Sunday Sunshine: Sunny Days & Learning New Things

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week.

This week has been beautiful!  Hazy, foggy mornings giving way to beautiful blue skies and sunshine.  It's been the perfect combination for morning rest and bright energy for the rest of the day.  GBaby is learning new things by the day (signing, almost crawling and how to balance large objects so they don't fall on her head) and I'm learning right along beside her.  I'm rewarded often with bright smiles and happy squeels.  I've continued to gather garden produce for the freezer and was able to spend some good time cooking and baking this week.

What added bright spots to your week?

Travelling Reviews: Thrifty Car Rental (LAX)

In the seven years that HandyMan and I have been married, we have travelled extensively.  On occasion we come across service providers that are excellent.  In other cases we come across those who we can’t recommend as wholeheartedly and some with whom we just have weird experiences.  Thrifty Rental Car at LAX was one of these providers. Because Thrifty rental locations are locally operated, this review references the LAX facility only.

After eight hours of travelling we arrived at LAX bright and early at 10am.  I consulted our rental car reservation which said to call the office upon arrival then meet the shuttle at the designated curb.  Easy enough – we’ve received and followed such instructions on many occasions.  What the reservation didn’t tell us is that when you call the number, or use the convenience phones to contact the LAX Thrifty office your really get the phone bank automated maze that can tell you nothing about the local rental car site.  (Thrifty, if you’re reading this – it’s time for you to revise the directions that come with reservation e-mails).

Once in baggage claim we discovered that our luggage had taken an alternate route and had not yet arrived in LA and the convenience phones were not so convenient, we gave up and went to the curb, where we waited.  Other, less thrifty, rental car companies had shuttles pulling to the curb about every 2 to 3 minutes.  Our Thrifty bus pulled up after about ten minutes.

By the time we arrived at the rental car terminal, GBaby was hungry go HandyMan went to get the paperwork done while I fed her.  Long line and lots of paperwork later, G’s fed and we’re instructed to go pick a car from Section 6.  Ok.  We go out into the blazing southern California sun and see three vehicles parked in section 6: a minivan, a 4-door-hatchback and a midsized car.  We had reserved a compact.  So we loaded up the minivan, before someone realized they were giving away free upgrades, and got ready too take off.  I picked up the contract and almost choked on my trail mix.  The total was more than double what our reservation was.  We stopped and looked it over and through some misunderstanding we had been given their full, top of the line insurance coverage, even though HandyMan had declined it.  HandyMan headed back inside to get this fixed before we left.  I sat in the van and watched two equally confused customers come out with their contracts in hand and try to figure out what car they were supposed to leave with, while three other multi-sized vehicles – fresh with water droplets from the car wash, were added to the selection at Section 6.

Ten minutes later, with the paperwork corrected we took off to face the highways of Los Angeles.  One week later when it was time to return the car, I planned extra time, just knowing there would be a delay of some sort when returning the rental car.  We had prepaid the gas tank so we didn’t have to fill it up (and for those who know our history, we were in no danger of running out of gas).  Arriving at the rental car return, we unload all our stuff, the customer service rep looks over the car and hands us a receipt.  I look at it and it’s about $40 more than our contract.  I politely ask if she can explain why it’s more than the contract.  She says, we didn’t fill up the gas tank.  Ugh.  I point out on the contract that we had pre-paid for the gas, she sends us inside to get it corrected.  While another agent is fixing our charges, we watch our shuttle bus leave.  We catch the next one, with corrected receipt in hand.

So, this experience is what it is: our encounters with disorganization for the good and the inconvenient at Thrifty Car Rental at LAX.  What’s your latest travel adventure?

Freezer Friday: Chicken, Zucchini & Carrots

This has been a very busy week in my kitchen!  Chicken, carrots and zucchini from the garden were the central ingredients of my freezer stashing this week.

Ten pound bags of boneless skinless chicken breast were on sale for $1.29/lb.  I couldn't pass that up!  So shredded chicken, broth, and Chicken & Biscuits filling made it to the freezer.  The I'll post the Chicken & Biscuits batch recipe next week.

Surprise, surprise, after being away from my garden for a week, there were zucchini's waiting for me.  And this is after I gave a whole shopping bag of zucchini to a friend!  I froze about 15 cups of grated zucchini  (Click here for the "how to") and made a double batch of the A to Z Zucchini Sweet Bread with pecans, orange and cranberries - very yummy!  Three loaves of the bread made it to the freezer.

When I made it out to the garden on Tuesday, I couldn't find the carrots for the weeds so I just started pulling.  Much to my surprise, there were quite a few carrots there.  So, some of those made it into the Chicken & Biscuits and the rest are baby food and finger foods for GBaby.  I also made a batch of pear baby food.

Phew.  All in three days!  Now for a couple days out of the kitchen...

Corn Thief!

Upon arriving home from a week away I took a quick stroll of the garden to assess the chaos.  The blight had taken over all of our tomato plants :(.  I have carrots that are waiting for me to free them from the weeds.  Piles of beautiful broccoli florets ready to be picked, and a few green peppers sizing up nicely.   There was also handful of green beans that grew on the three green bean vines that survived the Vine Chomper.  When we left last weekend, there were about a half-dozen nice ears of corn that looked like they were going to be beautifully ready when we got home.  I guess they were ready early and a little Corn Thief decided to help us out.  These cobs were peeled and eaten, down to the last kernel!  Next year's gardening plan is going to involve battle strategies against our local wildlife!