Fleas, barbecued hot dogs, and infomercials...

That's what my days have been filled with as of late. Last Sunday, George and I went to Donnelly Park to mark 6 months together (kinda silly, I know). We barbecued hot dogs and toasted garlic cheddar sourdough bread, then took a walk around the water. It was especially nice, as the park was where we had our first official date. Pics to come, as soon as I can find my USB cable.

The fleas at my apartment have gotten terrible; my roommate's cat got outside a few times and we've been fighting them ever since. Luckily, since my cat doesn't play well with others, he hasn't been infested too bad. I find the occassional blood-sucker on his belly, but my room is pretty okay. Downstairs, however, is a totally different story. I'll walk across the living room and into the kitchen, and my socks will be covered in a least a dozen. George refuses to wear socks, and he likes to sit on the floor when he's over, so his feet are absolutely horrendous. We've used the powders on the carpet, gotten collars and drops for the cats, vaccuumed religiously for weeks and they keep getting worse. We're missing something, so we're talking to our landlord about bombing the whole apartment.

I've been looking into getting an AeroGarden 3 for awhile, especially now that I've discovered the backyard gets absolutely no direct sunlight. That blows all my plans of growing any veggies out there this summer. I wanted to do lettuce, basil, chives, sage, carrots, strawberries, and cucumbers. When I heard about the AeroGarden, I went to their website and found they had seed pods for everything but the latter 3 items. It's essentially a counter-top hydroponic system, using water, grow bulbs, and nutrient packets. There's no soil at all, and the technology was originally designed as a way to combat hunger in countries that don't have proper conditions to grow vegetation. The infomercial gives a side-by-side comparison of a few different seeds grown in the hydroponic system and in normal soil, and the hydroponic system is about 3x faster. It makes me wonder if we're on the brink of finding a real solution to world hunger.

I've been watching the infomercial for the GT Xpress 101, also. I bought my Foreman Grill about 3 months ago and I probably use it 4x a week. The GTX is the same principle, but it's a flat griddle surface instead of the grill. The griddle is round, and divided into 2 chambers (all your food would be in the shape of a semi-circle, and some of the reviewers mention that it's a little irritating to eat the same shaped food all the time). The recipe book has a lot of ideas for re-using leftovers, which as I mainly cook for myself, doesn't happen very often. Even still, it had some delicious sound recipes for omelettes, chocolate cake, fruit pies, etc.

I absolutely love the infomercial for the Magic Bullet, and I would probably own it now if I hadn't had a bad experience with it a few years back. I was making shrimp and crab dip for a New Year's Eve party and my ex's house, and his mom had bought the Magic Bullet pretty recently. It basically pureed everything I put in there, which was good for the dip, but not for things that are supposed to stay chunky. And the container was so small, I had to do it in 4 or 5 batches.

The reviews for the GTX are mixed, so I'm pretty wary of dropping $30 for it if I'm going to have the same experience that I did with the Magic Bullet. I'm hoping to find someone who has bought it themselves so I can ask to borrow it for a few days and see how I like it.

Now it's off to bed, I start work at 8:00 this week.

<3