How to Pretend to Be Retired

I didn't do a Friday Frag post last Friday, but I have a very good reason. They hubby and I went up to Hesperia California to visit my mom and her husband for the long weekend.

We love visiting my mom because she lives in a semi-rural area in Hesperia and has a large yard filled with a garden and birds and squirrels and other wildlife. We like pretending we're old retired people with nothing too terribly important to do.

So, what do you do when you're visiting your mom for the weekend in a somewhat small town? Well, I'll tell you:

First you get mani/pedis, of course. I forgot to take toe pictures.

Then you visit a bakery called Bodacious Buns ( I know, right?) and look at the cute cakes on display and wish you knew how to do cake decorating.

It's a couple in a hot tub. Isn't that adorable??

Then you split a scrumptious lemon bar with your mom and talk about how delicious the shortbread crust is and the lemon curd filling and the cream cheese frosting. And you and mom chat with the shop owner about Garden club and organic food and religion.

Then you move on to an antique store that just opened up that your mom's been wanting to go to. And you ooh and aah over all the cute vintage-y things like these jars that have been decoupaged and embellished until they're just too cute for words:

Decoupage, beads, lace, tiny flowers and a glue gun. Couldn't you see your makeup brushes standing up prettily in this?

Love the shape of this one!

After browsing for an hour at the antique store, you go back to mom's and take pictures of her garden:

An old ladder with a few old, worn birdhouses sitting on it makes for cute garden decor, don't you think?

I love Mexican Bird of Paradise. Mom has several of these bushes in her yard.

Then you take pictures of mom drinking wine in her garden:

My beautiful, happy mom.

And you can't resist taking pictures of the sky at dusk because it's so beautiful and every single dusk looks different:

Dusk from Mom's yard

The next day you sit in mom's garden again and you and mom decide that the side of the chicken house needs some paint. You have no mural painting skills whatsoever, but decide to start painting then and there:

Planted myself in the dirt and decided to paint me some flowers on the chicken house.

Then you make your husband take pictures of you and mom painting the chicken house and you make sure and pose like an idiot.

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By then it gets hot, so you go inside and decide you want an agave margarita (of which my step-dad makes delicious ones), but he gets out the blender and you say, no, they were on the rocks last time he made them and he says no, he blends them and you say no, you're sure they were on the rocks, and he says fine, you make them.

So you do. You mix tequila, lime, agave, ice, and a little water in a cocktail mixer and shake it up real good and oh, they are delicious. Then you all laugh about how you bickered over how to make them. Then everyone takes a nap because you made them too strong.

After passing out napping, you finish painting the chicken house:

You can't see it real well, but the left side and the right side are painted tree trunks. Those green things on the top are leaves. Mom had a bunch of old birdhouses, so we nailed them up like they're hanging on the branches of the tree that you can't tell is a tree.

After another beautiful dusk, you help cook dinner and you have delicious homemade ice cream for dessert. Ice Cream made with homegrown figs and peaches:

There's fig ice cream with bourbon sauce, peach ice cream, strawberry ice cream, and carmel ice cream. 

Of course, you have to get up early the next morning to head home and you must take a picture of the pretty sunrise which you can see from your bed:

No filter on this one. Can you see the little sliver of white moon off to the right?

 On the way home you must take pictures of the cloud formations because they are so clear and white:

No filter on this one either. Doesn't it look like a swan, with the neck to the right and the body on the left?

I did put a filter on this one. The sky was just beautiful on the drive home.

And that's what you do when you visit your mom in a small-ish town over the weekend and pretend like you're a retired person.

I can't wait to retire!