June 10th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

It’s another rainy Monday in NJ. The weather was beautiful yesterday for my mom’s party, so I will NOT complain. My daughter made the most beautiful cake for her grandmother. It was an Italian sponge cake with cream filling and icing, decorated with cream puffs, chocolate covered strawberries and dark chocolate curls. The only thing she didn’t do from scratch was grow the strawberries.

It was yummy, but a little messy because it was so warm out last night, the cake started to melt a little.

After everyone left, my son and I had a bit of an adventure. We were sitting outside relaxing and talking when we heard a loud noise. I look over toward our dumpster and see some big fuzzy thing crawling on the side. It was dark so I could not make out what kind of animal it was, but it was big. My son and I both jump up. He flips on the flood lights so we could try to figure out what type of beast was now in our dumpster. We can’t see anything. Standing a good distance away, we start to toss some things in the general direction of the dumpster hoping to make some noise and scare the thing back out. Nothing. Then my son sets up a ladder in the driveway (still a good distance away from the dumpster) to see if he can see into it. Too dark. While he is rooting around in the garage for our mobile flood lamp, I climb up the ladder with a handful of pinecones and start tossing them gently into the dumpster. No movement. My son finds the flood lamp, plugs it in and hands it up to me so I can illuminate the dumpster, then he climbs in through the trunk of my van which is parked directly in front of the dumpster, opens the moon roof and climbs through so he can look into the dumpster yet still be a safe distance away. There is NOTHING in the dumpster. At this point we started laughing like loons at our impromptu adventure. The thing must have been climbing out, not in when we saw it.

So what do you and your fully-grown children do at midnight for a laugh?

Saturday’s challenge was:

 

Thank you very much…

 

“Thank you very much.” A simple phrase, but depending on your tone or emphasis, it could be either positive and sincere or negative and sarcastic. Some Bozo takes your parking spot after you have been patiently waiting for the previous occupant to vacate it – “Thank you very MUCH!” I’m sure other more colorful words would probably escape your mouth as well, I know they would from mine. You open a box on your birthday from your great-aunt Berta and inside you find a hand-knit orange sweater with frolicking green frogs on it – “Thank you VERY much!” you say with a broad smile so you don’t hurt the blue-haired dear’s feelings. You open a handmade Mother’s Day card your children work on together – “THANK YOU, very much!” you manage to choke out as you fight back tears because you are still amazed at the precious babies you were given, at which point you whisper to God, “Thank you very much!”

 

Sorry, proud mamma, but you already know that. Now I’m not saying my kids are perfect – FAR from it. Here’s a perfect example of what happened when the youngest annoyed the older two last night…

 

It took me a few minutes to get her out of there because I was laughing so hard.

 

 

 

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

I feel like I’m forgetting something…

 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.