We made a run to Costco today. Peter Pumpkin is already getting tired of me sending him to the store every couple of days to retrieve sugar, eggs or more flour. I was running around Costco sampling all the goodies that are there every Saturday when I look around and see him coming towards me with a 25 lb sack of sugar in our basket. I ask him what in the world would we do with that huge amount and he reminded me how many times I had sent him to the store in the past 2 weeks to get butter, sugar or flour. So…we came home with a basket full of baking items. We have emptied that huge bag of sugar into every piece of Tupperware we have in the house. This now gives me no excuse to not bake, so today, the first fresh apple cake of the season with browned butter frosting just came out of the oven. It truly signals that Fall has arrived. The recipe is on the blog so do not waste another day without making this delicious cake. It only takes 2 cups of sugar, so you don’t have to get a 25 lb sack! Peter is wanting me to share how giving he felt today. He sprang for 2 Costco hotdogs in stead of 1 that we usually share. Is he already in the holiday spirit or what?
We now have 8 lbs of butter, 36 eggs and plenty of flour & sugar. We are staying home tonight to take the “at home computer test to find out why our cholesterol is so high. Guess we can answer questions between bites of apple cake.

I learned that yesterday. We kept our 10 year old grandson all weekend and just trying to think of things to keep him entertained was enough to exhaust us, much less actually doing all the things that we thought up. But yesterday did me in. Sevy wanted to go to the Flight Museum down at Love Field so we took him. Sounds great doesn’t it? Such an easy field trip, right? Well, half way through the museum, we discovered there was a whole other wing that had actually Southwest airplanes to go through. Since I love to fly and at one time, back in my crazy years, I actually interviewed to become a flight attendant. But since they didn’t make those cute little khaki pants in my big girl size, I guess they didn’t want to have to special order a pair, so I was turned down. They told me it was my age, but I’m not quite sure I believe them. Anyway, I have totally let that go, but when we go through the plane and there is the place where the flight attendant would sit, I decided to see what it would have felt like to actually sit where they sit and pretend for a moment that I was indeed working for SWA in my dream job. I had Sevy take my picture and off we went to the next exhibit. We are getting ready to leave when I discovered that my Brighton sunglasses are no longer in my pocket. I panic. I ran all over the museum asking total strangers if they had seen a pair of sunglasses when all of a sudden I remembered that I had sat down in that plane and maybe, they had fallen out of my pocket during my moment of dreaming of being Ms. SWA flight attendant. I ran, truly, I ran back to that part of the museum, up the steps to the plane and proceeded to the front where there on the seat, are my sun glasses. Even though I am to old to be running through museums and too old to be dreaming of being a flight attendant, I was so thrilled to have found them. We leave and ask Sevy what he would like for lunch. It is 1:00 and we are starving. It is hot and humid and I told him I didn’t care what we ate, it just had to have air conditioning and seats as my feet were feeling the effect of running all over the museum. We drive for a few minutes when I see that Randy is going on a street that wouldn’t be leading us to any restaurant. I ask him what in the world was he doing. He just said, “trust me”. I learned along time ago, not to trust him. Those words usually mean that an adventure of some sort is getting ready to unfold before my eyes. Sitting in the back seat, allowing the “boys” to take over the front, I am still trying to get my body temp under 100. Randy quickly pulls into the parking lot of Jackson’s Pottery. What in the world are we doing here? I knew he was not one to buy any type of greenery or pottery, in fact, he is the one that reminds me that he doesn’t like to throw money away on flowers, as I just kill them before you can say, “Miracle Grow”. But here we are parking when I look and see, oh no, they are having a “cook off” competition between the different vendors of barbeque grill brands. He parked and turned around to look at me in the back seat and said, “this will be fun, it is all the barbeque you want, and it’s free”. This will be great. Sevy is in agreement and we exit the car to go sample (if you can call filling up the plate they give you with fajitas, sausage, brisket, ribs and tortillas),sampling. As you stand there eating, of course, they are wanting you to buy either their grilling meat rub, their barbeque pit, smoker, or grilling tools. Of course, Randy is able to just take their free food and walk away. But me…well, that is harder for me. I feel guilty just standing there eating their food, and of course, as hot as it was, the vendors are soaking wet themselves. When I couldn’t talk Randy into buying anything, (he says that they are use to people coming and just eating, that they really don’t care if you buy anything or not) I can’t take it anymore. Any make up that was left after running around the museum is now running into my eyes and stinging like crazy and Sevy is running around trying to find a drink (free of course) since the “free sausage” is so spicy his mouth is on fire. We finally tell Randy we are done. We are hot, our mouths are on fire and we want air conditioning. He tells us we are no fun…
I don’t want to be fun. I want air conditioning, I want a huge glass of iced tea and I want to wash the make up out of my eyes. He is so giving…he says that if we by pass the Sonic on Forest Lane and can make it to the one on Park that it would be 2 by then and it would be happy hour so we could get our drinks half price.
PLEASE….SOMEONE FIND HIM A JOB! I can’t take anymore of these “free lunch adventures”. Being retired has ruined my husband. At least before retirement, I didn’t have to wait for Sonic Happy Hour if I was thirsty…
The day turned out fine after all, Sevy got a milkshake and Tater Tots and I got my Diet Cherry Coke, sitting in an air conditioned car. That’s enough adventure for me this weekend.
I promised him I won’t gripe anymore when he suggest that we go have a free lunch off samples at Costco anymore, at least it’s air conditioned.

