VACATION? DECK BUILDER!

So this is vacation? Anyway, building this deck is something that had to be done. My wife was tired of having the dogs traipse through a mud puddle to get to the pen. So this was the first order of business after my vacation started. I knew that later on in the week I was heading to Chicago for the Ed Posh Charity Golf Tournament so I had three days to get the whole deck done. Right off the bat it started raining. So now the dogs aren't playing in mud, I am.

Getting this done was a must for selling this house but once again we're making this house so livable we want to move and take it with us. We've made so many improvements that we're thinking of raising the price. How about that for going against conventional wisdom.

Spoke with my friend David about our art projects and we have decided that being starving art mavens is in our future. It's easier than you can imagine! In any case I am pulling some things together to get the art thing goin' agin'. It's usually good for my sanity in any case.

I'll post again when the deck is finished. Ta-ta for now.

VACATION!!

Did you read the headline? Breathe a sigh of relief because vacation has arrived. I seem to have survived the trip back from Delhi but not without 12 hours of sleep last night. Ouch, that trip kills me! But enough of that for now. The navy polyester is hanging in the closet, (actually stands up by itself), not to be seen or discussed until August, got it? Hmmm, ok. So now to satisfy LDK at lapdogknits.blogspot.com heres what we had for dinner tonight. Nothing special but there might be a few added ingredients that she doesn't have. Got some catfish from the market. What to do with it? Fried? Nah, to fatty, stinks up the house. Baked? Pretty pedestrian but has possibilities. Oven baked with breadcrumbs it is. Pantry searched, cabinets opened, no breadcrumbs! Ok, what do we have? Found some sesame wheat crackers and some honey wheat pretzels. Perfect! Ground them up with the roller. Threw in some parmesan cheese and the not so secret ingredient, Old Bay Seasoning. Run the fish through some milk, then into the cracker mix, drizzle with butter and off to the oven, 450 for about 18 minutes. WoW! A new favorite. Daughter made the fabulous salad, pictured, and we had a feast. BTW, spent part of the day at the town pool, as you can see, with wife and daughter. Got a great swim in before the storms came.

Sleepless in India

India! Here I am on the other side of the planet trying to get back on track before heading back home. Getting here and going home is always the worst part. Being here is like a weird vacation. The chronology: 1) Suffer on the flight over. 2) Check into a fabulous hotel and slip into a coma. 3) Hit the gym for exercise and then the spa for a steam and jump into the cold pool (55 degrees to really get your heart started). 4) Fabulous breakfast (or dinner in my case since the time difference is about 12 hours.) 5) Wander around the grounds for awhile to take a few pictures to post. 6) Back to the room to post the blog, prepare to sleep, and head home. I have lots of pictures from here and I am starting to think about how to post them. Stay tuned. BTW, this pic is a couple of years old but my brother should recognize the bowl.

Salmon on the breezeway

Here's a shout out to my cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com. Havin' comfort food on the breezeway. Saw from an earlier post comment that you wanted to see food, more food, so here it is. Not exciting, and yet delicious. Mom drove, (yes, drove), to Dans seafood shop to pick us up some salmon. Drove, because the thermometer here is approaching 100 degrees. Potatoes, fresh tomatoes, salmon on the grill and 'tres bien' another culinary masterpiece. Miss you, LDK, and tell that man of yours we want to see the both of you soon here in fly-over country.

Bee hitchhiker

After coming back home from Wisconsin and hearing all week about my cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com my mother is thinking that she needs to get 'hip' and get a laptop. So here's mom at her first laptop lesson and she rocks the macbook. Also, she transported this sunflower from Door County and she claims it to be her pride and joy. The bee came along for the ride.

Here is the end of the conga line that I found snaking it's way up the mountain. It's fairly steep but pretty much any one can make it up to the top. So I think that it turns out that every tourist that comes to Hawaii make this a 'must do' at some point. Anyway, it had stopped raining and even this old man huffed and puffed his way to the top and it was well worth it. And at the end, on my way out of the park, I was rewarded with this beautiful rainbow. Wow!

I'm in Hawaii with my new camera and thought it would be a good time for a test run. As I usually do when in a different time zone than my home I try to stay on my home body clock. So, woke up at 3:00 in the morning thinking what to do now. I like to wander around as the sun is coming so I set off at about 4:30 in the morning to do a little exploring. I saw a sign for diamond head crater. Hmm. The thing that I like about being up at this hour, even in a big city, is no people. So, I figured this would be a good time to find the Diamond Head Crater trail. After about a half hour walk I made it to the entrance of Diamond Head Park. There were about three or four other people there for the 6 a.m. opening. Great. At five before six a couple of mini busses showed up along with a couple of vans. Now it started to rain. Well, pooh. The gate opened and I decided to press on in the rain. I thought if any crowds were going to develop they would be put off by the rain. At the beginning of the trail I made a quick pit stop. When I emerged five minutes later there was a line of hundreds of Japanese tourists snaking their way ahead of me up the trail. Waaaah! So much for a quiet morning walk.

My cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com wants to know whats' for dinner. So it seems that I am not the only one food obsessed. Well, LDK, I'll be dining on Indian and I'll post a picture for you although I have it on good authority that you should never be hungry again after last week. Ha. LOL!