Off Hiatus

Yes, I’ve been away.
We had a week-long influx of grandchildren, with the accompanying trips to the beach, meals out and meals in, stories to read, new board games to try, trips to the aquarium, a special day with Grandpa to an opening-day baseball game.

Then everyone rushed off to catch their flight, leaving behind signed seashells to go in the memory jar, laundry, and a too-quiet house. The house is now uncharacteristically clean (who would clean before children visit?) and we’re eating our way through treats that we usually never buy.

It took a few days to get our groove back. My Guy is finishing up taxes, I’ve sent two articles off for approval at my volunteer job, and emails are under control.

In front of my computer this morning, I checked out the latest national news and opinions, which drove me to a kinder, friendlier land, the blogging world.  After a week away, it’s almost like binge-watching your favorite show. I’m treating myself to a whole stack of goings-on with a small Welsh village and a certain bulldog, a former weaver in the Midwest, a gastronome in France, a Florida hippie grandmother and her poetry-like posts, an American who’s walking streets I’ve lived in London while I’m living on the Florida Gulf coast where he grew up, a Texas artist of glass, a septuagenarian Washington state sky diver, an Oregonian bird lover whose teen years apparently coincided only a few miles from my own in Northern Virginian, a North Carolina champeen apron maker on a little bitty farm, a saint-like Canadian fostering a staggering number of animals, a former teacher – also Canadian, a Midwestern physician who somehow finds time to also write books, and a woman facing a new life in Yorkshire. And so many more.

In fact, I’m only writing this post to justify my place out there with these people. Even though I enjoy reading the occasional political rant (if I agree with it, of course), it's usually a soothing place and I feel as though I need to contribute something, however paltry, to this world safe from uninformed, narcissistic, bigoted, corrupt – stop me now, I could go on and on – leaders.