Day 5.b

I'm heading into one of the best parts of this vacation - it's Friday late afternoon, a weekend stretching out before me...and then another ENTIRE week of NO WORK. YIPPPEEEE! It feels great! And this feeling will repeat itself on Sunday evening when I realize Monday is approaching and I'll still have SEVEN glorious days of NO WORK. It's great. The only commitment we have this weekend is church on Sunday - B. and J. are both playing and H. is doing the A/V slides at the 11AM service - so I'll attend that service as well, to bring H. for his service. We may even surprise the kids with 'brunch' out, but we'll see about that. Oh, and we are taking J's car in tomorrow for some service thing and dropping off Chloe for a 'full service grooming' - teeth, nails, hair trim, bath, etc. She's spend 1/2 day at the puppy spa! and come home looking (and smelling) better!

Purchased an inexpensive electric skillet at Target. Wanted the super-duper triple wide with removable pan (for easier clean up and serving) but since I'll be storing this thing in the rafters of the garage (where we store our big roasting pan and other not-often-used appliances), I opted for the small, square version vs. the rectangular huge version. The smaller version was also 1/2 the price of the larger version. I'm going to test it out by filling it with water and trying the lowest settings, testing the temp with my (now I can't live without it) Pampered Chef digital thermometer. The BEST investment EVER in the bread making game - though it hasn't helped with success yet. But, oh, I know it will.

J. and I enjoyed a sushi lunch - opted out of my 'work' potluck - and we enjoyed some time discussing the state of the various plants in our back yard; plans for removal of those plants and my vision of raised beds where vegetables will grow. He suggested 'pots' or 'wooden containers'. Yes, for the patio. No, for the beds. We will start the removal process this weekend, hopefully, though the air quality is so bad, it's better to not be doing a lot of manual labor and breathing in the hazy gunk in the air. So we'll see. Perhaps mother nature just issued a reprieve to the men in my life re: their weekend chore list. Ah, but there's always so much to do inside as well. Bwaa-haa-haa. They can run, but they can't hide!

I've discovered some more great blogs over this past week- how I will find the time to read them all, I do not know - but it's been fun finding them and getting to 'know' these new people via their blogs. You feel like you get to 'know' them and you want to 'tune in again' to find out what's new, what's happening. Sort of like the 4 of you who regularly read THIS blog - and I thank you for it! I love writing and I love that there are a handful of actual READERS reading what I'm writing.