Yup. Me Again.

I recently read that 20% of blogs start off with an apology for not having posted in a while.  That statistic must be accurate.  I read it on twitter.

Well color me predictable.  I'm gonna offer my readers (hi husband, mother, and sisters!) a big apology for the....ummm....20 or so months I went without writing a darned thing.  I mean, I wrote checks to banks and babysitters and I wrote pages of to-do lists.  But I didn't write anything on that Little Blog That No Longer Could for a long time.  For heaven's sake, I could have had 2.2(ish) babies in the amount of time I took off from my fake life as a wannabe blogger.
Instead, I just had one baby. 

And I quit my job. 
And I moved. 
And I realized that life can be pretty awesome when you're not getting your soul sucked out of you.

So as I climbed out of the emotional fetal position I had occupied and stopped flirting with catastrophic levels of stress, the erstwhile A Woman's Work went wherever blogs go to die -- that big blank screen in the 'sphere.

And I went where any self-respecting woman of 32 years and a partnership-track career goes: home to live with mum and dad.  Fortunately, my husband and daughter came too.  Then the fetus that is now my son made his appearance known.  Our tired but not tattered little family unit pulled itself back together, and out of distress we emerged determined to do it different this time.

We eventually found a new house, but it cost us 25% of what our old house had.  My husband had a job, but I did not.  My daughter went to nursery school, but I saw her when the sun was out and she wasn't just waking up from or getting ready for bed.  We welcomed my son into the world with no timetable on when someone other than me would be his caretaker during the week.  In so many ways, the last year or so has been wonderfully transformative for me and for us.

Kumbayah and blah blah blah.

That catharsis aside, I am still me and life is still life.  There are still things I unreasonably worry about and that make me incredibly annoying (like my unreasonable worrying).  My children are still perfectly imperfect creatures who demand constant attention and support and patience.  I remain a wholly imperfect mother who sometimes doesn't want to play "bally" or cheer at going to the potty and WOULD YOU PLEASE BUTTON THAT BUTTON ALREADY?!?  My husband still needs to feel like we have a relationship other than that of "Mami and Papi."  There are still bills to pay and nest eggs to save for.  And there are still those nagging, existential questions like "what do I want to do with my life -- or, for that matter, with my day -- and do I have the time or the energy for it?"
In the midst of this push and pull, I found myself itching for an outlet -- somewhere to "put" the jumble inside my head.  I am not patient enough to keep a journal (the pen doesn't move fast enough), and so here I am.  Back on the Blog Brigade.  There are a lot of us on it.  You should see how many times Blogger told me "that name is already taken."

So what will you find here that you can't find on the thousands of other sites blinking for your attention?  Nothing.  I'm going to talk about trying to balance a work schedule with a family schedule.  I'm going to tell stories about the crazy things my kids do and see and say.  I'm going to express an opinion that no one has asked for.  I'll probably recommend some books.  I might even pass along a recipe.  (Who AM I?!?)  Each and every one of those things you can find somewhere else on the World's Wicked Wide Web.  But here you'll read about them in my voice, and I hope you find that voice alternately relatable, reassuring, and maybe even insightful.

But more than that, God help me, here both you and I will realize that when sun's gone down and the Inbox is mute and the chores are done and the house is quiet, there's something leftover to carry us into tomorrow: motivation to try to do today one better, fueled by equal parts hope and humor.