Hello, It's Me

Well, hi there!  A few people have asked (in the past few days, which is odd, kind of) where the blogging has been lately.  I'm touched!  And here's my litany of excuses reasons:

1.  I'm working full-time with two kids.  By the time 9 pm rolls around, I'm hardly forming sentences.

2.  I teach English.  (If you're not aware already, this discipline comes with many, many pieces of paper to grade.)

3.   I've been on a reading rampage.  Somewhere between finishing Bossypants and picking up The Hunger Games, I also picked up Cutting for Stone, which is amazing and is also 9,000 pages.  I'm also reading Othello and re-reading Hard Times for school, and sneaking glances at my guilty pleasure, The Sun, and Living Simple when I get a chance.  The latter of these magazines inspired this change in my living room space, which, admittedly, took time to put together and organize (here's a before and after):

This is the living room place space BEFORE I went to Target,

bought a bookcase, came home with it, assembled it with

power tools, moved all this crap aside, then organized

all the crap so that we'd have something that looked more like

this, just mere hours later.  Here's a close up:

The canvas bags are from Etsy.  Note that we have accumulated a small library
for which I am thankful every snowy day, rainy day, evening at 7 pm, and lazy Sunday morning.
The photos don't really do my hours of organizing justice, but please notice that
there is a very important word spelled out in the wooden blocks.

But all that organizing, of course, led to more organizing, and while I was remiss in taking pictures of my pantry (snore) and bedroom (you don't need to see my new sheet set), it all kind of wiped me out for a week.

4.  All this residual exhaustion may have something to do with our expecting a third baby, and I'm far enough along to say so, but not far enough along to really share here what we're anticipating with a third kid.  

5.  The truth of the matter is that I have been writing.  A lot, actually.  And while one piece--that has taken about 17 weeks to write--is one of the most intimate things I've penned in months, I cannot share it yet because I am too superstitious to (so you'll see it months from now, when, G-d willing, everyone here is healthy and home).  And another piece, which recently received the kind of feedback every writer likes to hear (This is the best thing you've ever written for us!), is part-fiction, but based on the life of a friend who, I'm afraid, would be devastated if I published it here or anywhere.

So there we have it.  I'm working on having some guest bloggers this Spring, as I did last year.  Stay tuned.  Thanks for stopping by.  It won't be so long until next time!