This has been quite a week.
1. Our Mason City home is no longer in our hands.
2. I’m going to Bloggy Conference this weekend.
3. Not only am I attending BloggyCon, but I’m a panelist for the first time. Sara invited me to join her and Donna on a panel discussing why local connections matter. Plus, I get to room with Beth! I’ll always have North Iowa to thank for introducing me to such good friends.
4. BloggyCon is located at Cedar Point Amusement Park.
5. There are haunted houses at Cedar Point. I love haunted houses.
6. Cedar Point is located near a Swensons Drive-In, a restaurant we used to patronize regularly for Galley Boy Cheeseburgers and fried zucchini sticks when we visited my grandparents growing-up. I’ve been waiting for this burger reunion for over a decade. Here are some more thoughts on Ohio.
7. It’s my birthday week and I’m cashing in on all of my freebies. Of course, you often have to to sign-up for chain restaurants’ loyalty clubs, but I just use an old email address. I get really excited about my free birthday bagel each year. It’s the small things, right?
Best combo ever: Salt bagel with honey walnut at Bruegger’s or Pretzel with honey almond at Einstein’s.
8. Jake & I booked our first getaway to a fishing cabin on Lake of the Ozarks. We totally don’t know how to fish and I couldn’t put a worm on a hook to save my life, but it’s a new place to explore and the first time we’re bringing Trayse the dog.
9. We enjoyed take-out from a Chinese restaurant so authentic they had to remove crab ragoons from their menu because nobody ordered them for months. Yummy17 is connected to the Asian Supermarket and it’s another gem we learned about from Whiskey Soba’s blog. We didn’t get too adventurous on this visit, but their spicy orange beef, salt and pepper squid, and pork fried rice were better than any version we can remember ordering.
10. Sometimes I find random things so funny that I’ll crack-up for days. Jake fondly refers to these as “Jeni Jokes.” Is this another “Jeni Joke,” he’ll ask when I laugh hysterically at something he doesn’t quite understand.
Every once in a while, I’ll scan the latest TripAdvisor & Yelp restaurant reviews. One local restaurant caught my eye. I remembered hearing about from a couple who also stayed at the same bed and breakfast with us in St. Charles back in May. Over breakfast, they recalled how they were struck by a woman who served them muffins from a basket like they were precious jewels.
I kept scrolling through reviews and noticed diners kept describing a woman dressed in period costume who gave each person one and only one, small blueberry muffin. They couldn’t have more muffins if they asked nicely and they couldn’t have more muffins even when they offered to pay for them. However, they could have more of everything else.
I still can’t stop laughing at this.
