I treated Julie to some pretty, cool, fancy earrings.

She’s been treating me so I decided to treat her!  I realized she didn’t really have any “nice” earrings.  By that I mean jewelry quality.  She’d spied these while she was buying my watch, and I clocked it (pun intended).  So, when I was back at the jewelers recently to have a setting fixed, I picked up these gems (See what I did there again haha.  Side note, they’re differentiated as organic gems since they come from animals instead of rocks).   These are South Sea, Asia black pearls on gold fittings.  I guess they’re her “retirement” earrings.  They have a really cool gray, green, and black iridescence and look really pretty on her too ❤️ 

My birthday week begins with free coffee

I stopped by Subaru to order a part for John’s car.  They offer fresh ground and brewed Starbucks blonde roast Veranda while you wait.  I thought the cups were cool too.  They have every brand we’ve ever owned on them, plus a whole lot more.  This view shows every brand the six of us currently drive.

Something doesn’t seem right here…

As my mom said, “The part where the rubber meets the road is missing”…

As I noted yesterday, I was planning to go to slightly smaller, lighter, and more efficient tires and rims (wheels).  I started that process a week ago Thursday by ordering the new ones from my local tire shop.  I posted my current ones on FaceBook MarketPlace Friday and had them sold by that night.  The new ones weren’t due in until this past Monday so I wanted to wait a bit.  However, the customer offered to pay extra if I would take them off so he could pick them up before the weekend.  Andys stuff is still in the garage, so up it went on jack stands in the driveway. The next morning, while I was taking this pic, I noticed the stands were sinking into the gravel, so I added some planks under the jack stands to stabilize it.  

Brutus looks to wrong and silly sitting there with no wheels…

Julie made me a picture perfect and yummy taco salad❣️

Julie’s feeder is popular with the cats too🤪

Ok, can’t do it!

Julie and the boys have encouraged me to hang onto Brutus.  After driving it around like this for two beautiful days (country roads to break-in my new rear gear set) I agree.  I will probably tone down the tires to something slightly smaller, lighter and more efficient, and won’t do the off-roading trips.  Hopefully, I that will keep the costs and repairs manageable.  Stay tuned 🤪

AND it’s just tooooo pretty!  Especially in the configuration from this pic.

Wow!

A cool pleco that we saw at one of Julie’s favorite fish stores! I have a soft spot in my heart for any plecostomus.  

Blog workflow

I thought you might want to see a week’s worth of my blog pics queued up ready to go and separated by days?

Nobody will ever know…

That I laid my rear Jeep door down in the wrong place and shattered the rear quarter glass.  It’s leaning there against this tree now with my duct tape and cardboard fix in place… I guess I need to investigate a real fix for that now?! This will work in the meantime.  I did it on both the inside and outside to give it the best chance of working and survival. Haha.

I saw this graphic on a news story… Thought it was cool.

Jeeps, Patriotism, America

A good combo.  

Cool coffee package at Boston Stoker

I Ike the red white and blue of their 250th themed bags. 

I like the south east Ohio area.

In the Portsmouth area, I had an interesting view of a couple bridges and a steeple. I couldn’t see much of them, but thought they still looked cool.

On the way back towards Chillicothe, the sun was playing peekaboo behind the hills as it set. I like how you can see the reflection of the colors on the asphalt.  

Then I was off for more miles with the top off

I like the look this way, but it’s honestly not much different from the it feels in the driver seat.  The freedom panels and front doors make it so I don’t feel the need or even desire to take the top off very often.  I’m having another cooldown at the Super Quick, and in the bottom pic, the sunset shaped up to be really nice about the time I was stopping for gas or a cooldown again (I can’t remember). 500 miles over two days was kind of a blur haha.

I lucked into a nostalgic dinner :)”

I’ve been wanting to hit Ponderosa in Hillsboro for years, but it just never worked out.  I needed to pull over and let my gears cool down right about the time I was passing by so decided it was a perfect time for dinner.  Just for old times sake.  

It’s about the same as it ever was, just a lot more expensive.  They push the buffet with your entree, hard! 🤪 I gave in just because we always did growing up.  I got the sirloin tips which came with onions and mushrooms.  

Decent food, good memories.