Happy Halloween!! (Aka, what I did while the internet was out)

Our internet's been out since Thursday afternoon.

Please, take a minute to be horrified by this with me for a moment.

I swear, one minute I was happily downloading emails into Outlook (does anyone even use Outlook anymore? Maybe that's what killed it . .  .) and the next minute the internet was gone. Like not there one little bit. While our satellite internet is sketchy at best and it's not unheard of to go for days with extremely slow internet, it would appear that this time our modem has completely given up the ghost. No matter what the cloud cover outside, no matter how many times we unplug and replug in our router, all we get from our modem is a bunch of twinkly lights. *sigh*  I might feel slightly calmer about this if I didn't keep getting voicemail every time I called our service provider's customer service line.

So no, the internet's not back up and running yet. Currently, I'm in town, doing laundry and updating the blog. Kind of tricky running freelance business from my home that depends a good deal on access to social media, but ah well, we'll persevere.

In the meantime, I've . . . .

• Tried to get some writing done. You know, you can completely write short essays in just one morning when you aren't popping in between the Word document you're typing in, seven blogs you're trying to keep up with, while simultaneously trying to think of a witty Tweet. On the other hand, focus = not that much fun.
• I've stacked some firewood. Not that much though.
• Done some deer scouting with Andy. Deer season starts Saturday. Andy is getting excited.
• Cleaned the bathroom. At one point this summer, I was cleaning the bathroom every week. Things have slipped a little bit. Looks like we're back on my "once I can't stand it any longer" bathroom cleaning schedule. 
• Vacuumed
• Filed paperwork
• Scoured the kitchen
• Listened to this weekend's edition of "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" three times.
• Helped  Mom tear out a sweater. 
• Read almost the entire series of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. 
• Spent an exorbitant amount of time carving Smokey Bear's head into a pumpkin. 

That last point, carving Smokey into a pumpkin (design chosen because of this year's high proportion of both bears and fires), will probably be the extent of our Halloween celebrations. We're almost guaranteed not to have trick-or-treaters and our cabin remains a Halloween candy free zone. Today also marks the 20th anniversary of the 1991 Great Halloween Blizzard.Looks like we'll be spared two feet of snowfall this Halloween though. (Hooray!)

Anyone dressing up for the holiday? Do you get trick-or-treaters?

Hoping everyone has a lovely Halloween/Samhain. Hard to believe the holiday season is truly upon us now. Yikes!