Dog Days of Summer...

Sunday August 30, 2015

It truly is the dog days of summer as we had a cool week last week, but since then the mercury has climbed and it’s supposed to be in the high 80s this week.

My sister, Karen, texted me early last week to say they had finally sold their house (for just below the asking price after some negotiations), so of course I offered to help them move.

My husband, Andrew and I drove over on Sunday. I was tasked with helping remove pictures, photographs and art off the walls, empty cabinets and drawers, and help load and unload Karen's SUV. Andrew spent most of the duration rewiring a light switch to their basement (which involved a trip to Home Depot to exchange the switch my sister had bought). He said it definitely took longer than he thought, and I’m sure he didn’t drag out the job just to avoid any heavy lifting. : )

As it was, it only took about two and a half hours and perhaps four trips to get everything over to their new house. Since the movers aren’t coming until next Saturday (over Labor Day wknd), the Weers are still going to live in the old house, so clothing, sofas, the TV, and kitchen supplies have to remain for now. I offered to help them finish up on Saturday after the movers have gone. Since the vast majority of stuff is already at the new house, I figure it shouldn’t be too big a job, and there’s always a sense of accomplishment when you’re done (if only I could start/finish going through my own stuff!).

(photo taken seconds after Lucy suddenly dashed from the room - hence the tennis ball in the middle of the room).

To reward ourselves, we decided to head over to the Mozart Café in Clintonville to use a Groupon I had purchased for a couple gelato samplings and two pints to take home. We were told we had our pick of about half a dozen different sundaes and perhaps ten or so different gelatos for our pints. Since Andrew isn’t a fan of peaches (which 3 of the sundaes contained) or hazelnuts (which another sundae had), he had the Berrylicious sundae, while I ordered the Chocolate Raspberry Sundae (which had a couple small slices of hazelnut pastry). Being a Viennese café, hazelnut products are to be expected, which is why Andrew wasn’t happy with the chocolate selection in Austria since most of them contain hazelnuts.

P.S. I got a bumper crop of mouse melons (and lots of green tomatoes which I am hoping will ripen if I leave them on the vine) and finally tried one. They seem to taste like tiny, crunchy cucumbers (not that I am a very big fan of cucumbers, but I planted 'em, so I'm going to eat 'em!). I put some on my hot dogs this weekend and they certainly did add a certain crispness to the toppings.

Have a good week everyone!