Zucchini ahoy!

This year, I planted four zucchini plants - a yellow one, two different green ones and a scallopini too. It turns out that 4 plants is probably too many for two people (especially when one of them is away quite a lot this summer...). Every couple of days I go out to check them, and they seem to have grown to marrows while I wasn't watching.

Here is last night's haul:

Four green (all off one plant), a yellow (I'm trying to pick them when they're wee so that we don't have quite so many) and two scallopini.








And here is my total outstanding number:

That's quite a few zucchini for one medium sized human.

So I decided to make this:

Zucchini, pea and herb soup. Some of the peas were from the garden, all of the zucchini were and so were the herbs (I used a mixture of rosemary, oregano and mint). It was very tasty!

Next on the list is zucchini chocolate cake!

Things I'm loving...

I've been enjoying reading other bloggers' "Things I'm loving" posts and thought I'd join in on the action...

This week, my favorite things are...

• Mango honey! I can't decide if it's from bees in a mango tree forest, or if its actually mixed with mangoes, but it's very very tasty...and I am a honey loving bear.
• My thermal mug! I take so long to drink my tea that this way, I can pick it up 4 hours later and its still warm. Saves leaving 1/2 drunk cups of tea around the house.
• The smell of coppertone sunscreen...it just reminds me of childhood summers.
• The intrigue of waking up in the mornings to find all the cupboard doors open. For some reason Sahara can not leave a cupboard door shut, and has figured out how to open them...the wardrobe, bathroom cupboards, hallway cupboard, linen closet, laundry, kitchen sink... strange cat!
• Remembering not to buy white tea towels or hand towels when there is a male in the house! 
• The amazing treats Winston bought back from Washington DC via our friends there via the NZ Embassy - I got pineapple lumps, minties, gingernuts, k-bars, wine gums, milo, rashuns and burger rings!
• The smell and look of a freshly mowed lawn. Especially when it was me and only me that mowed and weedeated(ate?)/strimmed(strum?)/weedwhacked (why are there so many words for this task and why do I not know the past tense of almost any of them?) my lawnS and edges. (Yes that's lawns with an 's', not just lawn).

My very pretty nails...

So I've been working pretty hard at not biting my nails (thanks to Winston's reminders ("Get your fingers out of your mouth! Now!") which are very much appreciated now, although perhaps less so at the time.)

Just to prove that they have been growing, here are some before and after pictures. Before = May 24, when I decided for good that I had to stop, as they were so incredibly ugly. Middle = last week before I had a manicure. Last = now, after my wonderful manicure given to me as a gift.

So I'm not there yet, they are 50% beautiful, and 50% less so. But on the positive side, the cuticles are healthy (no more ripped, bleeding, infected skin) my nails are tough, strong, and not ridged. Which is really more than I deserve having treated them so badly for 27 (oops I mean 28) years!