Crazy prep time

T had previously convinced me to take the entire week to spend up north before the Alzheimer's walk. Now, because of the funeral, Monkey and I were going to skip our week of "vacation" and wait for T so we would only have one vehicle up there.

My father-in-law had a follow-up appointment here in Bangor yesterday from his surgery a few weeks ago (a month ago? has it already been that long?). He spent the night rather than make the round trip in one day.

T asked him to spend an extra night (tonight) so Monkey and I can hitch a ride north with him tomorrow. This way, I get to put in a full day in the office today, spend the entire week in Fort Kent and we can all drive down together on Sunday (T will meet us up there on Friday). YAY!

In preparation for my vacation, I've been attempting to get everything done at the house. Nothing burns me more than coming home from vacation to a house that looks like a tornado just came through. My house looks like it did when I finished spring cleaning right now (wait - did I finish spring cleaning? Who knows... ha ha). And it feels SO good. I've threatened T with bodily harm if it doesn't look this good when we come back on Sunday. I'm sure many other wives out there would agree - husband's aren't always the greatest about the home environment when they are "bach'ing" it for the week (he likes to think he's a bachelor again when he's alone - hence "bach'ing").

Yesterday was one of the longest days I've had in a really really long time. Monkey woke up at 4 AM. She was only awake for a few minutes, but it was long enough that I couldn't fall back to sleep. At 5, I gave in and got up to pay bills. Monkey and I also had errands to run (like making sure T has food so he doesn't starve without us).

I also have also prepared my final batch of tomato sauce for the season yesterday. It's been a long time coming and it was such an absolutely wonderful feeling when I was putting the finished sauce into containers for freezing. T will be using some in a veggie lasagna for dinner tonight. I impressed his dad with my cooking last night (Chicken Marsala - yummy) so T's going to work his magic tonight (See? He's really not as helpless as I might make it seem).

I also spent some time yesterday on a new dehydrator experiment. I've been experimenting with is quite a bit this year, first with the banana chips, then with cherry tomatoes. Now I've made apple chips. It was so super easy. I just cored them, sliced them, tossed them in the dehydrator and let them go for about 12 hours. We tried them out and liked them so much that I immediately started another round to run overnight. I packed them this morning with the intentions of doing another batch overnight tonight.

My bagel and coffee are gone, so I must now be headed to work for the day. I doubt my day today will be nearly as productive as yesterday.