In the interest of eating healthily and frugally, I continue to find new and enjoyable ways to prepare all the fresh produce I'm getting from the CSA.

Last night I whipped up some Baba Ghanoush... my first. I regret not measuring out one-quarter cup of lemon juice instead of just juicing 2 lemons, because it came out with lemon being the predominant flavor. At the same time, I ran short of the 3 tablespoons of tahini that was needed; I had only 1.5 tablespoons left.

I picked up some more tahini at Stop & Shop on the way home from work and improved it. It was quite tasty with the pita bread yesterday, but tonight slathering it like butter inside the pockets with chopped cucumber and tomato was even better. Yum.

I decided to finally do something about the $37,000 sitting earning nothing in a Vanguard money market account. Everbank emailed me the paperwork; since the it's an IRA I'm transferring, they need a real signature. 2.30% is better than .06%. It's a 5-yr CD, but this is only a portion of my cash position and I won't need to access it. I think I'm in for $10,000. If rates rise within that time, as I expect they will, I have other money I can use to ladder some more CDs.

Today at lunchtime I walked for 45 minutes; tonight at home I mowed the lawn for 30 minutes. So fit in some good exercise there.

Tonight I applied for a Bank of America Better Balance Rewards card where you earn $25 a quarter as long as you charge something every month and pay it on time and make more than the minimum payment.

I was disconcerted to not get an immediate approval...probably becus I already own 3 BankAmericards. I hope I get this one.....

Looking forward to a long holiday weekend next weekend, and of course, getting out a few hours early on Friday.

We have a new gal on our team who wasn't aware of the Thursday Farmer's Market in the city where I work, so I suggested I take her there next week. She sits where most of my group sits (I'm in another location) and there are several people there who have never struck me as especially friendly, so I do feel for her a little, being new.

My neighbors behind me are making some moves I don't approve of. We had a talk last night. I am looking the other way that they have 3 illegal tenants up there now, their solution to allowing them to remain living in their home instead of selling (which they haven't been able to do) and moving to Tennessee, home of cheap real estate.

However, she told me last night that her husband's daughter and two granddaughers are coming to live with them from England. (He's British.) His daughter is divorced, but the father sees his girls once a week, although he hasn't always been a regular part of their lives.

They are due to arrive here in the States next week, and apparently are not planning on informing the father they are leaving. My neighbor kept saying disparaging things about the father, that he was not a good husband, doesn't make good money and that his ex lived in a very bad neighborhood and needed to move to protect her children. Well, they could have moved somewhere else in England....She made it seem like the move to the US was the ONLY solution.

She said oh, the father can come visit us here. Like yeah, that will be easy?? It's outrageous to me they would disregard his paternal rights so casually.

In the meantime, they have now acquired 2 cows. The first cow kept mooing constantly for the several days it was alone and then suddenly, things went quiet. They had gotten a 2nd cow, thank God. I felt bad for the cow; it was the first time it was separated from its mother, the first time it had ridden in a trailer, for 40 minutes, and everything was strange to it. At least now it has company.