Oh the things you can learn from movies, books, the Internet, and — since it’s August, after all — wasp stings.

Once again I’m linking up with Emily P. Freeman as she shares what she learned this summer. If you have a blog, I hope you’ll join us.

1. I learned how to pronounce Bechuanaland (now Botswana) from the movie I mentioned in my last post.

2. You can bake gingerbread cookies on the barbecue. Sure, half of mine got burnt, but if your barbecue is not old and cheap, maybe you’d have more consistent results. Just use a cookie sheet and check them after a few minutes.

3. The author of the original Little Bear books (published 1957-1968) published a sixth book in the series in 2010. (It does have a different illustrator.)

4. Benadryl = Unisom = diphenhydramine. One Sunday morning I was stung by a wasp. The itchy, red reaction continued to grow until most of my forearm was swollen. I finally went to the pharmacy to get Benadryl (actually the cheap store brand) and took it every six hours for three days. A week later I realized that we have lots of diphenhydramine at home for my husband’s insomnia. It’s crazy to me that the same drug is packaged as a sleep aid and an allergy medication. (My father-in-law is a pharmacist and if he’s reading this, he probably thinks I’m crazy. At least I figured it out eventually.)

5. Polygamous offshoots of Mormonism are scary. (A little hint of a future post I have in the works.)

What did you learn in August?