New venue

 Our short trip to Robbers Cave State Park was lovely!

It's heavily forested, with huge boulders and, obviously, a cave or two, in the Kiamichi Mountains.

The cabin area is really nice.  The park itself, and the cabin they let us look at, are beautifully maintained, and the cabins have full size kitchen appliances.

We think it's still being managed by the state, unlike the cabin area at Greenleaf, because the difference is so obvious.

The only thing is that they converted the indoor fireplaces to electric in the cabins.

Sigh.

BUT, I have switched our next Thanksgiving retreat to one of the cabins there, anyway, and we won't be going back to Greenleaf.

There are outdoor firepits at each cabin, so, weather permitting, I can still have my fires. Just not in the preferred fireplace.

Maybe next year, we will look at a different park, where they still have real fireplaces.

Anyway, we got rained out, and didn't get to go exploring the park except by car, so that kind of stunk, but it was still a worthwhile trip.

It was wonderful to have a four day weekend, and then to have appointments on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.  

I know it sounds odd, but only having to work for about 2 full days was needed.

Next week, with no appointments, and 40 hours of work to deal with.... not so much, HAHA!!

In other news, our finances are flowing nicely, so far, and I have been able to use a full pay check of mine to pay off (or lower) some small credit card balances.

We will continue to do this for a few more months, and then we will know for sure if I can retire early.

There was also some money that came in the mail from our auto accident last year.  

It was reimbursement for our deductible on the car repair....so HOPEFULLY, the full settlement will be reached soon, and we can put this behind us.

If the settlement is a decent amount, we want to buy a bigger car that is more visible on the road, and more suitable for things like our cabin camping trip, and road trips.

I'd love a Mazda CX-5.

I am still in the process of tapering off of the prednisone.  My doctor had me just not take it on chemo day, and then resume the next day.

She also had me shorten the gradual step down days to four from five, so I will be off of it sooner, since it apparently was not necessary.

Today, I reduce it to 10 mg.  Then, in four days, to 5 mg, then stop.

My face is all swollen, and I have gained almost 10 pounds.  I hope that dissipates quickly!

I hate being able to see my own cheeks, HAHA.

It's been a spectacular weather weekend, here, after record-breaking rain in April.  We are grateful for the rain, but the flooding has been deadly in some areas.

Dave is hoping to get the front yard mowed tomorrow, before the rain starts again, but we will now have to pay someone to do the back.

It's a completely different kind of grass back there, with lots of pollinator friendly weeds, and it's totally over grown.  Our electric mower can't handle it.

Dave also never did the clean up he promised to do, and now that still needs to be done, so we may end up spending way more money on help than I would like.

Grumble.  

Speaking of fire pits, I hope to put mine to use today, as this is one of the Pagan holidays.  

Yesterday, Dave did manage to get out the weed whacker, and clear a path to the firepit, and to the shed where the wood is.

I got myself a birthday gift of a standing grill rack to put over the fire. 

This will be an alternate to the crossbar for hanging pots, or the hanging grill, which turned out to be a bit difficult to cook with, because it swings!

I can still hang pots if I want to, but it will be nice to have a stable standing grill for using a skillet, or a flat bottomed dutch oven, if I can find a decent one somewhere.

SO, if I am up for it later, I will be having my Bealtaine fire, and then will cook a steak over it! 

Can't decide if I will bake a potato in the coals, or if I will grill some sweet corn, which I also have on hand.

We shall see.

Finally got my new lap top all set up yesterday.  It's a VAST improvement over the old one.  

We still are figuring out the smart TV, though, and have not been able to add the MLB.TV app to it yet. We still have to watch baseball by connecting a cable to a lap top and to the tv.

So far, this season, the Cubs are winning a lot of games, so we will watch that this afternoon, and will enjoy having the windows open before the weather starts to get too hot.

Have a great week!