Garage Sales, Baseball, and Iowa

But not at the same time.

For some reason, Cedar Rapids seems to be the happening place, and it’s easy to get to from here. This was our second concert trip in that city,  but before we went there we had a garage sale.

Laura and I had our second annual garage sale mid June. We had a garage full of stuff-mostly Laura’s but I put in a good lot.

See all that stuff?  Oh, Laura is in there too but she wasn’t for sale.

Anyway, this is right before we opened for biz, at which time the skies also opened up and it rained and rained until about 9:30-10ish. Well, that sort of dampened the foot traffic, so to speak, but we still didn’t do too bad. We had a lot of clothes but Laura says that doesn’t sell well and it really didn’t. But I got rid of two TV’s and a few other things. Laura got rid of a bunch of garden tools and some plants. I was amazed by what people bought.

Even though we didn’t sell as much as we hoped, we did get a good purge out of it. Next year Dave and I are targeting the garage cause it’s next on the purge list. Gah.

The very next day Dave and I went up to the cities and attended the Twins vs LA game. It was Stitch and Pitch and we had a great time.

The weather was perfect and the Twins won. What more could you ask?

The very next Tuesday we took the dogs to the boarding place and left Minnesota for Cedar Rapids, where we were going to see Brandi Carlile.

She didn’t disappoint.

The opening band was the Secret Sisters. Interestingly, we had heard them singing on the new Prairie Home Companion, which is now called something else and I don’t always listen to anymore. ANYWAY, they were the musical guests so when they came out and started singing and talking I knew who they were. They are very good and I may have to download a few songs, or at the very least get a CD.

I don’t even know why I post these bad selfies.

The venue was fabulous-

The ceiling was looking at us.

Even Brandi and the Sisters commented on the great venue.

The Secret Sisters

They not only sang great, they were pretty funny too.

Brandi Carlile

It was a rockin’ show.

I would see her again and again.

And we had to take an inside bad selfie too. I don’t know what Dave’s looking at. I’m sure it was interesting.

I really really really need to work on this. I’d get a selfie stick but when we were in Ireland we were with a person that had a selfie stick and I swore I would never have one after that. Lord have mercy, that was obnoxious. Maybe I just need an arm extension.

Did I mention the food was good too?

I realize that’s a drink, but it went with good food.

It rained quite a bit while we were there (for less than 24 hours) and the landscape was gray Iowa farm land-which I find very pretty-

It eventually broke up and got a little brighter, but never much sun.

We boarded the dogs and when we got home I figured out that they didn’t follow my instructions for feeding, didn’t give Lacey her pill, and stole the dog light off her leash. AND—Lacey has kennel cough now. She had her bordatella but it’s now always 100% effective. I don’t think she has it as bad as she could.

So they are going back in August I guess. I can’t find anywhere to board my pets that I’m satisfied with. What to do? I don’t know house sitters and Manny isn’t very house broken. That’s the problem. Although he worked and worked on it and he did this last week:

Yep, he got up on the couch so he could steal a bone Lacey hid there. That was the motivation it took. He hasn’t done it since. It was a LOT of work.

Friday was the Hot Air Balloon Rally (or whatever) at Rochesterfest so I saw this when I got to work--

They were super pretty.

Last weekend was the Zombie  Knitpocolypse (or something like that) retreat which had an open marketplace which resulted in impulse buys

Three Irish Girls, and I held back—I could have bought so much more

Oh, and that was after buying some new stuff at Angie’s store so I was in a spending mood.

The Fourth of July is coming up fast fast fast. I am running a half up in the cities on the fourth and I think the heat index is going to be back down to the 80’s. Starting today the dew points are going to be in the 70’s. That’s a lot of air conditioning happening. My training run on Saturday is going to have to be very early.

Dave is traveling to Madison this weekend so I have the house to myself. But not really cause I still have Manny. Yay.

So, that’s all the news for now. I’m home until September, with a brief Grand Forks trip in August. September is travel month for sure with the trip to Norfolk and then to Scotland. Am very excited for that.

And going to the Netherlands in January. Already checked out some yarn stores in Amsterdam.

In the meantime, this-

And Puddy, always finding the out of the way spot for some serious chillaxin’