Mmm-hmm...

Okay, here are the pictures Mandolinartist took of us up at camp.

Sitting on the tire swing and trying to stay out the mud puddle underneath:












Goofy picture (although not on purpose!):









Sitting on the deck (Lauren, Zoe, me, Caroline):









Caroline, looking like she's about to crash into that guy:













I made cookies yesterday...chewy, triple chocolate cookies:









Mmm...yummy! Of course, we've eaten almost all of that plateful already...which is why I put most of the batch in the freezer! :)

I had to get new green pepper plants and replant them this week, the original ones I had got bacterial spot and were rapidly dying. :( So the peppers will have a late start, but maybe we'll be able to get some peppers later into the fall this way.

My allergies have progressed into lots and lots of nose-blowing. Ow. I went out for a bike ride yesterday evening and I didn't have to blow my nose, but I wasn't able to breathe very well, and came back gasping for breath and feeling like I really ought to be riding more often if that's all the better I feel! :p I think it was mostly from not being able to breathe properly though. I also probably shouldn't have been outside breathing in more pollen and stuff to irritate my allergies... I had to take an antihistamine, cough medicine, and cough drops to get to sleep last night. And while the antihistamine usually makes me sleepy immediately, it seemed to be having a paradoxical effect in that I was hyper instead of sleepy. I thought I wasn't going to be able to sleep...until I woke up this morning. :)

I went to Target Thursday night and got more cough drops, but instead of getting the $1.65 Ricola cough drops, I got the $0.99 Target version instead. Makes sense, right? I also bought other stuff, I didn't go to Target simply to get cough drops...in fact I found Mom and Dad a great bargain on the soap they get.

So: the Target cough drops have all the same inactive ingredients, with the exception of mallow...the Ricola ones have mallow in them. And believe me, you can distinguish that lack of mallow as soon as you put the cough drop in your mouth. It's just not the same without... no, actually I'm not even sure what mallow is, let alone what it tastes like. :p






As you can see, the Ricola drops are neat little cubes, while the Target ones are traditional lozenge shape.
The Ricola ones also come with an extra little piece of wax paper wrapped around the cough drop because they're all Swiss and fiddly like that. The Target cough drops have an "N" on them...for natural, I assume. Or maybe they're specially marked with an "N" for me. :) *ahem* Anyway...
The cheap ones don't taste quite as good, but after sucking on 3-4 cough drops, they all taste about the same anyway, so why pay more for the name brand? Unless you like cubes, and mallow, and extra paper...and if I have a coupon I do. :)

Did I really just write a comparison of cough drops? Wow...you can tell I'm not having a very busy Saturday. I should probably go do something profitable with all this free time...