We’ve had the same food processor for a long time – in fact, it came with an instructional video on VHS tape. We didn’t use it very often. Cuisinart recalled the slicing blade in 2016 and the replacement took a long time to arrive – not being able to use the machine didn’t affect our cooking at all.

But that was in the Before Times. Now, we cook at home all the time, and we’ve gotten more adventurous. I find myself grating Parmesan or Pecorino cheese several times a week – I’ve used a Microplane, a box grater, and a rotary grater. All of them work – but they all require a good bit of effort. And, as a programmer, I am professionally lazy.

So today, I decided to dig out the food processor to grate cheese for today’s lunch. It did a fine job, and my hands and wrists didn’t bother me afterwards! And, unlike the manual methods, I didn’t wind up with a couple of millimeters of cheese that I couldn’t grate.

It worked so well that I grated all of the Parmesan and Pecorino in the house – that should hold us for a few weeks.

I wonder what else I’ve been doing the hard way.

The weather notification I set up in Pushover yesterday worked perfectly this morning – except for one small problem. The temperature on the outside thermometer hadn’t been updated since 9:15 last night. And the display on the bedroom thermometer showed “–“ for the outdoor temperature. I replaced the batteries outside and the display came back; tomorrow, maybe I’ll get correct data, too!

Or relatively correct data – I looked at the manual today and discovered that this particular (cheap) thermometer is only accurate plus-or-minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s more than good enough for knowing what’s going on, but not so great if I want to automate turning off the house fan when it gets too warm outside. Anyone have a good, relatively inexpensive, weather station to recommend?

And now that the weather is getting cooler, we’re beginning to think about electric blankets again. I’d bought a “Safe and Warm” brand blanket from Costco in 2010; it failed early this year. Costco didn’t carry that blanket any more (that should have been a clue) but Amazon did, so I bought one. Six weeks later, one of the controllers failed – the company said they could replace it “when we’re back in the office”. That was April 20th. I tried to contact them again in June and again last week – their voicemail says “use email”, and email doesn’t get answered. I’m well past my Amazon return period, but I decided to contact them anyway – after a few minutes on chat, I have a return label for a refund! Now I have to find a big enough box….