Project 2011.... yeah ... I'm serious this time.....

I stopped doing my blog on Halloween, my absolute favorite holiday, in 2010. Seemed an appropriate denouement for about two years of, first, kvetching and rambling into the abyss – once every two weeks mostly to… finally, hitting my stride and becoming the voice of a school, a neighborhood, a life lived … well….. like yours. Nice to meet you. Anyway, the very next day, I was standing in my kitchen, knee-deep in groceries just lugged in from the car, perusing my dry erase board for the exact time of my three year old’s well check-up the next day, and…. deciding what to make with the acorn squashes from our last CSA, which I had just spied in the refrigerator. I was listening to my preschooler and kindergartner ask for just one more piece of Halloween candy, I could smell the paint from where my hubby was painting our bedroom (long-awaited occurrence, so… I was NOT complaining), and I was trying to answer my teen, who was yelling down the stairs, asking if I had downloaded her homecoming dance photos yet. I absorbed all of this, sighed, and…. immediately wanted to tell someone about my plight, ask advice, write it all out and analyze it with jokes and reminders of how rewarding it all truly is – this daily business of looking forward to baby well check-ups and deciding what exciting recipe to make with an acorn squash. But… I couldn’t. I wasn’t blogging anymore.

This internal monologue continued well into the evening. Is it OK / normal to be baking chocolate chip cookies and fixing my preschooler’s bloody pinky toe at the same time? Is it OK to let the kindergartner miss a day of school for a cough AND slack on homework as well? Did I have time to try the new stain remover on the carpet AND go out for a beer with my hubby? AND was THAT fair to the high school freshman diligently plowing through homework? I mean, would the “just turned three year old” flip out if we left – or , worse, would she not sleep at all? Hmmm … who to ask. Not my blog readers, for sure. Again, I couldn’t. Yeah – you can bet I was questioning my decision to stop for a while.

I pondered into the night – thinking of how my one friend cracked me up with stories of her son under twilight anesthesia before his tonsillectomy talking to the “guy with two heads” – another friend threatening me with photos of my teenage ballerina / budding modern dance self – another friend’s fashion advice – still another’s sympathetic ear and family advice. Would I have it again?

And, so, you all know the end to this story…. I started blogging again. NOW, however, I have come to another crossroads, and I am, once again, pondering why I do this AND why I haven’t launched my new super cool helpful site. THAT is precisely what I will be doing soon. So… please excuse my brief hiatus (seriously – I will take a break this time – no more jumping out of the woodwork to say hello for no reason, right?) while I attend to the "bizness" like ASAP. Seems a good project for the first month of 2011, don’t you think? See ya!