I'm still here...

Really, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just been really, extra busy. With what, I couldn't really tell you, but that's just the way things are for me most of the time. So, just to summarize the highlights of the last month plus since I last wrote:

1. Met some new friends, two families from church, one moved from South Dakota and one from Ontario, Canada. Suffice it to say they are finding their first winter holidays in Florida just a little different than what they are used to. But I'm looking forward to getting to know them better. The Canadian family also homeschools their two boys and live literally 2 minutes from us, so that's handy. They are originally from Slovakia, speak multiple languages, and they are both physicists, so I'm hoping we might get a little smarter just from being around them.

2. I'm a NANOWRIMO dropout. I hate to admit it, but it's true. I did really well the first 4 days, then got behind, then more behind, and yet more behind until I just gave up. But on the bright side, I did write 11,000 plus words and there's always next year, right?

3. Family life retreat was last weekend. This is the third year we've gone and we had a really good time as usual. The weather was gorgeous, which always helps make camping adventures go smoother. The only glitch was that we got lost on the way there, this despite having both Mapquest directions and a GPS, both of which took us a different route than we had gone before. GPS had us turn onto a road that was paved but then abruptly became unpaved, which didn't concern us too much at first since the camp is off a dirt road and we were coming in from the opposite side. However, when the next turn was onto a smaller road where we were chased by two snarling, incredibly fast dogs, one of which ran a short distance UNDER our car, we started to wonder. The final clue was when it kept telling us to "Turn right" into every driveway we passed, with an occasional "Turn left" just to keep things interesting. When we ignored it (after the first wrong turn), it eventually told us to "Drive 2.4 miles", not normally a problem, except that there was nowhere to go except follow two ruts that went off into the woods. Um, thank you, no. So we turned around, gunned it past the scary dogs, and made our way back to the main road, drove less than a mile to the road we should have turned on and got there in 10 minutes. I should note that this happened to at least 3 other people, so it wasn't just us!

4. Went grocery shopping today for all the stuff I need to do my part of Thanksgiving dinner. We are spending Thursday with our friends who live in the country about an hour away, so we generally split the work - and by split the work, I mean that she does most of it and I bring some token dishes (Snicker salad anyone?) so I can feel like I contributed. But my guilt aside, it's always a fun day and we're looking forward to it.

5. My two sisters and I are talking about doing a blog together, which I'm really excited about...more on that when we get the details worked out.

I'm sure there was more that went on, but it must not have been blog-worthy, since I can't think of anything else right now. Safe travels to everyone who is traveling this week, especially those who are flying - good luck with that! Looking forward to getting back in the rhythm of regular blogging again, so until next post - farewell!