A blooming bush, staycation plans, the wurst dinner, Father’s Day fun, and more (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

The butterfly bush that was my Mother’s Day gift has started to bloom! I’m looking forward to seeing the butterflies come from far and wide to visit.

~2~

Next week I’ll be taking a staycation with our sons, so I have this vision of reading on our deck with a glass of lemonade in hand while I glance over occasionally to see the butterflies fluttering on and off our bush.

In reality, I will probably be improving my baseball pitching skills and marveling at our boys’ scores at Crossy Road in an arcade, but I’m trying not to over-plan our days. I say that, and we’re kicking it all off with a quick trip to New York to see my 10-year-old nephew perform in an off-off-off Broadway version of The Aristocats. Taking a trip to New York might not be your idea of a staycation, but I interpret the term to mean I didn’t have to book a hotel room.

~3~

This dinner was the wurst. It was the best of dinners. It was the wurst of dinners. The best thing about it was that my husband surprised me by picking up the bratwurst on his way home on a night when I had just started piecing together a dinner.

At our mini-Octoberfest, I was remembering how we witnessed an Octoberfest press conference in Guangzhou when we were adopting our younger son in China. I don’t know why I don’t seem to have taken any photos of people in our hotel walking around the lobby in German attire. But I do have photos of our dinner this week.

~4~

We celebrated John fully for Father’s Day and invited my father over for dinner to celebrate him, too. There were cards and gifts and a golf-themed cake our 9-year-old talked me into buying.

Buying Father’s Day gifts can be a little tricky, though the squeaky goat toy we found for my father seemed to do the trick. When my parents marked their 48^th wedding anniversary on Wednesday, however, I had no idea what to get. I looked online, and I couldn’t find a traditional 48^th wedding anniversary gift, but the contemporary gift is optical goods.

Somehow giving my parents glasses for their anniversary seemed odd and maybe even as if I were implying they couldn’t see well because they are aging—which I would never suggest. And my father would want to pick his own telescope or binoculars. But I found a light-up magnifying glass that seemed just right.

~4~

Last night I was writing a work project and realized I had reached 22,222 words. How can you do better than that? I saved the piece and went to bed.

~5~

Summer in Baltimore means heat, humidity, and snowballs. I kicked summer off with our younger son on a special snowball outing a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t taken our older son for one until this week. I’m never sure what flavor to order. This time I ordered a coconut snowball. It looked very blah, but it was tasty. Still, I might branch out and try another flavor next time.

I am not a huge snowball fan, but I always think it’s because I haven’t hit on the right flavor yet. I just love summer.

~6~

I saw the most beautiful red-tailed hawk the other day. It was bigger than a cat, and it was sitting in a tree looking for its next meal. I know that because I went to a meeting, came back outside, and it was eating what it had caught.

I was sorry our boys weren’t with me. They would have been so intrigued. But they might also have been sad for the squirrel.

~7~

We’ve started our summer reading program where we pay the boys “Buettner Bucks” for every minute of reading. I can’t remember the exchange rate, but our 11-year-old handles that for me, so I don’t really need to know. We declared the weekend a triple-earning opportunity to try to spur our readers on.

Apparently, the boys also have summer reading for school, too. And we haven’t even enrolled in the library summer reading programs. Maybe that’s what we’ll do next week while we’re on staycation. Or we’ll sit around and watch butterflies—one of the two.

Read more quick takes at Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a wonderful weekend!

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