Summer

Well this week has just flown by and I have no idea where all the time went.

But on the plus side, we started summer hours at the office today. So from now through Labor Day weekend our office will close at 1:00pm on Fridays. Wheeee! Our company has observed summer hours for at least as long as I've worked there, but with all the economic setbacks (no hiring, pay freezes, layoffs, benefit cuts) we were more than a little apprehensive that we might not have summer hours this year and we might actually have to work.

So today was the first day of summer hours and what did I do? I stayed at the office until almost 3:00, went grocery shopping on my way home, and brought some work home for the weekend. Now that I stop to think about it, staying 2 hours after is about what I do every workday. I generally leave the office around 7:00. Still not cool though, that on our first half-day I ended up staying. Though it's not as if anyone made me; I just had stuff to do. Anyhow, my plan is to give it a couple weeks then talk to my boss about maybe just working from home on Fridays.

I hit the jackpot at the grocery store today. I'm always telling mom that I cruise the short-date bin in the meat department just to see what's there. Sometimes I can find a really good deal on a nice cut of meat, but since I'm normally doing my shopping after I leave work at 7:00, there's usually not much to choose from. Well today I got there around 4:00 and picked up a few things—some pre-seasoned chicken and veggies for fajitas, New York style jalapeño sausage, and a seasoned tri tip. All at 30% off!

I almost didn't pick up the tri tip, because even though it said it was seasoned, the package didn't say what the seasoning was. So it was kind of a crap shoot. I figured mystery spices are probably a safer bet than mystery meat, so I said what the heck. I cooked that for dinner tonight and it was yum yum de-lish! Though I probably still couldn't tell you what the seasoning was.

Oh, and I got some Rooster Sauce!



I read an article about it in the New York Times a couple days ago, which got me thinking about how much I do like the sauce but normally only use it at a restaurant.

Scoob didn't understand why I bought that because we have Tabasco, Chalula, and Tapatio in the house already. But there's a difference between Mexican-style hot sauces and Asian-style hot sauces, and sometimes you just want one or the other. We're currently out of our favorite chili paste (good stuff, when we replace it I'll post a picture because I can't tell you what it's called since the entire label is in Chinese). When Scoob wentto replace it, the store was out and he bought something different, but it's just too hot. I like it, but even a tiny amount makes my lips feel like they're bleeding and it completely overpowers the food. In some situations that ain't a bad thing, but I think it's intended more for use in food instead of on food.

Another interesting read, was this article on the economics of poverty. Not exactly earth-shattering new information, but a nice reality check that things for the Wayward house are not as bad as they could be.

I also liked these motivational-style posters of Mark Twain. I particularly like the ones for Verbalization and Options.

Lastly, this item at Amazon had me laughing so hard the other day. The customer reviews are just crazy out there.