A Year of Blogging: November 1, 2011

Sometimes I am amazed at how quickly time flies by. It seems like yesterday that we were packing away the sweaters and thrilling in the feel of our feet in sandals. Then in the blink of an eye, here we are at November. Two months left in the year. Less than two months to Christmas. Oh I think of all that I have to do, and the stress starts building. Yet, I love this time of year. Does that mean I'm a person who thrives on stress??? I never thought of myself as that, yet perhaps... November. When I look at the calendar, it is filled with birthdays and special days for our family. Somehow, we seem to be a little bottom heavy when it comes to the calendar, with a lot of events occurring in the fall. It seems we won't only have a lot of family things to celebrate this month, as November has it's share of celebrations for everyone. November is Aviation History month. The Dayton, OH area has a lot of ways to celebrate this month. You could go to the Wright Bicycle Shop, or to Hoffman Prairie where the Wright Brothers tested planes. The best way to celebrate would be to go to the Air Force Museum. I have been once, and it was great. I hope to take Sydney and Drew when they are older. Since you are in old airplane hangars, I don't recommend going in the middle of winter (some lessons you learn the hard way!) Maybe you're more of a train person. If you build or enjoy model trains, then November is your month! Happy National Model Railroad month. I could celebrate this day locally as well. Just a few minutes from my house is EnterTRAINment Junction, home of the world's largest indoor train display. I still haven't been there yet. It seems like the kind of place to go with children, so someday, when the munchkins are visiting me, we'll go see the trains. November is Peanut Butter Lovers month. Which is kind of lousy, because Monday October 31, most of the major peanut butter companies increased the price of peanut butter by at least 20%. The price increase was due to the poor peanut crop this year. I know the price of peanut butter went up because Sunday Erich read an article about it and took off to Sam's Club to stock up! We now have six large jars in the pantry. Between Erich and the dogs, we go through a lot of peanut butter. November is National Novel Writing Month. That's great, but with everything I am doing to prepare for my parents' visit at Thanksgiving, as well as for Christmas, I don't have time to write my novel! Although I have made substantial progress on my novel this year, I won't make the self-imposed deadline of having it published by the end of the year. I am not being too hard on myself though. At least I have been 'writing' (or typing) semi- regularly because of this blog experiment. So the practice has been good, and maybe next year I'll get the novel done. Even though I've been blogging about the various things for the month of November, I cannot forget that November 1 is a very important day. It is my dog, Onyx's, birthday. Her 'unofficial' name is 'Bloodaxe's Demon Princess Onyxia'. I say that's her unofficial name because she is not registered with the AKC. (Her brother's unofficial name is 'Primeau's Cobalt Cuddlebug of Happiness'.) When we brought her home, we weren't sure she was going to be a good fit for us. She was a terror! Her face was mostly black, with some brown. She looked more like a Rottweiler than a Beagle. Except for those beagle ears! That's how 'demon princess' was added to her name. She has ruled the roost from the moment she put a paw down in the house. She also provides a lot of laughter for us, although I'm sure her brother Cobalt doesn't think she's so funny. This year we celebrate 10 years with her, and I truly hope for many many more years.