Inspiration Lacking

Enough about me. Let's hear some ideas from you. Here is what I want to know:

1. What are your favorite uses for zucchini? We just harvested our first of the season and I know there is more coming. When I was a teenager, we had a yearly tradition of getting a baseball bat or broom handle and pitching zucchini (and other produce) to each other. In case you want to try this yourself, cabbage was by far my favorite because it just disintegrated on contact. But zucchini on the roof is always memorable.

So OTHER than meaningless destruction with a baseball bat, what else do you do with your zucchini? Do you have a favorite zucchini bread recipe? Do you grate it and put it in stuff? Send me your ideas... please!

2. If you had an extra two or three rooms in your house, what would you do with them? A craft room? Guest bedroom? Office? I want to hear your vision. We have a basement apartment that we've rented out since we moved into the house and I think that our current tenants will be our last ones. We've had great luck with the tenants we've had and our current "downstairs neighbors" are the best I could ever wish for, so we'll be ending on a high note. (I think that their plan is to be here another year or so, so this is all very long-term planning... no rush...)

3. Color laser printer or Inkjet? We've been without color printing for about five years and we've loved our black and white laser printer. We've only replaced the toner once and it was super cheap to replace. I used to gnash my teeth and growl unkind words every time I plopped down $50 for a color inkjet cartridge. I don't want to do that again, but I really need a color printer AND a copier/scanner, too, so we'd have to invest in a Color Laser All-in-One which runs into a *cough* bit of money. Is it worth the upfront expense with the huge ink savings? Or would you get the cheap-o inkjet and then pay through the nose for ink for the next five or ten years? (Yes, I know that printers technically shouldn't last ten years in a normal household, but we use electronics the way we use cars: drive 'em into the ground and then hang on a little longer.)

These are the questions I've been pondering this morning. That and whether or not I should buy myself a snow cone maker for my birthday on Saturday. My husband voted against, but I think we could resolve his concerns without too much trouble. It just seems like it would be so much fun to make snow cones on a hot summer day, invite over some neighbor kids and let the sticky fun begin! So we'll make that question #4: snow cone or no snow cone?

I would love to hear your ideas!