Oh, my poor Blog! What have I done to you?! My last entry was May 21st! Let’s see, that was just before school let out, and as of today my four children celebrated day #5 of the new school year. Yep, I’m pretty sure that says it all! I didn’t mean to neglect you Blog, but in my defense, I had a lot going on!
It is true that I find it challenging to write while my kids and I are in the same location. Like our home. And although my husband is a great Dad and fully capable of taking care of them when I’m not around – he does this on a regular basis during the evenings and weekends when I’m away teaching…it’s just that, and I’m being completely honest here, we are the loudest group of people in the entire universe.
During the Summer, I feel as though I should write letters of apology to our neighbors because they’ll be able to hear all of the singing, dancing, and yelling that happens around here. Every night someone screams, “It’s time for dinner!” at decibel levels intolerable to most humans, and all dogs, because it’s just too hard to walk upstairs and tell your sibling in a normal voice that there’s food on the table. There’s a rock band that practices in the house directly next door and I’m okay with the fact that they don’t shut things down until after 10 pm because – they have to put up with our family in the Summer. It’s no contest who has it worse! It’s really hard to write when all of this is happening in the background, because let’s face it, it’s not in the background. It’s completely foreground, my friends.
And it’s not as though I didn’t do any writing this Summer, Blog. I’ve actually been really productive in that regard. I’ve been keeping busy creating curriculum for a training that will be happening in November, daring to excel with Jeffrey Davis and his ever amazing wonder trackers, tutoring myself on how to create an interview project about Stay At Home Dads that is worthy and enjoyable to listen to, and tweaking more than a couple of essays that have been accepted and hopefully published sometime this Fall. I’ve just neglected you, Blog, and I’m so sorry about that! But isn’t it true that we often take for granted those we care about the most? I’ve got several starts for new blogposts that will be published in the next several days – weeks at the latest – I swear it.
It’s just that my life as “Momma” really pushed up against my life as “Writer” these past several months.
My kids are growing up – fast. My oldest will be 16 in a little over a month. When her siblings mention offhandedly, “She leaves for college in just two years!” I want to say in return, “Yeah, I’m aware.” She switched high schools this year as a sophomore. I think that’s a big deal and felt like she might need me to be a bit more present through this transition. My 8th grade boy is now freaking out about having to make the right choice of where he’ll end up next year, which seemed like a no-brainer – until his sister wasn’t happy with our neighborhood school. My 5th grader was in tears the week before school, concerned that she wasn’t ready and that the math was going to be “impossible!” My saving grace in the lead-up to school year ’15/16, was my first-grader counting off the days until it started. He’s still upset that he won’t be getting any homework until next week – his siblings are worried that there might be something wrong with him.
Me? I just wanted Summer to last a little while longer.
We spent three weeks at the front end in true HoosierRican style, with a family wedding and reunion in Indiana, followed by with a cruise with the Puerto Ricans after that. July was crammed every single day with camps for one or all of them. And when August rolled around we did what has become my favorite tradition: camping along the gorgeous Oregon coastline. There was no cell service or WiFi during most of our trips and it was, in a word, fantastic! I guess I got used to being unplugged and off schedule – and I liked it. But now, “I’m baaaaack!” And I promise, dear Blog, that I will do my best to establish a regular practice of connecting with you again. I mean that and to prove it to you, I’m joining the 31 Day Challenge again this October. That’s how we met last year, don’t you remember, Blog?
It’s a crazy commitment of writing a blog post every-single-day-for-the-entire-month-of-October. It almost killed us last year, Blog. There were times that I couldn’t stand you. You were demanding, stubborn, and uncaring that I had no idea what I was doing, being completely new at all of this. I felt like all you did was take, take, take. But this year, it’s going to be different. I know how to blog, Blog. I’ve figured out how to make thumbnails in just a few keystrokes. I know how to write a catchy title so people will click on it. And I’ve proven that I can git ‘er dun – even if that means hitting the “publish” button at 11:54 pm.
So, these next few weeks will be a time of reacquaintance for us, Blog. I’ve got some ideas, and I’m sure you’ll try to make this difficult for me after all the time we spent apart this Summer. But now I know what it takes and I’m ready for the challenge. I’m willing to show up, Blog, and make this thing work – if you are.
How were your plans derailed this Summer? Did you fight it? Surrender to it? Or enjoy it? I’m happy to be back and I hope you’re happy to have me back! Leave me some love, won’t you?
