The Plus and Minus of Staying Busy

I didn't think I would get much done on Sunday.

Friday I had volunteered to work at the Bay State Marathon but on Saturday at the expo, they had nothing for me to do. As it turned out, I was at the expo with Dahlia since I had just taken her to the eye doctor which is located right by the Radisson. She ended up working at the race since there was a water stop organized via her high school CC team.

Around Noon, the day of productivity began with a visit to the grocery. I thought, bbq might be nice and got a pack of baby back ribs.

Home by 1:00 and put away the groceries and got the ribs cooking: First a dry rub, then into a covered pan in a 250 F oven.

Next, a barefoot 7.85 mile run followed by a necessary shower.

Even though I was freshly clean, the next job was an hour and a half of lawn mowing/leaf mulching. The mower has been running great in this cooler weather and with rain coming, this may be a last shot at elimination of leaves.

I took a minute to wash my hands and began assembling the ingredients for spaghetti sauce: Though this is a bit of a misnomer since the intent was to get a key ingredient ready for a later in the week lasagna plan. I also picked up ricotta and lasagna noodles in the above shopping trip. Once the sauce was fully assembled and simmering, I took the ribs out of the oven to let them rest and cool a bit. If they went on the grill in their present fork tender state, they would fall apart and into the coals.

At this point, there was a good half hour before the need to begin final supper preparations: Fire up the grill to put some char onto the ribs and put together some corn bread. Not 30 seconds after siting down to check-out the NFL situation, my wife asked if I had reviewed Surenna's essay. The essay is the girl's college entrance writing and tres-important: In fact the daughter had asked me about it right as I started on the sauce. I groaned at this new task but took up the paper and looked it over in commercials and used these breaks to stir the sauce from time to time. I had just enough time to review my edits with daughter and then set to work with wife on dinner.

After dinner, clean-up and a final shower, it was time to rest. I was too tired to pay attention to TV and too wound-up to sleep.