When free ice cream... isn't!

Today Mr. 10 earned a coupon for a free ice cream cone from our public library's summer reading program! (Check and see -- it might not be too late to get in on yours, and be sure also to bring the kids over to Barnes & Noble to claim their free book for reading eight and recording them in their summer reading journal.)

So, of course we had to head over and claim that free ice cream cone right away... meaning that I of course also had to purchase a non-free ice cream cone for High School Guy, who is apparently too cool to smile in photos today. They're no fools over there at the ice cream shop.

In other news, let's see what else has been going on lately by browsing through some of the photos on my phone. Apparently: I'm easily amused by things spotted in the parking lot at Costco, and do hope that this person attended a good loyur skool...

And I'm also easily amused because, although I'm not a vegetarian myself, I don't think this word means what they think it means...

What else is amusing? Well, after several days of growling, hissing, sulking, and general... cattiness, the Notorious BKL has now become somewhat enamoured with new kitty Gnocchi. (Who shall henceforth be known as the Notorious BKG, because she is gearing up to give BKL a run for her money!)

Our house currently hosts an ongoing game of "chase you, chase me." Yeah -- the pitter patter of little cat feet is more like the thunder of galumphing cat feet... And free as in ice cream is also free as in kittens, which was driven home after BKG's first vet visit yesterday. 🙂

But seriously... how cute is she?!

In between chasing after cats and kids, I'm also working on purging my closets and reducing clutter. This process was accelerated somewhat today when I found that the door to the stand-up freezer in our garage apparently didn't shut all the way after I got a pack of meat out last night, so everything in and near the door was thawed out and dripping. Totally my own fault; I could cry 🙁 --  but, it also caused me to toss out a bunch of the old processed freezer foods I'm no longer buying and that we haven't been eating. That's one way to do it?! ugh.

Speaking of packaged foods, let's go back to things that amuse me so that I don't cry over spoiled freezer food. Look what High School Guy and I spotted at Jewel today: Clever Foodies Scramble, AKA a $3.99 tub of seasoned cooked vegetables to add to your scrambled eggs or omelets. Um. I guess it's a great idea if you generally end up not adding veggies to your eggs because you're time crunched, and I like that they're natural and healthy, but -- what do you think, yay or nay?

And in other food news: Behold! Our first two garden tomatoes! OK, they're cherry tomatoes, but now I feel as if we've started to accomplish something. Mr. 10 and I each enjoyed one, and hopefully they are a signal of good things to come. It seems later this year, but maybe that's just because summer seemed to come so early last year?

More summer notes: MashupDad bottled up the mead he started last Labor Day. (He's been making mead from some of his honey for a couple of years now, and taught himself to do it from the Internet and from library books.) I'm not a mead fan myself, but according to him and others who have tried, this batch came out quite nicely. Read more on MashupDad's ongoing adventures in beekeeping here.

Lastly, I wanted to share this cool cash back site I stumbled across this week. You might already be using MobiSave (see more on that and other cash-back apps here), but apparently MobiSave has also recently partnered with allrecipes and is currently offering better "any brand" rebates there. To access these, just go to allrecipes.mobisave.com. You don't need to create an account or install an app; just add the rebates you want to redeem, enter your PayPal email address, snap a photo of your receipt, and upload. You can also keep doing these until they disappear off the site -- I have been to ALDI three times this week (don't ask), have picked up an avocado every time, and gotten $1.00 back every time.

So, there's some of what we've been up to recently... so how's your summer going? (Luckily, Mr. 10's head only got slightly stuck in the ALDI cart on one of those three trips... Kids, I tell ya.)