Happiness is sitting on the deck at the end of a long day with a drink in one hand and petting a kitty cat with the other. I love my deck. It isn't very big but the three of us fit on it with room to spare. I bought a fantastic new lawn chair that I can sink into and lean back in. Very relaxing. I have my four pots of potted plants around me and am able to not only watch the traffic go by but watch tv at the same time. Ah, life is good.

15 days until I leave on my holiday. YEAH!!! Super excited not only for the time off but for everything that comes with it. A long visit with one friend who will be along for the ride, a short visit with a friend up North, great scenery and no doubt some awesome photo opportunities. And camping for 2 weeks. Whooo hooo.

I used to just pull things out of the cupboards when I needed them as I followed a recipe. This occasionally led to realizing partway through the baking experience that I didn't have a key ingredient and baking came to a stand still as I went off to the store to pick up the missing ingredient.

A couple of years ago I figured out that if I checked the recipe the night before I could eliminate some of the same day shopping. Add to that my smart plan to put all needed ingredients on the cupboard before I started mixing them. The plan evolved and I would move the ingredients from one side of the bowl to the other as I used them or if I was only baking one thing I would put them away as I used them. This almost always guarantees I never forget an ingredient.

Key words were almost always.

Today I was making Lemonade Layer Cake and managed to forget to put the buttermilk in. Whoops. It turned out pretty good actually. It is a very dense almost pound cake like consistency. The folks at work will certainly still eat it. Put enough icing on anything and it usually gets eaten.

I'm determined to try it again tomorrow and do it right this time--hopefully.

Images for early May taken on a road somewhere outside of FMM.

Taken in the house as I aired out and checked out the tent. It is kitty approved. They hung out and slept in it for most of the day.

I've been ignoring you. I don't seem to have a lot of energy at the moment and sitting on the couch watching tv after work for a couple of hours until I fall asleep is about all I can handle. Work is busy and my boss is away for a few weeks due to illness so I'm sorta running the show again...if I'm not running it I'm certainly out front pulling it.

Either way I've been neglecting you and I fell bad about that. This is a short message...I'm tired and my brain is lacking concentration skills. It should all sort itself out in the next couple of weeks. The days are getting longer I have vacation plans looming and summer is almost here. Plus the green of the grass and trees popped this past week which will no doubt bring my mood around.

Stay tuned.