#1,386 Piddling.

The greatest pleasures of self-employment are the days when work is done early and quickly, and a whole day stretches before you with endless opportunity. When the weather is nice enough for a long sleeve, all the better. I even got a late and lazy start to my day, spent a couple hours at work and was home by 1 for lunch on the front porch: enchiladas and Spanish rice.

There were so many things I wanted to do, so I just decided upon a couple of them, including new flowers for my porch containers, a visit with Mammaw and my parents, and to bake a cake for supper club tomorrow night. I made a quick trip to Lowe’s and came home with some small bronze mums so there’s plenty of time for growth, red kale, yellow pansies, white snapdragons, and a small topiary evergreen.

I’m so glad Ben’s mama told me about deadheading my mums last fall. I feel like some sort of gardening expert now. I had to just throw the things out at Christmas last year because they were so out of season.

I did a little more piddling around the house, washing the few dishes in the sink, washing and folding the clothes and towels, washing our bed linens. I honestly enjoy washing laundry and cleaning my floors. Laundry even more now since I bought some of this over the weekend.

I went over to the church to “help” Ben put out the signs for the pumpkin patch because they’ll be arriving this Friday. I can’t believe it’s already the most wonderful time of the year.

Afterward we went to see Mammaw for a bit, watched TV with daddy since mama had a tennis match, and then I came home to bake.

Though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I find that baking is something that makes me happy. The way it smells, the way it feels to know you’re making something to eat that is purely for happiness. It’s not sustenance, just sugar—which is a comfort and delight to everyone I love. I don’t claim to be a wonderful baker or anything, but I am able to follow a recipe and generally that doesn’t fail me. Tonight I just made the layers for Southern Living’s apple-pecan carrot cake.

While I did that, I listened to the La Congi Blicoti channel on Pandora (which I highly recommend if you like French music and American standards from the 1920s-1950s). It made me feel glamorous to bake and listen to this music, like I could be in a Woody Allen movie or Meg Ryan in French Kiss.

Tomorrow before supper club I’ll put the layers together with the caramel sauce and mascarpone icing.

I think this particular recipe will cause a sweet tooth flare up for me. Which is just fine.