But apparently November 3rd is National Sandwich Day. Like I need an excuse to eat a sandwich? Talk about perfect food- press something between two pieces of bread and off you go. I even covered sandwiches recently on this blog HERE, and also HERE. I’m indebted to whoever was prompted to help out the ol’ scallywag, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, keep on with his gambling by wrapping his mutton in a hunk of bread. They were really a genius.

I’m partial to a warm toasty sandwich myself, and with my recent diversion away from all things dairy, this joy has been relinquished to the lower rungs of my culinary repertoire. I sometime just have to have a grilled cheese and ham though, especially when faced with a container of black forest ham and some super sharp cheddar. With those delicious ingredients tucked inside yummy toasted marble rye, it’s really a little slice of heaven on my plate.

So have a sandwich in celebration of National Sandwich Day!

And here’s a few thought processes of mine on what is behind the push for me to do NaBloPoMo this year, brought on by my friend Lily. The nice thing about the whole blogging community- ever so rapidly increasing- is that one person’s comment or post on something, even seemingly irrelevant, snowballs through who-knows-where and touches a lot of other people, often in ways that aren’t expected. It’s a wonderful way to be pushed into exploring a thought, belief or point of view that you might not ever consider. So when I read Lily’s reasons behind NBPM, it seemed a good idea to jot down my own.

I’ve been blogging for 2 1/2 years and much of it has been at a pretty steady pace. I feel no pressure to make it successful or get some kind of recognition from it, and I refuse to prostitute my blog with ads that clutter up the site. I enjoy my comments and marvel when my stat counter jumps to a new high, but it doesn’t control my life. It’s nice when people tell me they like my blog; I appreciate you all who visit far more than I may let you know, and I have listed reciprocal links to other blogs that I enjoy. If life became too busy for me to continue doing this, I would miss my little community, but I wouldn’t feel like I was letting anyone down. Life will go on, and quite frankly, I have struggled lately with walking away from this blog for many reasons. I’ve always been intrigued by NaBloPoMo but never gotten on the ball to do it the past few years, mostly because I have put an undue pressure on myself to cook AND blog about it in the same day. This is an utterly ill-advised mindset. I didn’t want to just post some rambling mishmash of words either to fulfill the daily requirement. Then this year I touched on the idea of the food holidays and daily food happenings during the month of November and pretty soon I was nearly jumping with excitement over writing on a daily basis. You see, I love, love LOVE to write, and when I’m not excited about writing, it just yanks me down. This is making it better, and I can see the idea being one to touch on in the future if my culinary enthusiasm is lacking or I’m relying on old favorites that aren’t worthy of posting. So having a plan and a daily idea to write about makes this more fun for me, and hopefully for the people coming around to visit. I also have a tough time motivating myself to follow through with things, and this is helping me because it’s all planned out for me; each day has a theme, and I know when I have a recipe to make for something and when it’s just an informative post. While the rules of NaBloPoMo are simple- Write a post a day for 30 days- I’m free to create a needed recipe anytime I want, photograph it and file those pictures away until the day I need them, then sit down to create my posts.

Then there is that blogging community, and I do genuinely enjoy being a part of it. I have met so many wonderful people who are instant friends, and it has really enriched my life. This is a way to dangle my toes in it and be a part of something bigger, all the while touching on two things I do very well- write and cook.

So yeah, are you making a sandwich??