Dairy Queen

As is our yearly tradition, Gourmet Chef Elaine and I go to Dairy Queen and have an ice cream cone. Our favorite is the chocolate-dipped small-sized beauties shown below.  It was a nice day so we sat outside while we licked the ice cream down to the cones.  And yes, we only do this once a year, which makes it special and something to look forward to.  

Hot Pepper Relish

I had a lot of leftover peppers and decided to try this hot pepper relish recipe to use them up.  Dicing up three cups of multi-colored peppers into little bits took the good part of an hour, but the rest was just combining them with white some vinegar, sugar, chopped garlic, chopped onion, mustard seed, and salt, bringing it to a boil and then simmering for a half hour.  It is a delicious topping for a lunchtime hot dog.

https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/chili-pepper-recipes/sauces/hot-pepper-relish

Shiny Appliances

Gourmet Chef Elaine uses baby oil to keep our stainless steel appliances looking brand new and fingerprint-free.  After cleaning the surface she applies a small amount using a paper towel and it transforms a streaky mess into a perfect shine.  Baby oil contains mineral oil and that's the magic ingredient.  You can read more about why this works so well at the link below.

https://www.housedigest.com/1319288/shine-stainless-steel-appliances-baby-oil

Ohio BMV Express

I saw the Ohio BMV Express machine shown below at our neighborhood Meijer store recently, which turned out to be a convenient way to renew your car's registration.  You just scan your vehicle's renewal notice barcode or the barcode on your current vehicle registration, pay with a credit or debit card, and it will print out your vehicle registration card and license plate sticker.  

I always renew my registration online after I get the notice in the mail, but I can see this would be a great option if you need to renew immediately (i.e. you forgot) and you don't like to wait at the BMV office along with a few dozen others.  

You can find nearby Ohio BMV Express machines at the link below, which in my area appear to be limited to Meijer or Kroger stores.

https://ohiobmvexpress.com

Bald

Contrary to the picture shown below, I'm not really bald.  It's more like I elected to shave most of my head as my hair thinned to the point that I was approaching the dreaded combover look and I wasn't having any of that.  So I shaved it one day and decided that was the better of the two options.  But I never considered any other plusses or minuses to a bald head.

The biggest negative is that I get my hair cut more often than before.  After about four weeks the sides grow out enough to create a "Bozo Effect" (yes, like the clown) and it's not a good look.  So it's back to the barber for a 3-minute, $20-dollar hair clip down to 1/8 of an inch.

The biggest positive is that I don't have to shower first thing in the morning.  Sleeping on my longer hair always resulted in one messed-up hairdo that could only be tamed with a shower.  I also like that drying my hair takes two seconds with a towel and getting caught in a rainshower isn't a big deal anymore.  One swipe of the hand and I'm good to go.

Baby Blanket

I crocheted a baby blanket back in 1980 for my soon-to-be-born baby girl.  I used multicolored yarn to give it an interesting look and used the basic single crochet stitch, the only one I ever learned. I would sit in my living room chair night after night, crocheting as I watched TV, slowly building row after row of stitches until I achieved the somewhat oversized blanket shown below, which she has kept for all these years.  

Vegetable Stand

Mr. and Mrs. Barnett have a vegetable stand (bottom picture below) so far out in the country that Google Street View doesn't have it.  They have tomatoes, corn, beans, onions, peppers, watermelons, and more and it's best to go mid-week for the best selection.  It's a cash honor system, so bring enough fives and ones to make the proper deposit.  It's also good to bring your own large shopping bag(s).

The top picture below was our takeaway, with six large tomatoes, ten huge yellow peppers, and a basket of who-knows-how-many jalapenos, which cost us a total of $7.  That's a bargain!

This Google Maps link will pinpoint the address and when you get there you will turn on a gravel driveway and the stand is immediately on your left.  

https://www.google.com/maps/place/4060+Middle+Run+Rd,+Spring+Valley,+OH+45370

Limoncello Spritz

We began a recent Dorothy Lane Culinary Center class with the Limoncello Spritz shown below.  A single serving has 3 ounces of Prosecco (or another sparkling wine), 2 ounces of Limoncello, and one ounce of soda water.  You can party-size that by replacing the ounces with cups.  Serve on ice with a lemon slice and mint leaves. It's the mint that really makes this stand out.  

Rear Wiper Replacement

I've often used the phrase "It's not hard, but it's not obvious" and my recent replacement of the rear wiper blade on our Infiniti QX60 is a perfect example.  I could not figure out how to get the old wiper blade off and I've learned from experience that applying too much force is not a good idea.  So I headed over to the Perplexity AI chatbot and asked "Find me a video of someone replacing the rear wiper on a 2018 Infiniti qx60" and it returned a perfect link to the YouTube video below.  After viewing it, I understood how the blade was attached and that removing it would require a fair amount of force.  Armed with this knowledge, I replaced it in under a minute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7oLuUksZq4

At Least We Made It

The picture below was all we saw for 2 1/2 hours on westbound I-70 back in February as we began our trip to Fort Lauderdale for a week-long cruise on the Celebrity Ascent.  The two-page blog post at the link below details the four crises we went through over the two-day journey.  The short story is we almost hit a semi, we might not have had a hotel room in Indianapolis, our flight was delayed five hours, and we thought all our luggage would end up missing.  Why when it comes to catching a cruise ship we have nothing but bad luck and stress?

https://lifeexperiences.paulishing.com/2024/08/at-least-we-made-it.html

Wobble Shims

We all have a four-legged table or chair that wobbles and we all find something to use to cram under the leg to make it stable.  In our case, it was our patio table with 4-5 paper coasters and it looked so hillbilly.  I noodled for a while and came up with several ideas, but I chucked them all when I found a 6-pack of wobble shims for $3.39 at Amazon.  Each shim is about 1" wide, 2" long, and tapers down from a 3/16" height, and is made with a rubbery, variegated surface.  I needed four shims to level the table and as you can see from the picture below, they are not hillbilly at all.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EALUQWW