SuperIma Sunday Check-In: Featuring Random Photos!

This morning I made breakfast for my family and our guests.  You know, like a breakfast with pancakes and omelets, which required preparation and clean-up and running the dishwasher.  This rare occurrence of extensive breakfast prep so baffled Nathan that he actually asked me if it was dinnertime.  I haven't had such a proud moment of domesticity since we stayed in that hotel room with an iron and Nathan asked me what it was.

My main goal after breakfast was to go out and pick raspberries in the yard.  We have these raspberry bushes, courtesy of the previous owners of our home, and most years I admit that the raspberries wither and die before I get around to picking them.  But with raspberries costing $4/box at the farmer's market, I figured I practically had a gold mine that was going to waste.

So I picked some raspberries:

Remember when I photographed some strawberries in this same container?  I really think it's just a very photogenic container.  

While I was picking the raspberries, Nathan was playing in his brand-new Spiderman sprinkler that his grandparents got him.  It really is a very cool sprinkler, because Spiderman's hands are positioned so that the water looks like the webs he shoots out of his hands.   

I was hoping to capture Nathan's exuberant sprinkler time on camera, but by the time I finished picking the raspberries he was onto another activity.  He said he would be willing to photograph me playing in the sprinklers, so:

 

May you always be as carefree as a run through the sprinklers on a hot summer day.  May you not always agonize about how you think you look fat in photographs.  

I'm putting these photos in to distract you from the fact that I haven't really thought of anything substantial to say for this check-in.  I've been having fun with our guests and focusing on keeping everybody fed, and I haven't really looked past this holiday weekend.  Plus you know how a three-day weekend always makes Sunday feel a lot less serious?  Sunday goes from "time to plan for the week ahead" to "screw you, real life responsibilities, because the weekend will go on forever!"  

So, I really haven't thought that much about this upcoming week.  

I did a good job on last week's goals, though.  I mentioned last week that my goal was to get out the door by 8:30 a.m., because I hate those days where I just putter around all morning and don't get anything accomplished.  Original SuperIma LeighAnn and my sister-in-law-once-removed Kimberly commented that they hate those kinds of days, too, and that made me feel less alone in my frustrations.  (BTW Kimberly is my "sister-in-law-once-removed" because she is my brother's sister-in-law, or my brother's wife's brother's wife.)  

Anyway it was good to be made aware of the benefits of getting out the door early.  I wasn't really officially out by 8:30 every single day, but, as I always say, I achieved the spirit of the goal.  

I also achieved my goal of finishing two books, although this week I was really slumming it with my reading choices.  First I read Pretty Little Liars, which is a YA trash fiction series that I'd hoped would be more substantial than it looks on the surface, and/or a really harmless guilty pleasure.  It was neither.  It was just shallow and embarrassing.  Initially I thought I might just finish out the series anyway, because I guess I am vaguely curious how some loose ends will get tied up.  But then I realized there are like 14 books (and counting) in the series, and that might be a few too many.  I could probably live my life without finding out how things end for that particular group of fictional characters.  Or else I could just watch the TV show version.  

The second book I read was Sarah Dessen's new book What Happened to Goodbye.  It was in the adult section of the library Hot Copies shelf, but this book was not meant for readers over 16.  What distinguished this book from other YA books I have enjoyed was that it was completely realistic: no vampires, werewolves, or futuristic societies.  It's funny how a fantasy YA book seems like a fun, light read for any age, whereas a book about a real teenager and her real whiny problems feels too young for an adult to be reading. 

So, those two books made me want to go back to honest-to-goodness, made-for-adults books.  So now I'm reading Kristen Hannah's Night Road, which is not the least bit light and involves the repercussions of a drunk-driving death.  Maybe after this heavy book I'll be ready for Pretty Little Liars Book #2.

In conclusion, I hope that by including fun pictures and brief literary discussion, I have compensated for the fact that I have in no way written a proper check-in here.  

Have a good holiday, everyone!