After the extreme heat of the last week or so the weather this weekend was just perfect! From midday Friday on I have been able to have the windows open at home and enjoy the summer breezes through the house. While the weekend didn’t contain a lot of “big” things it was full of lots of simple pleasures.

Simple Salad – On Friday I turned the stove on once to boil some chicken breasts & then enjoyed a simple and delicious chicken salad throughout the weekend. (Here’s the “recipe” – 3 parts diced chicken, 1 part golden raisins, 1 part roughly chopped walnuts, mayonaise to moisten, salt & pepper to taste.)

Simple Sweet – Breakfasts & desserts this weekend were easy yummy yogurt parfaits (vanilla yogurt, fresh cherries (pitted) & a bit of granola).

Simple Knit – While I have many projects on the needles right now my weekend knitting was focused on the current baby blanket – one of the baby boys was born last weekend so I need to get this blanket finished quickly.

Simple Sounds – As I’ve mentioned before, Pink Maritini is my favorite band. They recently released a live concert to be broadcast on PBS stations during the pledge drive. While I didn’t see the show on my local station, I was able to purchase the concert on DVD when I became a member of the station. The DVD was waiting for me in my held mail.

On Saturday evening my good friend Elaine came over – she travels for work as well so we hadn’t seen each other since before the holidays (yikes!). Indeed, we exchanged Christmas (2005) gifts. We went to our favorite Thai restaurant for dinner – because the weather was so nice we sat outside. As dinner progressed a bit of rain moved in but as others fled inside we continued to sit outside and finished dinner with a few raindrops. After dinner we came back to my place to chat & had the Pink Martini DVD as background.

On Saturday I finished reading the Yarn Harlot’s latest book, Knitting Rules. This was a fun read and refresher about knitting basics. When this book was released I looked forward to seeing when she would be coming to Chicago. Unfortunately her tour schedule and my work schedule are in conflict – she will be at My Sisters Knits on Monday evening when I’ll be back in Chattanooga. Chicago Knit Bloggers, I’m looking forward to reading your accounts of her visit.

After church today I braved the crowds to check out the brand new Target that just opened about 4 blocks from my house. This land was once a shopping center that had a Venture, then a K-Mart and then it sat empty & in disrepair for a while. Driving by today you would never know the previous life of the property – this Target covers the entire plot of land with the parking on the ground level & the store above. Of course everyone was checking out the store today – it is a great addition to the neighborhood. The only downside to the visit was because it is brand new there were no “clearance” end caps to check out (or maybe that is a good thing, because my cart always tends to fill up when I see those).

User error (mine) in booking my flights to Chattanooga means that I don’t head south until early, early on Monday morning – instead of being enroute to the airport right now I’m enjoying the sounds of the neighborhood & summertime breeze through the open windows. A few simple summer things!

What simple summer pleasures have you enjoyed recently?