Domestic Geek

I've decided to participate in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). All you have to do is post (a quality post) every day during the month of November — just the incentive I need to get out of my blogging slump.

In addition to being a cool month-long project, the NaBloPoMo site also has some great social networking functionality. I'm really looking forward to finding some new reads, especially since my friend Laura started a Colorado Bloggers group there. I love reading about areas I'm familiar with from other people's points of view.

D'oh! It's helpful when you make a post to show up on Halloween that you actually make it public.

Halloween was uneventful here. I thought about getting candy to pass out, but $2.79 for a bag with about 12 fun-size candy bars in it? No freaking way. Remember when bags of candy were actually full? I've only given out candy once since we lived in this park (the first year we moved in), and I think I only got 5 Trick or Treaters. Good thing I decided against the candy, because not one single person knocked on my door this year. The last thing I need to waste my money on is a bunch of candy that I don't need sitting around going stale, or worse, being eaten by me.

I carved my pumpkins and only cut myself once. Nothing to match my cool Jobs-O-Lantern from last year, but hey, I wasn't working full time last year, either. I made a Linux Tux one that unfortunately won't last long due to some wrong cuts I made and an extremely stringy pumpkin. I'll post a link to pictures later this evening. Here's a link to photos of this year's Jack-O-Lanterns.


I never got my cookies made. The milk for the frosting was bad and I didn't feel like going back out to get some. I might make them this evening, though, and take them in for a Friday treat at work. I'm roasting my seeds tonight, too.

Hope everyone out there reading had a fun and safe Halloween!

OK, I can understand someone's enthusiasm about the upcoming Christmas holiday, but seriously...who the hell puts their outdoor decorations up the day before Halloween? My neighbor, that's who. Snowmen, reindeer and fake trees is what greeted me when I turned off the main street into our park today. Not cool, people.

I did go to the U-Pick-Um pumpkin farm yesterday after work at Rock Creek Farm. It's up at Hwy 287 and the Northwest Parkway up in Brighton. It was quite the drive up there during rush hour, but I really enjoyed the drive to the field once on the property and roaming through the fields. I took Northwest Parkway/E-470 home, so it actually wasn't too bad on the trek home. There is another one close to that same spot that I'd like to check out next year called Pumpkins and More Farms. Marcus promised me that next year we could go through a corn maze or something. I've always wanted to do that. In addition to some pumpkins that I got to make Jack-o-lanterns out of, I got three small pie pumpkins to make fresh pies for Thanksgiving. They even threw in a spice pack and a recipe.

For future reference, there is a great site I came across called Pumpkin Patches and More! that listed pumpkin patches, corn mazes and other Halloween-related activities by state. There is also information about finding produce, Christmas trees and all sorts of stuff. That's a great resource (it's where I found the two places I mentioned above, plus a tutorial on making fresh pumpkin pies)! Wish I had thought if it.

OK, I'm off the make some pumpkin cookies to take to work tomorrow. I found the recipe online and if they come out yummy, I'll post a link to it. Otherwise, I'm going to forget they exist! I also am going to clean out my pumpkins so they'll be ready to carve after work tomorrow and get the seeds soaking so I can roast them. Roasted pumpkin seeds is my most favorite fall food. Mmmmm...yummy!

Even though Marcus and I are not "officially" married, we celebrate the anniversary of when we became a committed couple every 28th of October.

Today marked 15 years of togetherness.

I can honestly say I love him more today that I did 15 years ago. I'm the most blessed person in the entire world that I found him. I truly believe we are soul mates.

We celebrated this evening by consuming our traditional meal of Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster (the promotion always seems to be going on at the end of October). The cool thing about this year is we paid via gift cards that I got at work. I was just doing something that I felt was part of my job, but the CSR really appreciated my work and felt that I went above and beyond, so he requested to the powers that be that I was given this extra compensation. Yay!!! Works for me and the timing couldn't have been better.

There was a cute elderly couple sitting across the aisle from us. I was "enamored" with them (as Marcus called it). I so want to be like that couple when we're old. You could just tell that they enjoyed each other's company.

Anyway...

Today I got my last $5 payment from paid blogging that I had pending. I have found nothing on any of the paid blogging services that I wanted to write about in the last 30 days. With Christmas coming, the timing of this couldn't be worse. I've tried not to care about PR and all of that other stuff, but this blog dropped from a 4 to a 2 this time and I was a little surprised that it made me a little sad. I joined that one paid blogging service briefly where you fit contextual links into your posts and I just couldn't do it. I can't write about subjects I have no interest in or can't support just for the $. Since their service is an all or nothing deal, I had to pass. Oh, well.

Marcus asked me today when I told him that my last payment had come if that meant I was done for good. No, I'll still do it if I can find acceptable topics at a worthwhile price, but that doesn't seem to be the case for now. I AM going to have to find another income source, though. My raise has helped a tiny bit, but the OT that everyone kept saying was coming has yet to materialize. If I want out of this mobile home park and back on the road to financial security, I need to make more money.

On the positive side, not writing paid posts has been a bit of a relief. In fact, staying off the Internet as much as possible has been a good thing. My kitchen is getting cleaner. I've watched a lot of movies that I got through Netflix. I've been getting more sleep (I wonder if the information overload from constant surfing or the searching for acceptable paid blogging topics was causing my insomnia). I'll admit that I feel a bit lost without the constant online stimuli. I have to retrain myself to be happy with a book or a walk. It is kind of frightening how addicting it is and how much time I've wasted mindlessly being online.

I'm sad but also relieved that the Vegas trip fell through. It was for a blogging conference and I haven't been into blogging much lately. I would've loved to have met some of the people going, but I'll meet them all one day if I'm meant to. The fact is that the timing of it was bad and I really don't have that kind of money to spend right now. When I do go to Vegas, I want to really enjoy the experience, not feeling guilty that I went and not having the funds to do the things I really want to do there.