First of all, this is an adoption blog and so you know I can't pass up the chance to share adoption news, no matter how trivial. Today we called for another reason and the phone conversation lasted 30 seconds, literally, before the called was dropped but in those thirty seconds we got some good news. We learned that all our eggs aren't in one basket anymore, so to speak. This isn't just good news, it is VV GOOD news. It makes me feel so more relaxed and I know you were all hoping for any news that might make me less neurotic! Also, today I got my first ever quilt square from a quilt swap. Theme: year of the dog. So cute. I better get working on my own now.

In other news, today we went berry picking. It was fun but a reminder of just how efficient a large family can be. Our indentured servants kids managed to pick enough berries to fill up two huge boxes in like fifteen minutes flat. It took us twice as long to drive to the farm than to pick the berries!

Then, on a whim, we decided to stop at the farm's nursery to pick out some hanging baskets and various other flowers. Nothing like waiting until mid-June, huh? This took about an hour of hubby and I circling baskets like vultures trying to decide if we truly wanted to commit to these living things. We have a track record - we have yet to keep a bunch of annuals alive - ever. We finally decided to just throw caution to the wind but failed to have the foresight to decide where we might keep our new flowers on the drive home. The van, filled with kids and now berries, didn't leave much space for three huge hanging baskets, a flat of flowers and 2 pots. But we sacrificed a few kids laps and made it home in one piece.

Once home, we unloaded the flowers only to learn that the baskets were way too heavy for our shepherds hooks. So now they are sitting in the landscaping beds where I am tempted to just bury them, pots and all. While collapsing in frustrated exhaustion right smack in the middle of our landscaping beds, I noticed that those patches of grass that had sprouted in our beds - the patches I neurotically sprayed with grass killer last week - had not only failed to die but had grown! Why is it that I can't kill grass with poison but I can kill petunias no matter how little or how much I water them? That left no choice but to pull the patches out, by hand. I pulled and I pulled. I darted around to each strangely-placed patch of grass. And by the 10th path out of 12, a theme occurred to me. All these patches were sprouting up around our Day Lilys. Just the day lilys. And, oddly, they looked an awful lot like baby day lily leaves. I consulted with my equally brown-thumbed hubby and yes, folks, I spent the afternoon pulling out perennials. Not grass. It is particularly pleasing that I figured this out when I was almost finished!

So to drown my sorrows, I had a big bowl of strawberries with homemade whipped cream with dinner. Or at least I held a big bowl of strawberries right up until the point when I saw a big green worm crawling across my berries, at which point dinner was over for me. And thus ends another exciting summer day!