Out and about town

Yesterday was one of those days where we had a lot to do and squeezed the most use out of every minute. The Subaru needed fixing, I needed to run, I made cupcakes, picked berries on a farm, took camping gear to storage, and attended a friend's 40th birthday party!

The Subaru was out of coolant, so they filled it up, but apparently the brake problem was worse than I expected. It's been squealing and making funny noises for the past week, as well as shaking a bit, and apparently the brakes were pretty close to complete failure. Lovely! Anyway everything is fine now.

When we got back, I did a run, though I didn't make it to 30 minutes because it was really hot. Usually I run earlier, like about 6 a.m. rather than 8:30, and it's very hot these days. My softball team had practice, but I needed to shower and stay in the air conditioning for a bit and recover after the run.

Then we watched some movies and I made chocolate peanut-butter-filled cupcakes for my friend's birthday. I know it's her favorite flavor combination, and it's a recipe from Martha Stewart's cupcake book that I've been dying to try. The cupcakes were complicated, but really fun to make.

By the time the cupcakes were finished, my friend Jackie came up and we drove to Valley Orchard, one of my favorite places on the planet. Apples are usually the order of the day at this farm, but they won't be in season for another two weeks. But we did come away with hefty piles of raspberries and blueberries.

Jackie had never been fruit picking before, and we had a great time. I want to bring her and her boyfriend Brian back to the orchard when the apples are up in the mid-autumn.

When we got back, I packed the fruit away and helped Dave get all of our camping gear, used in Wisconsin last weekend, into a tub for storage. And I was able to get baby blanket stuff out of storage so I can work on a beautiful blanket for my friend Amanda's baby shower in August.

After we dropped the storage stuff off, we headed over to Stacy's surprise party. We got there about 15 minutes before she did, and when she walked in, she was obviously so surprised. It's her 40th birthday, but she doesn't look it!

I got to break in my cherry pattern dress, which I bought right after college and have never been able to squeeze into - until now. Woo!

So, it was a busy day, but I had a lot of fun and got to spend time with friends and out of doors. Today is our last softball game of the regular season, so more fun outside time. (My hair is getting some nice blonde streaks!) And what's more, my mom stopped by this morning with a surprise visit to give me a pile of zucchini and summer squash! Looks like I'm going to be whipping up some zucchini bread very soon...