with Tom.  Both his sons spoke, and the one who was with his dad at the time of the heart attack had a beautiful talk that incorporated his dad's interest and love of astronomy as a sort of theme.  Human creativity knows no bounds.  Twice in his comments, the younger son noted how he couldn't believe he'd never see his dad again.  It was a lovely, fitting and heart felt service for a fine human being.  Still, it is so baffling and hard to accept that someone so healthy and vital could be gone so suddenly. 

This week, both my boys are in Manchester, Tennessee working at the Bonorroo Music Festival - an annual event that gets bigger every year.  I have a friend who, with her husband, owns a concession business that sets up opening gates (cattle shutes) and manages parking for lots of huge events like this.  She got both boys and a friend a piece in last year, paying for their flights down and back, all food and a $12.00/hr wage while they're "working".  I put work in quotes because what they did and are doing this year is "supervising" the entry gates and ticket takers to make sure no one gets in without paying, or brings in contraband of any kind.  Last year the boys said it was easy, fun and there is constantly amazing music surrounding from any of several stages...think Bruce Springsteen last year on Saturday night of the 4 day festival - playing for over 3 hours!  This year Stevie Wonder is the "biggest act", with tons of other great bands and comedians.  Conan O'Brien recorded a bluegrass album (of all things!) there last night with his band for an audience of only 300.  I'm hoping my boys were among the 300, because they're huge Conan fans.  Last year each boy made over $500, not including the flights, food and music, so it's a pretty lucrative endeavor for them!

One funny note...when they got home last year, one of the things Mark said was how cool it was to see "real hippies".  He noted, "I've read about them but didn't know they still existed!"  I love that - since I was part of the hippie generation - though never really dressed the part.  Did align politically with them in many ways though!

Anyway - they will be home Sunday, and #1 son, the 23 y/o who's living in Chicago will be staying for several days next week before going back.  I'm so excited to have 2 of the 3 back in the nest, even if for just a few days.  #2 son (21) is home all summer and will return to Atlanta for his senior year of college in August.  This weekend I'm going to be getting Chicago son's bed all freshly made and the room cleaned, as well as cooking up some of his favorite foods, like spaghetti and meatballs for one.  Daughter Jean (26) who is living in the Dominican Republic is insanely jealous that 4 out of the 5 of us will be together.  I wish she could be with us too!  But we'll have a group Skype call sometime so we can actually lay eyes on each other!  We really have fun when the whole fan-damily is together.  How lucky am I for that??

Couple of quick pictures - yesterday a package came in the mail that is directly related to my blogging... 4 jars (the fewest # you could order via mail so I hope it's good) of PB 2, the powdered peanut butter that TJ talks about. Here's another picture :  The big deal about this peanute butter, besides the fact it's supposed to be good is that it's 45 calories for 2TBSP, compared to 190 for regular PB.  The instructions say to take 2 T of PB 2 and add 1 tsp of water to make it the consistency of peanut butter.  I'll try it this weekend and let you know what I think.  If it's good, maybe I'll do a giveaway of a bottle with some other goodies to celebrate my one year blog anniversary which is tomorrow.  Toss in some hand knit socks and a felted bag - could be a tidy little gift!

 
I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I've got a lot of exercise planned, including a walk of the loop at Ridley Creek State Park.  I'm going to take pics to share.  When I dashed out at lunch today, I saw the most GORGEOUS hollyhock bush in full bloom, wich flowers so deeply darkly purple they were almost black!  And I didn't have my camera!!  I'm going by on the way home to record it for all eternity.
 
I'll leave you with a couple more pics - the last will be one that I have titled "Don't tell me dogs don't smile!"