It’s that time of year again – local county fairs. I love the frenzy of last-minute crafting and baking, loading up the truck, and taking everything in. This year was no exception. I always aim to enter more items than the year before, and usually have a few that I simply run out of time to finish. I’ve been doing this long enough to laugh about it, promise myself to get started on my projects earlier (knowing full well that there would be a last minute rush like every year before it), and then spend the week following turn-in day picking up all the craft or baking supplies and putting things back in their place. The end of the craft week has my front room looking like a craft store, and the baking week has flour in places of the kitchen I wouldn’t have thought could get there. It’s all good, and then I start planning for the next year.

This year was like every other. On the drop-off day we decide what the latest time we can leave the house is, then set a cutoff time to wrap up things in process. For the baking day, I had 25 completed baked items by the designated time. We loaded up my husband’s car and the cab of my truck, then raced across town. Promptly at 4pm, I dashed into the building so that I “technically” made it on time. Or so I thought. The women that run the building looked at me and told me they were there until 5pm, not 4. Apparently, someone had put the wrong time on the main listing page for Home Arts, but the correct one was listed if you checked each individual division. If you enter as many categories as I do (39 this year!), you don’t have time on the last day to double-check the book. So. After Tokyo-drifting into the parking lot with many, many baked goods, we find out that I could have wrapped up 3-5 more items already in progress. As it was, my hubby had to zip back across town to bring back the upside down cake that we forgot (it had been set aside to finish cooling). The sourdough bread was the last thing pulled from the oven at 3:30pm; I had to hope for the best on that one. You cannot rush sourdough baking, or bad things happen.

All the pans are washed, baking ingredients returned to their shelves, and the yearly Where’s Waldo Fair Home Game card completed. We will go to the fair this week to see how my items placed, get our obligatory geodes, and probably enjoy a bit of fair food. If you go to the Fresno Fair and see my entries, let me know what you think!