I'm watching House Hunters International, in which people are picking up and moving to Belize. Shockingly, it's not improving my mood.

Me too.

I fought my laziness and actually made frosting for the cake. I've been craving a good devil's food cake for a while. Because this was made from a mix, it wasn't *good* but it was better than most supermarket cakes. I substituted melted butter for oil and substituted non-fat milk for part of the water because these mixes so often taste like nothing. I also added a couple tablespoons of Valrhona cocoa. Frosting was buttercream with Valrhona cocoa. Guilt-laden craving satiation? You betcha.

Another advantage of the solar oven is that this cake was moist as moist could be. Stupendous. I'm going to try to make one from scratch for my bday coming up.

The absence of both siblings for most of my day has allowed me to relax a bit more so I'm having a cheerful day for me despite BLABBT.

Hope your day takes a turn for the better, ita.

I have the opposite, ita. Dev keeps saying that sefects are enhancements because they are currently "working as expected." I am fairly sure however, that it's not the UX we intended. Unless our IA was my best friend's boyfriend, or Tino.

Me too.

They do choose the right house, though, imo.

That's ... a little odd.

I can't work out why no one cares, but I don't want to out myself as an office supply fetishist, so I'm just going to supply myself.

Except? Really? I have a lot of pencils. At home.

I have a lot of pencils. At home.

But are they WRONG and MECHANICAL?

Congrats on the fuse fixing, Kat! It's a nice feeling of accomplishment to get stuff like that done. Not to mention a nice feeling of "I'm no longer burning up like I was vacationing in Gehenna" feeling.

ita, if you want more of what I sent you, just say the word. It would be good to know that my new hobby is being put to good use.

amyth, TOTALLY. My sister is getting on my case for not hooking her up, and the stuff you sent was totally high quality. Love.

Sounds like a book I should get a hold of.

You should totes check it out, Nora. He also wrote a fascinating book on SF's Barbary Coast. He got the wild histories down for all the cool cities. I think he did one on Chicago too.

I took Matilda and Emmett out to GG Park this afternoon. We found the bison paddock where Matilda chirped "Hello Buffalo!" through the fence to them while Emmett corrected her each time that they were bison.

Then Stow lake where we rented a paddle boat and went around the lake twice while munching on popcorn and spotting turtles and feeding the ducks. Then to the playground where we got churros and rode the carousel and played on the equipment until Matilda started to get cranky and I knew I should get her back in the car to nap. Which she did.

And now she's asleep in the bed and Emmett and I are about to eat Tater Tots.

Emmett's back at school on Wednesday so this was one of our last summer days on the loose.