It has been a while since I posted, so this will be another one of my stream of consciousness posts to try and get caught up on everything.

I have off work today for Election Day. We were going to go out to breakfast together, read the paper, etc. but Sheri had some work to do at 4 AM and we didn't get up until after breakfast hours were over. We both voted around 11:30 AM. I am looking forward to watching the returns tonight to see if the Democrats can win back the House and/or Senate.

I think I am getting a cold or something. My nose has not been too runny, but starting yesterday afternoon my throat was sore. By the time I went to bed it was actually painful. Some hot mint tea this morning really felt good, but it still hurts and food doesn't have much taste. My stomach might be a little gurgley too. Fun.

We got a face cord of firewood delivered yesterday. I borrowed the neighbor's wheel barrow and moved it all to the backyard and stacked it before Sheri got home from work. (My back is still a little tight.) We burned some last night while we watched a movie and it seems to burn pretty good. I bought an 8' x 10' camouflaged tarp to keep the rain and snow off of the wood pile. The camo pattern is perfect for the back yard. It is almost unnoticeable, whereas the traditional blue color tarp would stand out every time we look at the back yard. Sheri wasn't sure she wanted the camo version. She thought it would look "red neck", but after putting it on the pile she agreed it really does blend right in and camouflages its presence.

This was the weekend we had tickets to the OSU vs Northwestern game and our first Gourmet Club dinner, but Sheri's side of the family will be visiting so we will be playing with the kids instead. We will be getting our cameras tomorrow (more on that in a bit) so it will be a good excuse to take lots of pictures. I've heard Ben has gotten pretty good at saying Uncle Brad. He is so sweet and cute that he provides hours of entertainment just watching him do his thing. We have been doing kid-proofing the last few days, but still have more to do. Our house was a little more kid-proofed when we had Goliath, but with him gone there are lots of little dangers lurking around we need to move out of reach. We bought a table cloth for our kitchen table and put in the leaf today. We also have a list of groceries we still need to get for the kids.

For Christmas this year we decided to buy each other cameras. We also decided to get them sooner rather than later because they are something we can put to use right away. (This weekend with Sheri's family, Thanksgiving, etc.) We will get them tomorrow and I am really excited. Sheri is getting the Canon PowerShot SD700 (4x zoom and image stabilization in a tiny little point and shoot!) and I am getting the Canon Eos 30D I have been drooling over for too long.

I used to have a film SLR (still have actually) and I miss taking pictures and being creative and experimenting with exposure settings. Shooting with film, though, I was always a little hesitant to experiment too much because every shot cost money for both the film and the developing. Also when I would try some experimentation, by the time I got the film developed I forgot what I did differently with a particular shot so I didn't learn anything. Shooting digital I can see the results immediately, plus it doesn't cost anything extra to shoot the same shot with 20 different settings. Did I mention I am really excited?

Last week I made another excellent batch of chicken paprikash. Instead of using store-bought egg noodles I tried making home made spaetzle. Unbelievable delicious! It is probably the favorite thing I make now, and because I use fat free sour cream it is actually pretty healthy food. The only thing I have to be careful of is the carbohydrates in the spaetzle. But they are SO good.

Monday and Tuesday of next week I will be at a GIS conference in Oak Brook. I am looking forward to that. In December I have another week-long GIS class. This one will be an intro to programming with ArcObjects.

With this being a three day week because of Election Day and Veteran's day, next week being a three day week because of the above mentioned conference, and the following week being a two day week because of Thanksgiving, November has turned into a cakewalk.