Too Many Choices

Today I needed to make cookies to take for church tomorrow. Our ladies group is serving the goodies between services. I had everything I needed except peanut butter chips so I ran to Walmart to get some. I hate shopping for food at Walmart but I needed a glass water bottle that my friend said I could get there - but I never found that.  Anyway I grabbed the chips and headed home. Little did I know that they now make packs of "chocolate" chips that are a mixture of PB and milk chocolate. I don't really like milk chocolate, and the recipe I was making calls for PB chips only so I had to separate them.  Remember when all they had was semi sweet chocolate? We got excited when they came up with butterscotch chips, and then PB chips. They could have stopped there. Too many choices just leads to disaster in all kinds of ways! Hopefully I'll figure out something to put the milk chocolate chips in one of these days - until then they are hanging out in my freezer.

I also made some wonderful almond shortbread cookies with raspberry jam in the middle. I found the recipe on Pinterest. They were simple to make and SO yummy!

The heat of June and July is oppessive here and keeping things growing is a challenge. I planted 4 varieties of sunflowers a few months ago and only 2 came up - rats! This is the big one and it was quite spectacular.  It has since given up the struggle and I cut it down so I can save the seeds from the birds. The other one is blooming how and it has 5 buds on it. Kind of strange to see that tall stalk with 5 flowers.

I like to find unusual plants when I go to the nursery and a few months ago I found this one. I forgot to write down the name of it so can't share anything but the beauty/oddity.

I also have gerber daisies, 4 o'clocks, cannas and some groundcover flowers that are happy. My herbs are also doing well - mint, sage, rosemary and basil. I still have a lot of cherry tomatoes.  I've eaten hundreds of them and given away hundreds as well. They are all voluntary and I have no idea where the seeds came from, except they were probably in my compost.

The purple flowers below are palumbo. I love this color. I even traded in a diamond ring and got an ice blue sapphire which is almost the same color. Not a bad trade for a ring I'd never wear again.

I have planted 4 packages of flower seeds in my front flowerbeds. I'm hoping this fall will be very colorful! Stay tuned for the show!