I Got It at Ross... And Ross... And Ross

Well, this week got off to a sad start: Monday morning my boss told us all that my coworker Linda was found dead over the weekend, of an aneurysm when she fell out of bed while having a stroke.

Everyone at the company LOVED Linda, so needless to say it was a crappy week. Most of my coworkers clocked out early and just went home on Monday, and none of us felt like doing much work the rest of the week either.

Kevin surprised me that evening and made pesto chicken in the Instant Pot, then served it as a casserole with penne and tomatoes. (I usually do the chicken in the oven and the pasta on the stovetop.)

We also found out that the guy staying with our neighbors, who we thought was "Hardhat's" dad, is actually our neighbor Nicole's dad (or "Ditz" as Kevin prefers to call her.) He spends 75% of his day chain smoking out on the front porch, and Kevin was able to hear bits and pieces of an hour long phone conversation while he was cooking: It seems that he and his wife have separated and he's crashing with his daughter and her family.

I feel for him, but I've also been considering calling the front office to complain about him leaving his cigarette butts all over the grass and the parking lot, since it was a big enough deal for the landlord to threaten to fine me when my sister and my ex did the very same thing a decade ago.

The rest of the week was pretty dull. But Riley slept over at Kassie's Friday night so they could go to Six Flags together the next day.

And so Kevin and I treated his parents to another top-quality meal from Domino's like the previous weekend.

This lovely thing graced us with its presence on the way over:

After dinner we decided to check out the Ross store a few miles from Kevin's parents' house.

We found an adorable pair of artsy boxes that he said would be great as gift boxes if we were to put together an arts and crafts package for Olivia and Hannah. We ultimately decided to get the bigger of the two only, and went on our way and home to feed the cats and watch some Black Sails.

Riley did indeed go to Six Flags the next afternoon, even in the rain. She got soaked but said she had a blast.

Kevin and I stopped by Joanne Fabric and found some great craft supplies on sale, then headed back over to his parents because his mom and Kelly were making Kelly's delicious potato cheddar bacon soup for dinner :)

And Kevin got Liv started on the infamous "Mark and Paul" bit again:

Eventually we had to head back over to Morrisville to pick Riley up from Kassie's. Then Kevin said he was craving ice cream so we stopped at Giant and each grabbed a carton for ourselves.

We had tried to make plans for Riley and Taaro to hang out on Sunday but nothing ever materialized. So Kevin and I invited her to tag along with us while we checked out the Dollar Store and the Ross in Levittown and the Michaels Crafts in Fairless Hills.

Imagine our surprise at Ross when we found a box identical to the smaller one we'd found and passed on Friday night by Kevin's parents' house! And that's when Kevin said,

To which I replied,

So we did. And effectively went to Ross three times in one weekend.

Then we stopped to grab a quick dinner from Wawa and Kevin called his parents to ask if we could "complete the trifecta" and bring it back to their house to have dinner there for the third time this weekend as well :)

And of course it's the end of another month, which means it's time for September's cat pics:

Long Penny Silver:

One of Mrs. Douglass's weirdo speedfreak cats next door:

The Lucky and Odin lovefest continues:

And Penny is ready for dinner: