...and Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Blogging

I fell off the face of Blogland for a whopping two days, but have returned in time to warm up my speed-typing fingers so that I can blog about who won my 400th blog post Giveaway (you still have time to enter, I'll draw a name this evening and post the winner before bed time!) later today.

Two days ago I meant to show you a recent yard sale treasure I'd found:



But I had already filled it full of these by the time I was ready to take the picture (oh yes, the creeping crud required intensive chemical intervention...peanut m-n-m's weren't working their usual magic for some reason):



Something tells me that butter or a garnish of some sort would look more "Thanksgiving-y" in place of the medications.

Yesterday I meant to share the pile of magazines that I was working myself through to pull recipes, ideas, etc. out of for my inspiration binders so that I could buy new magazines that Dear Husband wouldn't have a cow over tidy up the home in preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I ended up buried in said pile to the point that Dear Daughter and the Preschooler had to dig me out so I could make dinner. No, no, they didn't try to save me before that point... apparently I'm expendable until their stomachs start growling.

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Today I thought I'd mention a realization that hit me when I was under the magazine pile: my family and I have been here for four months, and we're still not settled. We're moved in- we've BEEN moved in. We're unpacked. We're arranged. We're sorted. But we're not settled. I'm thinking it's a side effect from moving four times in the past five years. We've gotten so good at unpacking, decorating, and going through the motions of school and work routines, knowing in the backs of our minds that we're going to have to pack it all up again, say goodbye, and make a long drive, in eight months, in seven, in six, in five, in four, in three, two, one... always on the go, always preparing to leave and relocate, not really living in the moment because preparations take up too much time.

I'm hoping Uncle Sam lets us stay someplace longer than a year or two. I haven't "done lunch" with friends since last February when Dear Husband let me escape from Texas for a weekend to return to Oz for visits and shopping. In Alaska, the Loud Ladies had breakfast together twice a month, regularly, for years. I'm a social creature when I'm amongst friends. Time to stay someplace long enough to make some.

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I picked up the newest edition of Artful Blogging yesterday, and it is as wonderful as I expected it to be. Not a kindergarten teacher in the group, but creative bloggers who can also answer "why do you blog?" with "why not?" The readers who visit me here, and the fellow teachers, moms, and crafters who comment on my posts are not only a part of my personal and professional learning community, they are kindred connections. I may not be a member of an Army Wives group or a Crafters Clique, but no matter how often I move, I belong, and can be found here.