A Splinter and Some Chicken Parm

The third day in VA (or the second full day) started off well enough.  I did plenty of relaxing, reading, hanging out, played some Cribbage and Scrabble (I think I played those days anyway, they are starting to run together now) and made a trip to the grocery store.  It was my turn to cook dinner that night so I was in search of stuff for dinner, but I confess I also splurged and bought a 4th of July cookie cake.  SO GOOD!  It didn't last long (no, I did NOT eat all of it, I shared with everyone).  I think that is my new favorite dessert.  Anyway, after some shopping and some lunch, it was off to the beach, down those lovely 72 steep stairs.  The beach was fun, but the fun was slightly overshadowed by splinters, yes, splinters.  Let's just say the railing on the way to the beach "needs work" as both my cousin and I got splinters on it that day (my other cousin and my grandmother were "treated" to splinters from that same railing that week too).  He only got one, I managed to get four.  Mind you I have no tolerance for pain and I'm not a fan of needles so this splinter removal, though not as painful as I'd imagined was no piece of (cookie) cake.  So low and behold, I get back to the house and go see my uncle who is currently trying to assist my cousin in splinter in removal and tell him I need help.  I won't bore you to death, but let's just say it took nearly an hour, a lot of forced patience, a safety pin, some tweezers, and a bit of nausea before we got the splinters out.  And the next day I found I hadn't gotten them all.  Grr  Thank goodness my aunt brought her first aid kid because mine did not have tweezers.  Since I did not have gloves (because who wears gloves to the beach in JULY), I literally wore plastic bags on my hand the next time I went down those stairs to the beach because I could not deal with splinter removal again.  Yep, I'm a freak.  But as one of my dear friends reminded me the other night, at least it wasn't a fish hook.  On to other notes, dinner was good that night if I may say so myself.  I made chicken parm and served it with salad, pasta, and garlic bread.  For dessert I made chocolate chip peanut butter pie.  I have made this pie a couple of times before and it is good, but this time was unique because the beach house had NO measuring cups or measuring spoons so I had to estimate.  I was a bit nervous, but everything seemed to come out tasty even if the measurements weren't exact. My mother felt the need to take a picture of me cooking so it's included here.