Things I like - July

1. Pineapple corer

I don't really know how I ever dealt with pineapples before I owned this.  I mean, I know how I did but this thing is amazing.  All you have to do is cut off the top and bottom of the pineapple, insert the corer and turn.  20 seconds later you have a nicely sliced and decored pineapple.  It is seriously amazing.  I just used mine for the first time and it kinda made my day.  The best part...I got it at Aldi for $3.  Yep.  The one pictured above is $11 at Target.  I would have paid that much but the $3 is so much better.  If you like pineapple but hate cutting them go buy one now.  Seriously.  It's amazing.


2. Blueberries

 

I love almost all fruit (no melons or some cherries) but blueberries are my favorite.  My sisters used to joke that I should be weighed before and after blueberry picking in our childhood because I would eat so many while picking.  Mmmm...nothing quite like fresh blueberries.  I haven't been picking in years but I've gotten many good ones at the store (bad ones too).  The big ones are my favorite: sweet and juicy.  I pick out the small ones first and save the biggest for last.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it...  Lucky for me, blueberries are one of the few fruits that Matt doesn't like plain so I get them all to myself.  Which is good because, in the summer when they are cheap and yummy, I can easily eat a pack in one sitting.  They are delicious.


3. My CamelBak water bottle

I don't know how this hasn't made a list yet.  I love my CamelBak. It's is generally within 5 feet of me at all times of the day.  I pretty much don't drink water out of anything else.  It is awesome because:
1) It keeps water cold forever, even in direct sunlight
2) It's perfect for 1 hand drinking which is super helpful when driving or feeding a baby
3) It's basically impossible to spill
4) The handle makes it very easy to carry around, even when juggling baby, car seat, etc.
5) It fits perfectly on the little ledge next to my workout bike in the basement
6) With the bite and suck mouthpiece it's hard for kids to drink out of which is good if you don't want to share. =)  

I would highly recomend it to any and everyone.  We got mine on Amazon around 4 years ago but they are now sold at Target and are even smaller but hold more.   It is one of my most used possessions.

4. Mindless summer tv

We've never had cable or any sort of subscription tv service.  Neither of us grew up with it and are waaaay too frugal to ever want to pay for it ourselves.  Plus you can watch so many shows online, legally, that it just seems silly.  And who really needs to watch more tv? (nobody).  (side note: I do really wish we had HGTV though...I love HGTV, especially House Hunters.  When we are on vacation or, say, stuck in surgery recovery with a sleeping baby, we watch HGTV).

Anyways, last month I said we don't turn on the tv much in the summer...that was before American Ninja Warrior started at the beginning on July.  It's like super Wipeout for incredibly fit people who train for it all year.  They run a crazy obstacle course that would be impossible for most humans and usually have some sob/weird back story to go it.  It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say this is one of Matt's favorite shows.  So we DVR it and watch once Luke's in bed.  I watch mostly to mock all these people who quit their jobs to train to become "America's next Ninja Warrior" (that's like me quitting my job to practice winning the lottery, except I would have higher odds).  Or to point out places we've been like Miami Beach where trials were the other night (right by where we walked to the beach daily, side note: I want to go back; that was a fun trip.) 

Last week we also started watching Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls (after Luke's in bed).  Kinda like a combination of Survivor and The Amazing Race (neither of which we watch...).  Basically more tv to judge people who are doing things we could probably never do (well me at least...Matt would last longer).   I think they are in New Zealand (somewhere I super want to visit) and have to do all these survival tasks.  It's entertaining enough for summer.  Something to do when we are both too tired to do anything else but still want to spend time together (sitting on the couch next to each other and watching/mocking/commenting on the same tv show totally counts as together time a few nights a week.)

But really...besides these 2 shows the tv really isn't on in the summer.

5. The tag feature in Microsoft

I started "tagging" all my pictures on my computer at the beginning of the year (as in, I started with 2013 pictures because it would be waaay too time consuming to tag the 32,000+ pictures from prior to 2013).  It's become a very useful.  To organize my pictures I keep a folder for each year (2012, 2013, etc) and then multiple subfolders inside each.  For 2013 I started doing 01 January, 02 February, etc and then each folder has further categories like Luke, New York, Projects, Memorial Day weekend, etc.  Anyways I then tag every picture as I upload it.  Some have multiple tags (Lake Pleasant, sunset, Luke) and some just have one (Luke).  With a quick click I can change the way the files are displayed so the entire year can be sorted by tags which means I can easily pull up all 2013 pictures of Matt, Luke, and I.  This display will also show pictures under multiple tags.  Every picture of Luke I use the "Luke" tag but then could also use the "Dad & Luke" tag so, by this display method, it would show up under both (and makes me lose the argument that there are more pictures of Matt with Luke than me with Luke...it was a difference of 2).

Ideally I would do this for all years but like I said, 32,000+ is a lot of pictures to go through.  It has become a handy way to sort pictures, especially when I am looking for something somewhat specific to frame.  Or to get a quick count of how many Luke pics I have (696 at last count, and I do delete a lot of the duplicates...).  I am trying to come up with a way to use this to better organize my recipes to make for easier menu planning but I haven't figured it out yet.