November already

Can you believe it? November is upon us already, and with it, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the bold and National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) for the rest of us.

Today, November 1, is also Tuesday, so perhaps the time is ripe for a Tackle-It Tuesday assignment (even though it's already 4 pm in my time zone). For today, I guess I'll set up eye doctor appointments. [Hey, the key to succeeding is setting small, easily attainable goals... or so I've been told.]

In other news, I've been trying to get my little family on a healthier diet, and I'm still getting back into the rhythm of being able to create tasty, filling, but still healthful bag lunches. The end result is that I end up starving by mid-afternoon and have insatiable cravings for burgers and fries. Yikes. I need to make time to cook this weekend.

Oh! Speaking of cooking, I have big news! I've made a major purchase that will, I think, vastly improve my quality of life. I am now the proud owner of a new stove, a new refrigerator, and a dishwasher. When I bought my little cottage, it came with some appliances, including a washer and dryer (replaced a few months ago), a stove (30-40 years old, by my best estimation), and a fridge (20-30 years old). There was no dishwasher. I muddled along as best I could, because appliances are expensive, but while the fridge was at least functional, the stove was dying by inches. The oven never really worked, and then one of the four burners quit. I could still cook, but when the second burner went out, I said, "Enough!" I'm a frugal person, but when I'm down to a creaky old fridge, no oven, and only two working range burners, and I'm STILL having to do all of my dishes by hand, I will scrape together cash to bring my kitchen up to the 21st century. The fridge is great, and is rated at the highest level of energy efficiency. My nice new stove has worked well so far, and I've tested the oven with some excellent chocolate chip cookies. And the dishwasher is due to be installed this week (it's a more complicated process in an old kitchen than just plugging in a fridge or stove).

Well, I'm off to call the eye doctor. Cheerio, all!