The world's largest zucchini
...and other snippets of life.
We have been getting produce from people as of late. Last week, our next-door neighbor dropped off a bag of tomatoes from her garden. (Also, while I was gone, they replaced the bad gate through which Molly always got out and also put in a small patio, but I digress.) And, a coworker of my dad's gave him this freaking huge zucchini. It was about a foot and a half long and probably a foot around at its widest. We've been trying to use the tomatoes in little things for several days now, but what to do with the zucchini? Last night dad made zucchini stir-fry, I guess you could say, to go along with some steak-like objects. (I say it that way because he broiled them, and he's not used to the new broiler yet. With our old, under-the-oven broiler, when the food smelled done it was done. With the new, in-the-self-cleaning-oven broiler, if the food smells done, it's already burned. But the inside was okay, and if you smothered the meat in enough barbecue sauce it was perfectly edible.) Overall the zucchini was fine, but dad left the skin on and that definitely was not meant to go in the mouth. We have plenty left over, and since today's pasta night, I'll probably make my own pasta/zucchini concoction.
Dad bought a new modem (I think) for the computer yesterday as well. Our old one was flaking out on us, but it took a while for the new one to start working. Today it seems fine, though.
I'm basically done unpacking from camp. I even made room in my closets for my luggage again; my big bag hadn't been in my closet since my birthday, when I got a closet organizer that displaced it. I also did some laundry, and let me say that Spray 'n' Wash is awesome. I had three problem items: My U2 shirt, which got discolored when I sprayed bug spray on it; my mud hike jeans, caked in mud (natch); and my denim bag, which had melted chocolate in the pocket. Icky, all of them. However, Spray 'n' Wash took care of all the stains, and even removed two-year-old mud hike stains from the jeans. I'm totally sold.
More on camp: It was called to my attention by someone who shall remain nameless (*cough cough c_in_quotes cough*) that perhaps I should put some camp pictures online. Actually, I have attempted to do so. Unfortunately, something is wrong with the version of Photoshop I have...it will load, but the top-of-screen toolbar (file, edit, help, etc.) does not appear! I've never seen this happen. Bah. So, well, I have no other way of getting the hard copies of the pictures onto my computer so that I can put them online. There's more than just camp stuff that I want to put up here, too; I found the South Dakota pictures I wanted the other day, for instance. (In fact, it was while I was working to scan those pics and one other that I discovered the problem. Restarting the computer did not help. Perhaps the whole program will have to be reinstalled. Grr.)
I opened my bank statement today. Last month I went below the minimum amount for my checking account and got charged an $8 fee. I groaned, made a note of it, and made a deposit ASAP. Now, this month, the same charge appeared. Um, what? I called them up, and the problem appears that I got charged the fee right at the end of my statement cycle. I didn't fix the problem until after the start of the next cycle, though all of this happened in the month of July. The woman on the phone was nice about it and reversed the charge...but I won't believe it until I see it. Overall my banking experience has been positive (I've been with them for a decade now), but every few years there's an issue that comes up. Also, one of the last times I went in I took a bunch of coins, including full-sized dollar coins and smaller, Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea coins, and they didn't know what to do with them. The girl helping me had never even seen a full-sized dollar coin, but considering most of them were older than I am, that almost didn't surprise me--almost. And the smaller dollar coins weren't counted as such even though I told her specifically that they were dollars. *sigh* But I ended up a penny ahead, as I ended up miscounting a roll of coins a long time ago. (I basically cleared out a piggy bank.)
Wow. I had a list in my head of a bunch of stuff I wanted to discuss, and now I can't think of anything else. I suppose that's a good thing. I was just glad to have today off. I caught up on all the old newspapers that have been sitting around the house for over a week. We are down to today's paper, a bunch of coupons I need to clip, and a couple of older articles my parents were reading. That's all. Hurray!
And, best of all: School started today. God bless us, every one.
We have been getting produce from people as of late. Last week, our next-door neighbor dropped off a bag of tomatoes from her garden. (Also, while I was gone, they replaced the bad gate through which Molly always got out and also put in a small patio, but I digress.) And, a coworker of my dad's gave him this freaking huge zucchini. It was about a foot and a half long and probably a foot around at its widest. We've been trying to use the tomatoes in little things for several days now, but what to do with the zucchini? Last night dad made zucchini stir-fry, I guess you could say, to go along with some steak-like objects. (I say it that way because he broiled them, and he's not used to the new broiler yet. With our old, under-the-oven broiler, when the food smelled done it was done. With the new, in-the-self-cleaning-oven broiler, if the food smells done, it's already burned. But the inside was okay, and if you smothered the meat in enough barbecue sauce it was perfectly edible.) Overall the zucchini was fine, but dad left the skin on and that definitely was not meant to go in the mouth. We have plenty left over, and since today's pasta night, I'll probably make my own pasta/zucchini concoction.
Dad bought a new modem (I think) for the computer yesterday as well. Our old one was flaking out on us, but it took a while for the new one to start working. Today it seems fine, though.
I'm basically done unpacking from camp. I even made room in my closets for my luggage again; my big bag hadn't been in my closet since my birthday, when I got a closet organizer that displaced it. I also did some laundry, and let me say that Spray 'n' Wash is awesome. I had three problem items: My U2 shirt, which got discolored when I sprayed bug spray on it; my mud hike jeans, caked in mud (natch); and my denim bag, which had melted chocolate in the pocket. Icky, all of them. However, Spray 'n' Wash took care of all the stains, and even removed two-year-old mud hike stains from the jeans. I'm totally sold.
More on camp: It was called to my attention by someone who shall remain nameless (*cough cough c_in_quotes cough*) that perhaps I should put some camp pictures online. Actually, I have attempted to do so. Unfortunately, something is wrong with the version of Photoshop I have...it will load, but the top-of-screen toolbar (file, edit, help, etc.) does not appear! I've never seen this happen. Bah. So, well, I have no other way of getting the hard copies of the pictures onto my computer so that I can put them online. There's more than just camp stuff that I want to put up here, too; I found the South Dakota pictures I wanted the other day, for instance. (In fact, it was while I was working to scan those pics and one other that I discovered the problem. Restarting the computer did not help. Perhaps the whole program will have to be reinstalled. Grr.)
I opened my bank statement today. Last month I went below the minimum amount for my checking account and got charged an $8 fee. I groaned, made a note of it, and made a deposit ASAP. Now, this month, the same charge appeared. Um, what? I called them up, and the problem appears that I got charged the fee right at the end of my statement cycle. I didn't fix the problem until after the start of the next cycle, though all of this happened in the month of July. The woman on the phone was nice about it and reversed the charge...but I won't believe it until I see it. Overall my banking experience has been positive (I've been with them for a decade now), but every few years there's an issue that comes up. Also, one of the last times I went in I took a bunch of coins, including full-sized dollar coins and smaller, Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea coins, and they didn't know what to do with them. The girl helping me had never even seen a full-sized dollar coin, but considering most of them were older than I am, that almost didn't surprise me--almost. And the smaller dollar coins weren't counted as such even though I told her specifically that they were dollars. *sigh* But I ended up a penny ahead, as I ended up miscounting a roll of coins a long time ago. (I basically cleared out a piggy bank.)
Wow. I had a list in my head of a bunch of stuff I wanted to discuss, and now I can't think of anything else. I suppose that's a good thing. I was just glad to have today off. I caught up on all the old newspapers that have been sitting around the house for over a week. We are down to today's paper, a bunch of coupons I need to clip, and a couple of older articles my parents were reading. That's all. Hurray!
And, best of all: School started today. God bless us, every one.