Just wanted to let my family know that I am still alive and breathing, I have come into the room a couple of times, but other things have pulled me back out. Mostly I have been searching for a gift for my dad's 80th birthday at the end of this month, which as of two weeks ago we weren't going to be able to fly out, since there were no flights out to get me out there, but after some juggling some appointments around my parents were able to get me a flight out. While we were on the phone with my mom, we learned that we could afford to get tickets for Ray to join me so we could fly out together and I wouldn't be stuck at my parent's place, since I don't drive and probably won't be able to until we get a car that will get me through the driving test without problems. Anyway, we are flying out to Cali on October 25 and will return home on November 4, during which time we will be able to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday, as well as my great nephew Kael's 1st birthday, which is something we were talking about going out for, but as we will be there, that's not going to be a problem.
We will be home just a little over a month before we fly out to Cali again for the holidays, this time we will be gone from December 13 and returning home January 4. My dad tried to get us there for a full month, but with us having to go to our pain management doctor every 4 weeks, we couldn't do a full month visit, plus we aren't sure if we will have a doctor to return to after the new year, as our current one is retiring and moving to Florida. He is currently interviewing doctors to take over his practice, so he doesn't end up putting over 200 patients out on the streets with little no chance of finding a pain management doctor who actually cares about them as he does, plus there are less than 5 pain management doctors in this state and growing less and less by the month as more doctors are found to be "candy" doctors.
I am hoping before we leave at the end of this month, I will be able to find time to get into camp as I have been in needing to be in camp. I will say this, as I have been mostly holed up doing searches for new recipes to try out as the weather has dropped enough that I can do some serious baking and not cause anyone hanging out in the kitchen to get a case of heat exhaustion due to the heat coming off the oven. With our trip out to Cali at the end of the month, I will be going shopping with my soon to be nephew in law, Logan, (who just proposed to my niece last Monday), during which time I hope to find out what both he and my niece Kat want for Christmas. Logan is a professional baker/chef, though mostly baker I believe, he's gotten me addicted to shopping at Sur La Table and when we go out to Cali, I will be able to shop at an actual store just 15-20 minutes east of where they currently live, where I hope to be able to get a list of items that I will be buying in the near future so we can have cookware and bake ware that won't be used by anyone else in the house, only Ray & I, and the items I end up cooking or baking comes out better than what I am getting with the cheapest stuff we could afford at the time. Though we have been buying better stuff lately, it's still not all that good, but soon I will be able to cook and bake with the best or close to the best.
I am going to go here, since it seems I have started to ramble a bit, but I thought I would let you know what I have been up to and what has been going on. I am now heading off to gather some more new recipes that I plan on trying at some point either tomorrow or this coming week, since our landlord has been trying to get me to bake some goodies, so I am going to give in and make something new to see how it goes over with the house before I put it down in my tried and true recipe journal. So I will try to get in tomorrow night, if I don't overdo things, so hopefully I will see you guys there, if not, I have a lot of reports and stuff to catch up on.
Taryn/Di
