We are t-minus two days from my departure for the lakes and counting down.

For those not in the know, I’m heading up to the Boundary Waters on Thursday. It’s the first of what I hope will someday be many trips to the allegedly wonderful area in Minnesota’s North Woods. In fact, if the scenery is as beautiful as I’ve been told, I may just set up my tent and stay there for good – coming back to the Twin Cities in August for my wedding, of course.

How many nitwits does it take to put together a brown, plush chair? Two.

Mathias Baden and Brandon Otte, the editorial staff for your local newspaper, try their darnedest to work together to put together Brandon's new chair. Which he loves.

Note: We had "an edict from the president" to pay attention to the instructions, but there are no instructions included in the already opened box. Did that stop us? No. And we still came out with extra parts -- in fact, they were labeled as such in the packaging.

Do you have big plans for kicking off your weekend tonight? I know I do. I’ll be kicking it off by partaking in two of my favorite of the seven deadly sins – sloth and gluttony.

All I can say is that homemade pesto is really, really good.

I’m finally getting back on track with my 40 recipes. After a sluggish week last week, I started Monday eight recipes behind my goal.

This weekend, I have the privilege of visiting some of Molly’s friends in Rochester. Among other forms of entertainment, I’m looking forward to a rousing game of Marbles.

There is no heat in my apartment right now, and I’m OK with that. After a summer of low energy costs, I’m looking at a winter of high heating bills.