~A Bitter Swallow~

   Wow.  I am a horrible blogger.  I really need to fix that.  I know I keep saying that.  One of these days I might actually work on it. LOL

  We moved!   I'm excited.  I'm hoping that it gives me the sense of space to allow me to relax more, and therefore be able to write more.  It won't happen for a few weeks, I am sure, since I still have tons of unpacking to do. 

  But, the place we are in now has so much more space!  I can walk around without running into everything and / or everyone.   We have a large living room with a woodstove, 2 large bedrooms for the kids, a double sized master bedroom for us, 1 large bathroom (seriously- my old bedroom could fit inside of it), and another 1/4 bathroom (sink and toilet).  Little kitchen with eat-in nook, den with another wood stove, a good sized laundry area that also has room for a crafting space,  a garage, and an attached studio area that has enough room for Dustin to do his photography, as well as his other hobbies.   All that, and a nice front yard, and a fully fenced back yard complete with play structure, shed, and garden. 

  It has some quirks.  It definitely has the feel of a homeowner who took on remodeling projects themself, and didn't quite know what they were doing.  However, it's all cosmetic things, that are easily fixed or ignored.  I'm excited, and have already started the Halloween decorations.  

 Speaking of Halloween decorations, I was appalled yesterday at the stores who have forgone the Halloween decorations in favor of Christmas stuff.  I mean, it is only 3 days into October!  Six of the seven stores I went to yesterday had their Halloween stuff shoved haphazardly into a corner, and looked like they had just thrown out whatever stock they had leftover from last year, then had big Christmas sections already up and running.  The one store that did NOT do that was a Halloween supply store..  It made me want to vomit.   Don't get me wrong-  Christmas is fun, but I LOVE Halloween, and I hate the whole mega-commercialism that Christmas has become.  Halloween and Thanksgiving are practically non-existent anymore because retailers are so gun hoe for Christmas sales.  It makes me sick.

Ok... /end rant on that subject...

If you haven't seen it already, I started a new blog.  I decided to start keeping tabs on all of the recipes I try out.  I was having a hard time remembering what I thought of certain recipes, and what, if any, changes I wanted to try on them.  Now I have all of that, many complete with photos, in one location to go back through.   You should check it out if you are into recipes and stuff:    Our Taste Tests

Next week I get to go to Spokane.  I have to start getting packed and ready for that, I suppose.  It's for a conference for work.  I'm going to the WALE conference.  Should be interesting.