Bear Lake
Last month, I rode with my sister and niece up to Bear Lake, but we didn't do anything in the water. This week, we returned with my mom and grandparents, but we were prepared for swimming. We went to an unofficial beach that was pretty rocky, which meant that I was slipping all over the place as I went out into the water. But once I was out deep enough, I didn't need to step on the rocks anymore, and eventually it became less rocky. What a wonderful lake! So clear and clean! I was able to see a large fish swimming with me. I enjoyed swimming out where my toes could barely touch the bottom. Back in February, I was going to the pool several days a week, but I haven't been swimming since March. A former swim coach at the pool offered me some pointers to swim better, and I was happy to see that my muscle memory still retained the more efficient swimming.
Over the last few years—thanks largely to YSA ward excursions—I have learned that I really enjoy lakes. I just don't go to them very often. In fact, I think this week was the first time I ever swam in a Utah lake with my family. When we went to lakes, it was either in New York, or the lakes were too cold for swimming. I should spend more time at lakes and reservoirs.
Home-grown produce
One of the most wonderful things about August is the abundance of fresh produce. We have a plum tree in our backyard, which has taken a hiatus for the last few years. But this year we had a bumper crop. Unfortunately, many of the lower branches have died or been broken over the years, but there have still been plenty to pick. I love standing out under the tree, picking the plums and eating them straight off the tree.
With our abundance of plums—certainly more than we could eat plain before they went bad—I have enjoyed making various dishes,
like roasted plum and pudding tart,
plum rosemary upside-down cake,
plum cobbler,
and baked plum sweet omelets.
plum crisp,
And I still have a big bowl of plums, so I hope to make a few things more. But I doubt I'll pick any more; their season is just about over, and I've picked all the plums I can easily get to.
But plums aren't the only thing! In the spring, my dad constructed a garden, and my mom has enjoyed planting vegetables. We have tons and tons of tomatoes. So this week I made my own spaghetti sauce from our own tomatoes, which I have never done before. It was relatively simple: onions, carrots, tomatoes, basil, and rosemary. Oh, and some olive oil for cooking the vegetables. But despite its simplicity, it was amazing! It was even sweet, though I didn't add any sugar. It was so much better than I expected!
All of the above recipes come from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I got this cookbook for my birthday five years ago, and I love it! There are so many unusual recipes in it (some are truly terrible, but most are great), and so many of the recipes have variations with different fruits or vegetables. It has made me more confident and comfortable experimenting with recipes.
Earlier this summer, my friend sent me a recipe for tomato pie, and I made it last week. But I didn't take any pictures because my phone was charging in the other room. The topping was a mixture of mayonnaise and cheese—and I hated it. I couldn't even finish a whole piece. But luckily, my mom loved it, so it wasn't a waste. I'll stick to my beloved tomato cobbler instead.
Our garden also has several pumpkins growing, some of which are already fully orange. I don't know if they'll last until Halloween.
New phone
I have had a big hassle getting a new phone. On Tuesday, I went to a Sprint-turned-T-Mobile store to get my desired new phone, a Samsung Galaxy a71. They had it in stock, but they wouldn't sell it to me because I wasn't an authorized user on the account. Ugh! So instead we just ordered it online (and made sure to change the account settings so I can buy a phone in person in the future). From the beginning, I haven't loved my Motorola, and it's nice to see Samsung is so much better. But it always takes time to get used to a new phone. One of my biggest gripes is that every new phone vibrates for every notification, and this new one is very nonintuitive to turn the vibrating off for individual apps. I'm still figuring everything out.
Last month, I was excited that Google Play Music was going away to be replaced by YouTube Music. I was excited because YouTube lets you have more than 1,000 songs in a playlist. But I am no longer excited, because YouTube is worse than Google Play in almost every other way. One of the most egregious problems is that you can't cast your own music to your own Google devices without a subscription! I mean, that's Apple-level evilness.
See, I still buy music. I use Spotify Free and the radio to discover new music, but I like owning my own music. And I refuse to pay a subscription fee for Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, etc. I understand why others like the subscription model, but it's not for me. I can either pay ten dollars (roughly equivalent to an album or ten songs) a month to a company for the right to listen to music, while the artists get fractions of pennies, or I can spend money for the right to do whatever I want with the music file forever, and the artist gets more of the share. I usually buy Amazon MP3s, which maybe isn't a wise investment, but I still like it. I don't usually buy CDs, because I don't really have a CD player and I don't like storing them, but I do still buy them if they are unavailable digitally or if there's an exclusive version with bonus tracks (e.g. Chromatica, which has been my summer soundtrack). I especially love adding to my holiday playlists, and much of my holiday playlists is not available at all on streaming services.
So I'm stuck finding an alternative to Google Play Music. So far, iBroadcast seems most promising, but it's still very clunky. For example, you can't add songs to playlists online; you can only do that on the app, which is quite cumbersome. Really though, Google Play Music has been the best option, and Google is just throwing it away, and I haven't heard a reason why. Sigh. I think it's too late for them to change their mind, but I hope they suffer negative consequences for this dumb decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment