Aborted errands

We went out to run some errands and had our check cards get declined. So, we took a trip to the local Navy Federal bank and asked for a statement.

Turns out somebody had made a $900+ purchase in Cuernavaca, Mexico on the 26th of March, using a card that should have been deactivated over a year ago.

Wow.

So, I had the novel experience of signing a forgery affidavit (it used to be my card number). We should get the money back in our account within the week, but in the meantime, we have very little spending money, so no birthday splurges for tomorrow. We'll just have to do it all on anher's birthday instead.

A bit of a bummer, that.

On a lighter note, one of the things we did have money for was a couple of bottles of Gatorade. This particular bottle was 24 ounces, and had two columns in the Nutrition Facts label. One for a single serving (8 oz), and one for the whole bottle. Note that 8 x 3 = 24. There are exactly three servings in the bottle.

8 oz has 50 calories. 24 oz has 160. 10 calories materialize out of nowhere when the entire drink is consumed at once.

On the other hand, the %DV for sodium and carbohydrates goes from 5% for 8 oz to 14% for the whole bottle. So, 1% worth of daily value disappears when the entire bottle is consumed at once.

I wanna see Gatorade's math.

Gardening

Well, we tackled the back yard today. The brush pile after we cleared out stuff is truly amazing, and the work is not done. I told anher that it remined me of when I was a teenager and helped my dad go out and tend to the spring cleanup at Grandbear's place. We completely took out half a dozen little ornamental bush/tree items, and clipped off a bunch of suckers and low branches. Everything left will require a ladder to get to.

No planting, today. Just clearing and trimming. The folks who had the place before had planted lots and lots of stuff in the back yard, probably thinking that most of it wouldn't survive. Well, most of it did survive, and grew big and unmanageable, so now my husband and I have to remove it with clippers and bow saw.

We have three rose bushes in the back yard from the previous occupants. I have no idea how to manage rose bushes. They're tall and scraggly and had lots of dead bits that I trimmed off. If anybody has experience with the darn things, we could use some advice.

A lot of wild strawberry has sprung up as the preferred ground cover. I like wild strawberry, so we're planning on leaving it in the places where it has no real competition. I'll probably tear it up in the other areas, though, as it's an aggressive little plant.

We plan on taking out the water feature. Maintaining pumps and fountains is a real pain. Instead, we'll fill in the depression with some bricks to make it steady and put in a nice birdbath. Maybe I'll pot some herbs or something and place them around the base.

Yeep

Ran out of WoW prepaid time this morning. Grr. Was actually enjoying it again.