Hi November!

Happy Sunday! It is finally November, and that makes me very happy! We're enjoying a very lazy Sunday around here. Gary is completely immersed in football, but he's also folding laundry in the living room for me, which is perfect because I've been dreading those two mountains of clothes. He usually takes care of the folding, but sometimes when he's working so much, I just have to tackle it myself because I'm not letting everything sit there getting wrinkled. Needless to say, I was very happy to hand that job over to him today. 😂

I usually watch football with him, but I couldn't care less about this particular game. Not even a little bit. So instead, I'm baking sourdough and making a big pot of gumbo for us and our neighbors. I know, I just made both a few nights ago, but we were hanging out with some of our neighbors last night, and they mentioned they hadn't had gumbo in years. So… I volunteered to make enough for everybody.🤪 My crew certainly wasn't complaining because they love it.

It's so funny because our neighbor knows about three people I grew up with. Such a small world! And Gary talks to her husband all the time, and they've discovered they know some of the same people from Louisiana. I swear, no matter where we live, we somehow end up with neighbors who either know people we know or come from the same places we do. I've said it before, but I really do think everybody eventually ends up in Florida. LOL

It was so good seeing all of our neighbors out and about last night. It seems like the hurricane brought everybody together a little, and people have been more sociable lately, which I love. I kind of fell out of the loop when my back got so bad, and we even slowed down our little neighborhood trading system. I was always sending fresh bread and little goodies to my neighbors, and in return, they'd bring us fresh fruits, vegetables, and canned goods. I even had one neighbor who would bring us fresh eggs! We had our own little neighborhood trading post going on, and I really missed that. There's just something about making a fresh loaf of bread for somebody that makes me happy. Hopefully, we can get back to doing more of that because I think everybody enjoyed it as much as I did.

Speaking of the neighborhood, I think we had more trick-or-treaters than we've ever had before, and I certainly wasn't expecting that this year! We still ended up taking our kids somewhere else because our neighborhood just isn't that big. Even with everybody handing out full-size candy bars and all kinds of good stuff, the kids were dying to go somewhere else. So we loaded everybody into the car and headed over to a huge neighborhood near the school. I have never seen so many kids in one place! It's not a particularly fancy neighborhood or anything, but there are houses everywhere, one right after another, so the kids were absolutely racking up. And boy, were they moving fast because they knew rain was coming! LOL

They eventually met up with another group of friends, and everybody ended up back at our house. Gary made them a nice bonfire, and even though it started drizzling, it wasn't enough to put it out. They sat around eating candy, talking, and just being kids. Gage had four boys spend the night, and Norah Harper went to bed pretty early. I think she was completely worn out and full of candy. LOL The boys were so well-behaved, too. They cleaned up after themselves and were just a really good group of kids to have around. I made everybody breakfast this morning, and then they slowly started heading home. It was a fun night, but I think we were all ready for a quiet Sunday!

By the way, the sourdough came out so good! Gary asked me the other day why we weren't eating sourdough anymore, and I really didn't have a good answer. When I hurt my back, I just stopped doing so many things, and baking was one of them. He made the point that it's probably no worse than the bread we're already eating, so why not start making it again? And he's right. I've missed the whole art of it, and I'm happy to be doing it again.

Well, I think that's a wrap for today. Gary's football game is probably almost over, which means I can go drive him crazy for the rest of the afternoon and find him plenty of projects to do. 😂 I'm only half kidding because I really do want him to help me start taking down all this Halloween stuff.

I'm not in any huge rush to decorate for Christmas this year, especially because we're getting a real tree. But I do want to get Halloween packed away, leave some of my fall decorations out, and slowly start bringing Christmas things out throughout November. By Thanksgiving, I'll probably have everything decorated. We all just love the Christmas season, and I'm looking forward to enjoying every bit of it.

All right, y'all have a wonderful Sunday. Be blessed! ❤️