This day ranks among the top days in my last 20 years!(yes, and the days all the grandkids were born, so please, our adult children, don’t write me yelling that those days should be the most important) The book I have been working on for more years than I care to admit is being printed as I write. It will be in my hands in a week! Princess On The Porch is a collection of great recipes and stories that will entertain you and show you that we see life a little more humorous than is probably necessary, but we learned a long time ago that we would rather have laugh lines instead of red swollen eyes.
There are so many of you who have been encouraging me to do this for many years and I thank you for that.
Randy is already planning a law suit against me for the many stories I shared in the book about him. But I will worry about that later.
Princess On The Porch will be available in fine stores everywhere….ok, maybe just on my blog and Face Book, but a Princess can dream, can’t she?

It felt so good to have all my Fall Decorations out and placed strategically around the house, bringing a feel of festivity and food that I should be baking at all hours of the day and night.
Our kids have begun to call us Clark Griswald beginning in Sept, as I cannot wait to put up Christmas lights.
So beginning in September, we put up Fall trees, which turns to Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving. I have promised sweet little Peter Pumpkin that I will make lots of pumpkin bread to sell to help pay our electric bill.
As soon as I got through placing the lights in the garland on the mantle,the trees decorated with Fall leaves and lights, plus a few lighted pumpkins in the courtyard, I sat down with a glass of tea to enjoy the different feel, Randy’s phone rang. I heard him answer and tell the person on the other end of the line that “yes, he would take care of it right away”! When he walked in I ask him what he would be taking care of. He said it was the electric company asking us to please turn off some of the lights. That we blew a fuse in the neighborhood and all the neighbors were calling, complaining. I couldn’t believe it. When I said, “really, you are kidding me” he said, “yes, but I’m sure that I will be having to come out of retirement to pay our electric bill.”
This reminded me of the Christmas that I decided that we should have blue lights outside instead of white. We went and bought all blue lights and Frosty proceeded to put up the 8-10 boxes outside. The yard looked beautiful and we were so proud. The next night, the lights automatically turned on around 6:30 and as I am in the kitchen cooking dinner. Randy drives in from work and as he walks quickly into the front door, I thought to myself that I hadn’t seen him move that fast since I ask him to marry me. When I looked up he came over to me and said, very seriously, “you won’t believe what is in the middle of the street! You have got to come look, it’s a plane, they tried to land, thinking that they were at the airport.” I told him that if this was his way of telling me that we have too many lights, it’s going to take more than that for me to give up my holiday lights.
If you are ever in Frisco and you see a glow by the tollway, you will know that our house is not far away…or a neighborhood that is totally in the dark, from us blowing a fuse.