Finally meeting a goal

This is our route next month. Instead of staying in 6 towns, we will stay in only 3: Frankfort, Leland and Traverse City, all on Lake Michigan so we plan to be on the beach. During the early days of the ride, we'd go from one coast of the state to the other. Now we are confined to the little finger of the mitten.

Things can happen in a second. I had just gone the other way 5 minutes previous to come back and find this in my way. No one seemed to be injured

someone was still walking around in this van. I assume he could get out through the window. No police had showed up yet

Navajo sand painting. It is signed. Maybe worth something

I had promised myself if by some rare chance I would weigh this little again, I would take a photo of me in a bathing suit or at least wearing my big pants all stretched out with little me in the middle, sort of a before and after photo in one. Maybe I still will but not today. I am now a quarter pound below my original goal though that still puts me above my unchubby hubby. It's been 8.5 months since I started this: 68 pounds lost which is embarrassing that I could have been so big. Embarrassing that I was fat in all my kids' weddings (4 of them) so fat Sue is front and center looking her worst in the photos. In the last one, I am wearing some kind of clingy top which shows my lopsidedness to full advantage: One tiny rock hard boob way up there and big, massive jug way down there. Sigh. Those at least are fixed though criss-crossed with scars. From a distance they look OK.

Today is the most hot and humid it has been all week. Again, we seem to be in some sort of rain shadow. Rain all around except here. I spend much time watering and filling bird baths.

Despite the oppressive heat, Shanna ran her first 5K today. She has been training all winter in the few hours that she is kid free. Running is especially hard for her as she seemed to have some sort of lung damage from one of the many antibiotics she took as a child. Before that happened, she could ran just fine as I put the kids in 1 mile races when they were young. On the first day of high school, the cross country coach looked at her tiny body and assumed she'd be a great runner. Not with asthma.

I was out there this morning too. A doe and twin fawns jumped out in front of me. Then I bicycled as thunderstorms are threatening my big ride tomorrow.

A pair of orioles went searching for my feeder today. I hadn't seen the male in a few weeks so I had put the oranges away. If desperate, there are hummingbird feeders and tons of service berries for them. I hadn't seen the female all season. And yesterday, two female rose breasted grosbeaks on my suet cake at once. The males are so pretty but not the girls. In my garden, lettuce, swiss chard and kale are ready to harvest. I have 3 inch long yellow squash. I had planted asparagus roots a few weeks ago though it will be 2 years before I can harvest them more than once. A chipmunk bit off the sprout which would have meant the death of the plant. But more sprouts have formed and have opened up to the feathery leaves so they will survive.

My poison ivy lesions have healed to the point that there are no more open sores and they do not itch so I thought I could finally get a mani/pedi. The woman made a face when she saw a healed sore on one of my fingers. What's that? she asked accusingly. I said it was not contagious. Still she sighed and then put on gloves. But now I have beautiful sparkly orange nails.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. We will have 2/3 of the kids over for early dinner.