use real butter

My allergy symptoms are pretty much under control now that 1) the steroids are in full effect and 2) I have learned to keep my grimy fingers out of my itchy eyes. It took me a while to get that second one through my thick head, but after the second day of being incapacitated because my eye was pink, oozing crap, and swollen shut, I began to accept that yes, you really do need to just deal with the itch or make it worse. Usually, I find some sort of distraction helps in that regard.

Jeremy and I have been painting the exterior of our house. It’s wood siding and so it isn’t painted a color per se, but rather we desperately needed to seal it before winter. Everything needs to get done before winter. I feel like a pika running around preparing for winter. We were joking the other day about our two seasons: winter and almost winter. Actually, I like that because I think I can generally stand a month of summer. Too bad autumn is all of 2 weeks here, but the thrill of getting an early snowfall is on par with my love for fall. Back to the house, we are still getting afternoon rainstorms and that – along with morning winds (assuming that is all from solar heating and mixing of air masses which usually starts up a few hours after sunrise) – makes the ladder work a little dicey when Jeremy is trying to paint the exterior of the third floor. Most of it is manageable except one part over our mudroom which will require me to belay Jeremy. But we need to care for the house properly considering the big bucket of weather that gets blasted at the south and west faces.

I don’t usually buy a lot of peaches and plums and nectarines, just because Jeremy doesn’t dig on drupes and it’s cheaper to buy fruit we both eat. But when they are on sale, I’ll hazard a few from time to time. Sometimes I will pick a few up from a farmer’s market when they are really fragrant and absolutely juicy ripe. Well, I fell sucker to a sale at Safeway recently and when I bit into one raw (because that is my favorite way to enjoy fruit), it was just a touch grainy. So I looked around for a recipe to use up the rest of the nectarines. Most recipes are listed for peaches and not nectarines, so I found: Georgia peach cobbler, Georgia peach bread, Georgia peach tea cake, Georgia peach muffins, Georgia peach this and Georgia peach that. Just in case you were wondering where peaches are grown…

Happy 4th of July! It’s Independence Day here in the States and my feelings about this holiday are pretty predictable… not a huge fan, but easily dazzled by sparkly fireworks at night.

What I love about the fourth is most obviously the fireworks. The mosquitoes (mozzies for the Aussies) not so much.

Joey Chestnut unseated the reigning champion, Takeru Kobayashi, at the annual Nathan’s hot dog eating contest on Coney Island today. He ate a record 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. *erp* Takeru Kobayashi downed an impressive 63 in the same time, but was also suffering from a mouth injury. Competitive eating is serious business and totally fascinating and unappetizing at the same time! No hot dogs for me today, thanks.

We had our July fourth bbq for lunch today. I find the large meal in the evening makes for that fat, sleepy feeling, whereas the large meal at lunch gets worked off with the activities of the remainder of the day – if you don’t go lie on the couch “for a minute”. If you’ll recall, I baked the ribs covered in foil in a slow oven overnight for 8 hours. This morning, I found the meat to be tender and delicate – as in, ready to fall off the bones. Perfect.