Robin was bored, so she made these enormous, head-sized peanut butter cookies filled with buttercream frosting. I love that she spent time doing something to entertain herself besides sitting alone in her room on her phone. The cookies taste good, but they are a lot. They look pretty impressive.
Category: July 2026
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July 30
We went to Robin’s freshman orientation today. I MIGHT have cried when it started. How can I be old enough to have a kid in high school? I feel like I just graduated myself. Robin signed up for color guard, which makes me so happy. I remember loving color guard in high school. We were terrible and there was all sorts of pointless drama and we had so much fun. She also signed up for beach volleyball, which will start in the spring. The school is enormous and every single hallway looks identical. They are identified by letters, but for some reason they are labeled with numbers. That would make me insane. I’m really excited for Robin. I think she’s excited too. We’ll see how long that lasts after the school year starts.
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July 29
Christina had friends from dance performing as mascots in tonight’s Jumbo Shrimp game, so we got some tickets to go watch. Unfortunately, this was the weather situation. After about an hour, they called the game. We still got our stadium food, at least. You’d think I’d be annoyed about wasting a night sitting at a baseball game in the rain with no baseball, but I kind of had fun. I love being at the ballfield, game or no game. It makes me happy. It helps that we were dry.
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July 28
I FINALLY finished building the foundation for the patio today. After more than three months, it feels overwhelmingly awesome to finally have this done. I have a lot of gravel left over, but that is still better than not having enough. I got it up to the height I needed and it looks pretty good. I’m very, very proud of it. I can’t wait to see some pavers down, maybe this weekend. We are coming down the home stretch!
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July 27
I got a nice birthday present and the gravel delivery arrived before 7am so I could get it moved before starting work tomorrow. Saved myself two hours. I used the rest of the day to knit and read, and then we went to Cooper’s Hawk for dinner. We didn’t love it – the food was excellent, but we didn’t enjoy the atmosphere. It was loud and not very intimate or cozy. I got a very good martini, though, and toasted Mom with the rest of the family. Nice birthday.
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July 26
I realized about a third of the way in today that I still don’t have enough gravel to finish the patio foundation. I just about lost the will to continue. Then I thought I’d just continue until it was done no matter what it took. In the end I ordered another 85 bags of gravel, which are coming tomorrow. I think I only need 50, but after this purchase, the patio is just going to be at whatever height it is. I’d rather have 30 extra bags of gravel than not enough. I’m so over this! Went out to dinner with Lauren and Monica at a nice Italian restaurant in St. Augustine. That was nice.
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July 25
I finished sewing the National Parks tapestry. I’m not thrilled with it. A lot of puckering, several holes where the seams just didn’t happen. But it could definitely have come out worse. I think I’m going to stitch a pattern into it to try to hide some of the flaws. We’ll see if that makes it better or worse!
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July 24
I pulled out my knitting the other day. Haven’t worked on this in a while. Still a very long to go on this one. We ordered in pizza from Renna’s tonight and it was delicious, as always. I feel like I worked very hard today and have very little to show for it. I don’t really like days like that. At least it’s Friday.
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July 23
Lately the inspiration isn’t there. So we have pictures of dirty pots. We called Aunt Cathrine for her birthday. It was nice catching up with her. Sounds like she’s doing well. The day was otherwise uneventful; went for a run, went to work, made dinner (stuffed pork chops and rice).
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July 22
The kids had their annual physicals today. Christina managed to escape her shot, but Robin was not so lucky. Christina had been so nervous about it that her blood pressure was 146/78. It went down to 126/71 after she found out she was good. They are doing ok, but if Christina was that scared about a shot, I hate to think how she is going to handle having blood drawn tomorrow.
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July 21
Took the car in for service today, learned I had a nail in my tire, walked out with a patch instead of a new tire, and called it a good day. Watched Hoosiers again with Billy. Still a good movie.
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July 20
Busy day with cleaners coming, AC maintenance, and work. We played Mount Cleverest after dinner, which was fun. Even Robin played without any pleading necessary. We haven’t had a game night in a while. The kids need something to do. They are so bored.
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July 19
The girls and I went to the beach in the morning. Christina and I actually swam a little – well, stood in water deep enough that it went above my shoulders. Christina and I could have stayed longer, but Robin was done after about an hour. I spent the rest of the day doing chores (ugh, Sundays) and working on the tapestry. I modified the design a little from my original plan and I feel much better about it. Still don’t have a clear idea how to execute, but I’ve been in that position before, so we’ll see what happens.
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July 18
I moved all the patio gravel to the backyard by myself in three hours. It was so much easier this time than last time. I didn’t understand why until I realized it was because I moved 7 tons less than last time. But still, it’s done, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, and now I’m ready for the last lift before laying pavers. I cannot wait. I used the rest of the day to plan a tapestry for Billy to display all his National Parks patches and pins. I came up with a killer idea that involves old t-shirts, quilting, and wood etching. Because it would be TOO EASY to just hang up a plain piece of fabric. Who does stuff like that??
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July 17
We went to Robin’s horse camp awards show and got to see her ride. The photographer had photos of her on a horse smiling with teeth. I haven’t seen a teeth smile from Robin in so long that I forgot what it looked like. Riding makes her so happy, and that makes me happy. You can’t of course tell that from MY photo, but she was very focused on pretending not to know us in front of her friends.
Year in Photos 