The co-op had my favorite carrot juice on sale. Score. And natural peanut butter that was so fresh, I could smell it from several feet away when Jeff popped the lid off the bucket.
Last night, my cousin Andrew and his cousin on the other side of his family and Hope and my cousin Kelly from Virginia (who came down for a family shindig today) came over for dinner and games. Kelly was a surprise; Hope was the only one who knew she was coming, and she made the Andrew play 20 questions to guess who the surprise guest was.
We did a roast and potatoes in the crockpot and salad and watermelon and ice cream sandwiches, and everyone said the food was good (though I was a little disappointed with the gravy. We've been wanting a replacement for the canned cream of potato soup we use in the roast, since we're trying to eat less prepackaged stuffs, so I used the base of the potato-corn chowder as a gravy. It had a good flavor, but it was way too thin. This will bear continued experimentation.) No one minded sitting in the living room to eat (I didn't think about poping the leaf in the table until, well, just now) though I'm getting too creaky for sitting on the floor for extended periods of time. We talked about how we're going to grill when the heat breaks (I got a very nice grill for graduation from my folks, but we haven't used it yet, partly out of a case of "get around to its" with getting charcoal and planning food and getting the grill out, but mostly because, especially lately, it's been too damned hot to thinking about grilling outside. I can cook on my stove in my air conditioned house, or I can cook over a hot grill outside in a heat index of 105. Um, let me think really hard about that one...) However, fall and winter will be perfect grilling weather. We played catch-up. We played a rather hilarious game of Apples to Apples. The kittens provided entertainment, and Ellie played fetch with people. It was a good evening.
I slept like a log last night (a rarity lately) and got up to rain (blessed, blessed rain)... and a kitchen full of ants. We are having huge ant issues; it's an old house and not at all air tight. I should have taken the trash out last night and didn't (though Jeff did remember to take out the compost, thank you dear) and the results were about what you'd expect when we had watermelon and ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Luckily, the ants are very concentrated to the trash can and one small patch of counter space, so cleaning them up wasn't a big deal. I've hosed down the kitchen in vinegar (when I'm checking
hip_domestics for help with a household issue, you know I've gone around the bend) and hopefully they'll stay away for awhile. For once, cold weather can't come quickly enough.