I can't tell you the number of times I read yesterday of people who weren't celebrating the 250th because of the various and numerous complaints about this administration. And I wanted to respond to each one, That is exactly WHY you need to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, this 250th. To do nothing because the country is a mess right now, is to let him win and allow the country to continue to go downhill and you with it. But I responded to no one, not even to myself here (until now), because you can't help the hopleless and my words mean nothing to people who have given in and given up. You gotta find those who haven't given up hope and build the coalition. Starting with the children. And while those words I read, over and over and over again, made me sad, I did not let them overcome me.

I had an absolutely lovely afternoon with my children and grandchildren. I was decked out in my 4th of July outfit:

The table was set for fun:

The grandkids and the adults put on temporary tattoos. We had sticker fun:We colored the banner (although there is still a lot left to color):

I had everyone sign their names. And I'll fold it up, and put it in the cedar chest where I keep only the most precious things and the one who is most sentimental when cleaning out my stuff when I die will hold onto it for the 300th (I hope).

We played bingo. We sat outside in the shade eating hotdogs and watermelon and blueberries and chips. The kids played cornhole: It was just a lovely lovely day 🥰

They all headed out to where they needed to be at around 6:30 and I gathered up all the remaining tattoos and stickers and walked down to the county park where many families had gathered (despite the beach being closed because of e-coli--caused by those damn geese) and I handed out stickers and tattoos to the kids at the playground, who were thrilled.

A t-storm came through at 8pm. But the fireworks went on, despite it still sprinkling out. We drove instead of walked. We sat in the car in a parking lot on a hill instead of on a blanket under the big oak. And we saw the main fireworks downtown and the assorted displays all across the city.

And can I say, it felt....normal. For a few hours out of the year, we had a normal day not destroyed by the Assahollah. (And I took a little bit of pleasure at seeing everything he touched was a big fail. And will continue to be.)

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Friday night we watched Project Hail Mary. For all the praise it has received thus far, we both were like, eh, it was fine. It was sweet. It was like the hugely successful ET, which I also rated eh, it was fine. I have to say I liked last year's movies Bugonia and Sinners much better than Project Hail Mary.

Honey began work on the garage. He is reinforcing the roof for rafters so he can take out the floor-to-ceiling supports that currently exist. In the process, he decided he was going to redo the garage door spring which turned out to be a bad idea and forced him to spend several hours getting it back to the way it was. (Which included both of us looking for a half-inch piece of metal that was flung off when the spring sprung. I found it in the corner, behind the garage door track.)

And I ended up having to make the M&M cookie bars twice! The first batch, I used plant-based 'butter' and all the M&Ms sank to the bottom to form a hard crust. So back to the store I went for more red white & blue M&Ms. The second batch I made I used real butter, and they tasted and looked much better.

And that's about it! It feels like a Monday today. I took M-W off so I don't go back to work til Thursday, yay!