50 shades of summer - june

June brought some unexpected challenges but I still was able to knock off eleven things on my 50 Shades of Summer list. Three involved cooking (#10, #13 and #19) and three more were movie watching (#18, #20 and #25). The remaining five were stand alone solo items (#11, #15, #29, #38 and #39).

Summer fun!

Planting my herb garden was the first thing I did because I wanted the plants to be established before the extreme heat hit. My basil, parsley, chives and mint are thriving and I am enjoying having fresh herbs when I need them. I also got great local produce at the Gilbert Farmer's Market. I will be going back often for "peaches and cream" (also called bi-colored) corn!

I have wanted to try homemade popsicles for some time. After purchasing a popsicle mold from Amazon and reading some recipes online I was ready to try my own - blueberry, peach, banana with vanilla yogurt. Oy vey! How could something good for you also taste soooo good?! Avocado seems to be a popular flavor - I may try those next just because it seems like an unlikely popsicle flavor. We had gazpacho, a cold vegetable soup of Mexican origin, on a hot evening - very refreshing! And I made avocado chicken salad (a new recipe!) to go with it. I will definitely be making that again!

I listened to a lot of great music (and some not so great!) deciding what to include in my "Summertime Playlist." I selected 17 tunes ranging from Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind" to the Beatles "Here Comes the Sun" and Kenny Chesney's "Summertime." It is my new favorite playlist! Watching a live performance (Big Pete Pearson) at the Desert Botanical Garden reminded me how much I enjoy jazz and the corn fritters at Gertrude's before the concert were delicious.It was our first concert at the Garden but I'm quite sure it won't be our last!

The summer blockbuster, Jaws, was released on June 20, 1975 and we watched it again 38 years later on June 20th. Did you know that the most often quoted line of the movie ("We're gonna need a bigger boat!") was ad libbed by Roy Scheider who played Brody? And the movie was just as suspenseful this time as it was decades ago on the big screen! We were surprised to find a packed house when we saw Stories We Tell, a documentary, at the Camelview Theater and a considerably less than full house when we saw Man of Steel. I enjoyed both movies but thought Stories We Tell was a little slow.

I was surprised I only made it to one of the four coffee shops on my list. Grove Coffee is on the campus of The Grove Church on Gilbert Road. The coffee shop is cute, quiet, inviting and serves great coffee drinks. It's open seven days a week and is a well-kept secret!

That was June. I can't wait to see what fun things July brings...