Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Things I Learned in July

Emily at Chatting at the Sky does a roundup every month of "things I learned this month." It can be anything--her examples include "educational and informative...mindless celebrity connections...new services or products...weird quirks you have...inspirational and introspective." There are no rules, Emily says; "whether profound or ridiculous, all lessons are welcome and celebrated." I thought it sounded like an interesting prompt, so without further ado...here are a few things I learned in July.

1. "Pilau" is pronounced "PER-loo." Thank you, Southern Living, for setting me straight that the traditional Southern chicken and rice recipe I printed off six years ago or so is not actually "pee-lahw." Seriously? I mean...seriously? PER-loo?!

2. HTC One phones purchased on eBay cannot be activated on the Ting network. So sad. I want a smartphone mainly for the camera, and after a lot of research concluded that the HTC One was the way to go. Found a good deal on eBay...and was unable to activate. Le sigh. #firstworldproblems

3. Otherwise, Ting is AWESOME. We switched our service from Sprint and we are SO pleased. We can have smartphones and use as much or as little data as we want, rather than paying minimum $30/month for data with Sprint. We pay *actual* usage instead of a plan with overages--if we use fewer minutes or texts than our plan, they bump us down, and if we use more, they bump us up to the next tier rather than charging $0.20/text like Sprint did. This past month we used a whole lot more texts than we ever did before, plus some data, and paid half what we paid monthly with Sprint. HALF! If you're interested, let me know and I'll send you a referral link. We got $50 credit by using a referral link from a friend when we signed up.

4. When you see a really great airline ticket price, you should snap it up instead of deliberating for a few days, because when you go back to book it, you'll hate yourself and the world when it's gone up by over $100. #morefirstworldproblems

5. Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, a monument on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, celebrates the longest undefended international border in the world. And that peace was secured through disarmament after the War of 1812. Steve and I visited there for our anniversary getaway a couple of weeks ago--hoping to post about it with pictures soon.

6. Everybody does better when Daddy's around. I am so not cut out for single parenting, and thankful I so rarely have to do it.

7. Sonic is not the place to go for milkshakes. A friend told me I had to try their chocolate fudge bacon milkshake, and I was irresistibly intrigued, but it was a disappointment. Sonic doesn't mix their milkshakes well enough, so it's like trying to drink soft serve ice cream through a tiny straw. Not so satisfying when you have to work so hard that the insides of your lips end up hurting. #firstworldproblemsagain For the record, Hardees has better milkshakes...we got free milkshake coupons from the library's summer reading program or I'd never have tried theirs.

8. I will never again attempt a road trip with the boys without a couple of good audiobooks. We got two Ramona audiobooks from the library this last time and didn't hear a peep out of Elijah for four solid hours. Amazing.

9. Maple syrup separates when frozen. Really weird and fascinating.

10. Peaches tan like people do. I bought 25 pounds of peaches from "The Peach Truck" last Saturday and the man pointed out a yellow triangle on an otherwise-reddish peach. He said that was where a leaf had been covering the peach.

11. A dance lesson with my husband is the best way to get me out of a funk. Steve bought some lessons for my birthday and we took our second one last week. Can hardly wipe a silly grin off my face the whole time we are dancing. So much fun.

How about you--what did you learn in July?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fun list. We don't have a Sonic or a Hardees anywhere near us. When I want a shake, I must hit Chick fila.

Stopping by from Emily's tonight. :)

Amy said...

I'm not normally a big milkshake girl - have mostly just been into them this summer because of the library coupons and my friend's raving about the chocolate-bacon :) But Chick-Fil-A's peach milkshakes...oh man. It should be just about time for those!

Danielle said...

25 lbs of peaches! You go girl. Canning them? And what the heck is a peach truck? A guy was going around selling peaches?

Amy said...

Yes - some farm in Georgia drives up here and sells them out of parking lots and such. They put an ad in our paper a couple of weeks ago and were in a store parking lot for an hour and a half last Saturday. No canning; we're eating a lot of them fresh and will probably slice and freeze a bunch for smoothies. Steve drinks a green smoothie every morning and the frozen fruit for that gets expensive!

Brandee Shafer said...

Fun list. So many people have offerings about smart phones, and yeah: my phone's pretty dumb. Not the dumbest of the dumb, but not smart. Cool about the peaches. Nice to make your acquaintance via Emily's.