Last week a friend recommended Chocolate Cheerios. She’d bought a box for her grandchildren, who refused to eat it, so she tried it and claimed it was really good. Since she is usually right about questions of style and taste, I bought a box of Chocolate Cheerios when I was at the grocery store yesterday and tried them for breakfast this morning. Her grandchildren are obviously gifted with superior taste.

Chocolate Cheerios have got to be one of the worst cereals ever. In fact, I’ll take that a step further, they are one of the worst FOODS ever. I couldn’t finish the bowl. They were absolutely horrible, and it only got worse as they absorbed more milk. I finally gave up and dumped the remaining half a bowl in the trash. I wouldn’t even have given them to a dog IF I had one.

Instead of wasting the rest of the package, I’ll save it for the next time I see my friend. If I hadn't actually seen her eating a bowl with my own two eyes, I'd have thought she was trying to put one over on me. Apparently she’s like Mikey in the old Life Cereal commercials, she’ll eat anything.   

I'm having 3 friends over for a light supper (too light to call dinner) tonight, after which we're going to play Wizard and watch American Idol.

I cleaned house yesterday, then started assembling the ingredients for hot chicken salad this morning. Things were going well until I decided to have a toasted cheese sandwich for lunch.  I got distracted and it burnt in the toaster oven.  What a nasty lingering odor burning bread leaves! I opened the front and back doors and turned on the ceiling fans. Then I did a quick internet search for helpful hints on how to get rid of a burnt smell in the house.

One suggestion was to set out bowls of white vinegar. My favorite suggestion was to soak a bath towel in white vinegar and water, wring it out, then walk through the room where the smell is the strongest, slinging the towel around in a circle over your head. Supposedly the towel will absorb the burned smell. That may be, and it sounded like fun, but I had visions of cleaning up water splatters from all over the kitchen and dining room floors and walls.  AND a fear of being committed if someone should come to the door and see me twirling around the kitchen/dining area with a wet towel over my head.  lol   I stuck to the bowls of vinegar and it does seem to have helped.  As fate would have it, I recently bought a bottle of white vinegar, instead of the golden variety, though that might have worked also.

But what helped the most was the homemade chocolate fudge pie I just baked.   I do love an excuse to make a pie. Now I have a new one. If the house smells, it must be time for chocolate fudge pie.

I'm much too tired to make a proper blog, so I'll just post these pics of my son's family in Colorado... six from their camping trip, three of their 4th of July tattoos, a hailstorm they had a few days ago,  their new house from the back, my granddaughter in their flower garden, wild bunny at camp, and my youngest grandson at Space Camp.

My little granddaughter just celebrated her fourth birthday yesterday, and I have the pics to prove it.

 

She of course woke up while they were decorating her room.

Big brother made pancakes for everyone... 7 people since my son's inlaws were visiting.

 

Mmm good!

 

Off to build a dog and her puppy... Diamond and Jewel.

Getting Diamond all ready.

Filling out the adoption papers with mom.

What a nice Princess cake!

But I'm the real Princess!

 

Somewhere between the dog and the cake, they ate at the Olive Garden.  The birthday girl had her favorite Seafood Alfredo (shrimp and scallops), and enjoyed it when the waiters and waitresses sang a song for her.  Then later after the cake and ice cream, there were gifts to open, including a humongous wooden doll house.  No pics of those, they were on video.

I can't believe she's growing up so fast!