A cow, a stop sign, some corn, and some strawberries. Lots of strawberries.

That was my weekend.

I will break it down a little further for you.

Daisy and I hit the open road to head to Lubbock. We haven't driven in it in a while, so she was a little unsettled the entire first half of the ride there. I got to drive about halfway to Lubbock with this staring at me from my lap. It was pretty special. By the time we got halfway, she did retreat to her special space in my trunk, and I didn't see her again until we were almost there.

Now, if you remember, one of the last times I drove out to Lubbock, I had an unfortunate meeting with a coyote that refused to leave the road. Well, this time, it wasn't a coyote. At one point in the road, I looked over to the left, out my driver's side I see a cow. Yes, a cow. And yes, it scared the bejesus out of me. (p.s. is that how you spell 'bejesus'?)

While these signs are posted all along the route, I still didn't expect to see a bovine princess staring at me from my side of the barbed wire fence.

The trip had been plugging along smoothly (albeit speed-limit-ly) when I notice a canvas flagmen sign on the side of the road. I decide to slow it down a bit, just in case there actually is a flagman, when I'm met with this.

Initially, he walked out in the road to stop me (for which I stopped), but then left the middle to go talk to his chums over on the side. Notice that there are no cars anywhere to be found. I asked the flagman in the best sign language I could muster, if I could move on. He shouted no, and pointed to the sign. (You know, in case I wasn't sure what to do.)

A few mintues of confused, traffic-free silence later, a truck leading a caravan comes down the other side of the road. He turns around and pulls in front of me, leading me and the bazillion cars piled up behind me down the road.

By the time that we got to the Lubbock Loop (which has, at times, taken me an hour to navigate), Daisy was over the whole road trip. She was sitting on my lap, leaning over my arm for most of our time on the loop. In this picture, I believe she was using her eyes to say "OMG. Can we just be there already?!"

Whew. All that was just the trip there.

When I got there, we had lots and lots of strawberries and things to make strawberry margarita jam. For the most part, it went well. We had lots and lots of jam.

I brought some home. It does, however, have the consistency of strawberry margarita syrup. I'm hoping it will gel more in the fridge, so I can give some to my cuter than cute neighbor. Oh, and my team and my room mom, and maybe a few other nice people. But most definitely my neighbor. I digress.

If you'd like the details on how this was all made, my auntie will tell you all about it. I'm here to talk about my contribution.

In case you were wondering about the neat little rows of jam jars, all dainty and cute, and thinking to yourself, what part of dainty and cute were you involved in? Well, the answer is here my friend:

Ellie and Elvis assured me that it tasted delicious. This right here is proof that God has a sense of humor but still loves His little ones. And I can assure you that He gets a great deal of humor out of me. See, this scenario here I'm sure gave Him a good laugh, but if I hadn't moved out of the way, I would have been hospital-bound with second degree burns. As it was, I didn't get a drop on me.

After the strawberry jam extravaganza, there was corn. Good bits of corn. I learned how to shuck it and de-cob it. Or un-cob it. Whatever.

Daisy even got in on the action. By the way, as auntie learned, giving the dogs a cob of corn is a BAD idea. Just lettin' you know.