If you happened to walk by my house last night, just before 6 o’clock, you would have seen my three favorite people in their finest Halloween attire. The tallest one celebrated a birthday the day before, complete with an impromptu birthday parade in my living room. Maddie played the recorder while Oliver sang Happy Birthday and threw confetti.

For some reason – and I’m not questioning it – the kids picked up each little bit of paper off the floor, on their own, with no nagging from me. It was thrilling to watch.

And so it is November. Creepy halloween decorations – ghosts made of white sheets, plastic skeletons, and fake zombie hands rising from the grass – still adorn the neighborhood lawns today, but they won’t survive the weekend. The weather is supposed to cool off again starting tomorrow. Men will soon be sporting mustaches for a good cause, and  aspiring authors are into their first day of NaNoWriMo. Briefly, I even considered joining in on the blogging version, NaBloPoMo, but I’m pretty sure a good 75% of you would unsubscribe after day five of me posting daily. I would be sad if you left.

I’ve been thinking about making some changes around here, and November may be the time to get things started. Or maybe I’ve already started these changes and am only just now realizing it and accepting it.

I’m planning to use this space to write more about personal things, issues for which there may not be a relevant recipe. Yes, yes, I know. I’ve already been pretty darn personal here in this space. So maybe that’s not the big change. What’s changing is that, sometimes, there may not be a recipe.

I’ve always felt this obligation to share a recipe along with each post, but what I find is that this pressure to post a recipe means I don’t always write some of the topics that I really want to write about.

I’ve gone through so much with my father these last eight months, from dealing with his worsening dementia to coping with the suboptimal care in his nursing home. I’ve wanted to write about some of these things – or write more about them – but what dessert pairs well with despair? What type of cake conveys the proper anguish of realizing you’ve lost your father?

Sometimes, life just isn’t about the food.

With that pressure to post recipes all the time off my back, I plan to write here more. It’s good for me, and I haven’t done enough of it over these last months.

Maybe I’ll even consider a modified NaBloPoMo, just to get me writing more. Because the writing? It is a very good thing.

Whew. I already feel better.