Sunday, August 7

Up around 7:30, and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Mother came over while I was getting ready for the day.

We spent the morning making greeting cards. Then for lunch, we had the beans cooked in the slow cooker last night. I had planned to let the beans simmer overnight, but when I checked them at 10 p.m., I discovered they were done. So I put them into a soup keeper and refrigerated them.

My plan for our Sunday lunch was to have the beans with a potato dish, and a squash dish. But the beans were so juicy that they were more like soup, so we served them in bowls, with a choice of cornbread or biscuits. The soup was pretty tasty...Mother ate a generous serving, with two hunks of cornbread, and Hubbie ate two big bowls of it, with several hunks of cornbread.

I usually prefer pinto beans, but this time I used white beans, adding a can of low-sodium chicken broth, a can of low-sodium beef broth, cubed lower-sodium ham, diced carrots, onions, and banana peppers, along with no-sodium seasoning, pepper, and paprika.

Mother went home after lunch, and Hubbie and I ran a few errands...to a pharmacy store to use the $3 and the $1 coupons on hygiene products (which were also exempt from tax today), and to the WDCS for a few grocery items. While I was there, I decided to look for a pair of white tennis shoes, and found some that I liked...so I bought two pairs. I also bought an umbrella for Mother, since hers is beginning to wear out. The shoes and umbrella were tax exempt.

Back home, Hubbie decided to stay home while I went to the store that has a sale every weekend to see if there was anything I could use that would fall under the tax-free status. I found a pair of on-sale sunglasses to replace the pair I now have that are missing a nose piece. I used a gift card Hubbie gave me for Christmas to pay for the glasses, but I fully expected to have to pay tax on them. To my surprise, though, they were tax-exempt, too.

Folks were out in force today taking advantage of the tax-free weekend. The purpose for the tax exemptions was to give a break to parents and students shopping for school clothes and supplies, and to boost sales for businesses. But so many items (completely unrelated to school clothes and supplies) fell under the exemption, that almost everybody should have realized tax savings.

On the way to the store, I noticed a dark cloud to the southwest...looked like heavy rain...but it never arrived in our town. Later, at home, I learned storms had rolled through towns south of us. In the capital city, a couple of hours south, a severe storm occurred, with winds up to 77 mph, that downed power poles and trees, and caused a power outage. We desperately need rain, but not storms, thank you.

It's been another scorching day, with the temp over 100 degrees. It was horribly hot yesterday, too. So much so, that for the first time in years, we opted out of going downtown to watch the water carnival parade. The parade is usually the only event of the carnival that we participate in. Nothing else appeals to us, since we aren't interested in the canoe races, the midway rides, or the entertainment on the river.

This coming weekend, if the weather cools somewhat, we might go to a nearby town for a watermelon festival. It's a fun and different festival at the city park that includes interesting vendor booths. During the afternoon, local watermelon growers serve huge slabs of free watermelon. We're not especially interested in the watermelon, but sometimes I find a vendor selling buckets of pears or other fruits inexpensively.

Later, we watched the 2006 comedy, "White Coats," starring Dan Acroyd. A group of interns are assigned to a down and out hospital. Sex and silliness ensues.