October already?

Where HAS the time gone? It's already October!?!?! Sheesh!
I had the day off of work today, so I went to the grocery store for some food, since my refrigerator stock had dwindled to some eggs and a bottle of mustard (practically). I picked up some fixins to make some good home-made crock pot beef stew to kick off the fall season! My mom gave me a small two-serving crock pot a few months ago, and I had yet to use it. My roommate was given some potatoes (slightly odd, no???) and she told me to feel free to use some, so I thought stew would be perfect!
I bought some baby carrots, canned beef broth, pre-cut stewing beef, and an onion. I threw in the beef, chopped up about 1/3 of the onion, tossed in some baby carrots, 1 cut-up potato, a dash of minced garlic, some garlic salt and pepper, oregano, and some extra salt since I'd discovered I'd bought low sodium broth and I was concerned about the bland-ness factor. I was going to be fancy and put in a bay leaf, but I had none, so I skipped it. I stirred it all up, set the crock pot on high, and made a sandwich for lunch.
A couple hours later, I went in the check on the stew and give it a little stir and found: UGH! FLIES! ON MY STIRRING SPOON! I switched to seek-and-destroy mode with the fly swatter and smashed count 'em *7* flies! I even batted one in mid-air and it's butt end got stuck in the holes of the fly swatter and he squirmed until I smashed the next fly with him still wedged. I hate bugs! Hate hate hate them! Gross! Disgusting creatures. Argh I hear another one as I write now flying around in the window behind me. Where are they all coming from?!?!?
So anyway, after I took care of the flies, I got a CLEAN spoon and stirred my stew and it is coming along beatifully!
Did I mention my whole house smells delicious?!?!