Happy Belated Birthday, USA!

I actually did celebrate Independence Day on time, I just forgot to post about it. I’ve been running around like crazy for the past few days. Sunday would be a party at Piper’s place. I needed to bake a pie, a personal goal that I committed to earlier in the week. Beth was going to be coming and staying with me for a few days so I desperately needed to clean my room. Brunch commitments and evening commitments had been made for Saturday so I definitely couldn’t bake or clean much on that day.

Friday was a half day, during which I needed to look at an actual recipe for the pie I was going to make. Tracy had suggested this one from the Smitten Kitchen. On Thursday night I ended up at the farmer’s market in my neighborhood and bought a three pack of strawberry baskets. I was a little worried though because strawberries bought at farmer’s markets are really things that should be eaten right away, instead of four days later. If you throw them in the fridge for four days, they turn to mush.

I think ended up getting all my ingredients together. The pie crust was going to be the most difficult part as it needed to remain cold as it was being made since there  needed to be chunks of butter in it. This actually took two days because I kept needed to throw it in the freezer then  postponing it, since I found myself in a time crunch. I had to pick my sister and her friend up from Anime Expo, which was also happening this weekend.

Saturday found me at my parents house where I brought my sister and her friend the night before. I then zipped off to our monthly brunch at Shore House Cafe. It was good, I finally gave Jamie her birthday gift:

and found that she had bought me a box of Samos… oh sorry, Caramel de-Lites.

Yumz. I then booked it to the optometrist so I could get an eye exam and new prescription. I also ended up buying a new pair of glasses, which was stupid on my part because I forgot that for such a strong prescription like mine, lenses are really expensive. I ended up spending hundreds more than I had hoped.

Later I worked on the pie crust and finallly got it done, well meaning, made but it still needs to be baked with the filling.

When done with that I met up with Patrick and we went to heckle people at Anime Expo, which is where my sister was at the time.

Sunday I woke up early, prepped the crust, threw in the pie filling and baked that sucker. Started cleaning and was in the middle of cleaning when Beth called and said she couldn’t get to my place because of a parade. Low and behold, there WAS a parade, right on my street, in front of my door. Annoying.

Finally I found her and we parked, came back to the apt and proceeded to watch Daria until it was time for the BBQ at Piper’s. The rest is history: