If at first you don't receive

I am hatching a plan to try to convince Dean to give me this bracelet he made yesterday in zoo camp. I want to be subtle about it, and want to leave him a guilt-free out, seeing as he did make it for himself. No, this won't be like the time he made the chipmunk for Grandma and when I saw it I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he could absolutely not give it to Grandma and that he HAD to give it to me (even though he'd already written "to grandma from dean" on the back). I did of course offer to gather the supplies so he could make another one, or something else, for Grandma, but he declined and so it remains forever mine. So anyway, I love this bracelet and it fits me. Wish me luck.

This is the half-way point for Dean's last week of zoo camp. It is about 25 minutes away from our house and my only regret about the drive is that there is not one, single, solitary grocery store on the route (and there are no alternate routes). It's a beautiful drive for the most part, past many small farms and down winding country roads; there are places where people put out little card tables with bounty from their gardens and coffee cans for an honor-system to pay. There's one house -- well two, now that I think on it -- that always seem to have birdhouses for sale. But there's no place to stop for a gallon of milk or the ingredients for Asian Chicken Salad
and alas that means a 15-minute drive in a different direction (30 minutes round trip). So I'm trying to figure out how to live off the fat of our land here and make it a few more days without extra driving. Wish me luck.