Reasons why it’s been quiet around here, as of late…

– I’ve possibly been paralyzed with worry over what will happen to Jesse, and how Breaking Bad will end.

– We had dear friends from Idaho here, visiting, for a week. It was wonderful, but upon their return flight back, I caught a bug of homesickness.

– rainy days followed by heat advisories immediately then followed by 50 degree cold fronts are not friends of my fibromyalgia.

– I did not have Showtime was really busy when Homeland season 2 was on and so we’ve spent the last two weeks catching up, on Demand, to ready ourselves for Season 3. Suffice it to say, the amount of worry I’m feeling plagued with over the fictional characters of Brody & Carrie {and of course Jesse Pinkman and Walter White’s family from BB} are about to push me over the edge. Can we say “too emotionally involved?” Oy…

– I sent my youngest off to a real live life high school. No more homeschool for us. It’s been, well, an adventure, thus far. An adventure that inspires me to question what the cost is to retain both a hairdresser (grey coverage) and a massage therapist… Can they live with me?

– I’ve seen a few really great movies, a surprisingly great movie, a pretty good movie and so movie wise I can’t really complain too much… {Great= The Way Way Back; The Spectacular Now; Surprisingly Great: Austenland; And Pretty Good= The Family.}

– I lost my Kate Spade wallet, which had everything in it. I got it all back, and my faith in humanity was restored both BEFORE the wallet incident AND after… but it was still scary.

– We watched a car catch on fire outside a restaurant- and partially explode. (Same day as the great wallet loss/find)

– My mom found out that she has a degenerative disorder in her back and she is permanently wheel chair bound, leading our family to make some hard decisions in the near future… A lot to think about, for sure.

– My freshman daughter went to not one freshman event, but two. One, where a boy bought her a soda and spent the evening doting on her. She’s pretty much grounded until she’s 76, as she knows better. Such behavior is unacceptable. Soda accepting from boys? Inexcusable!

– I missed my very first PTA meeting, at the very real life high school, because I’m apparently really old and fell asleep on the couch at 6:40 in the evening.

– My favorite person ever won So You Think You Can Dance, which was unexpectedly AWESOME… My second favorite person EVER, did not. This pretty much sucked.

– I was on a crazy, unnecessary medication which was making me crazy sick, every day. I finally got off it last week and feel like I got my life back. Yay!

– I’m on a crazy stupid level in Candy Crush, which has caused me to question my reason for playing the dumb game and why I’ve devoted my time to over 300 levels in the first place since I will NEVER beat this level.

– I have a dozen or so books that I’m dying to read, right now.

– Right now I’m not reading much of anything. Boo.

– I wore a sweater out on a date with my husband the other night. It was pretty much awesome and made me happy.

– I have two online classes that I’m taking right now. I feel pretending they don’t exist is the worst course of action. *sigh*

– Mostly I’m trying to get my bearings and work out a routine. I haven’t been home alone since early 2007, and it’s flat out weird. Then, I worked about 32 hours a week from my home office for two different (local) companies. One was an ad agency and the other was a bigger company with their “hands” in lots of different types of cookie jars. Since 2007 I’ve consistently done something. Typically I did copywriting, or freelance for PR companies or other divisions of the entertainment industry. In 2008 I started a small Lifestyle Portrait business that did pretty well. Towards the end of 2011 though, we had a “family meeting” and I had to admit that I’d taken on too much. I was still freelancing for several entertainment outlets, photography was going strong, I was homeschooling and co-teaching through a local co-op and I was about 4 months into working on a novel. Nothing was really getting the attention it deserved, and I wasn’t really liking any of it. We decided to close the photography business after a wedding I’d booked in January. I felt so much peace about it. It had been a fun journey, but it hadn’t turned out at all like I’d imagined… I dropped most of my freelance accounts. We made the decision to no longer coop homeschool but to distance educate until we could find a suitable high school- and that the main focus (which is where my heart was really at) was the novel. AND HERE I AM… We took, together, all of the steps to get to this place. Not contributing (pretty much at all now) financially, is hard. It stresses me out. It makes me feel guilty…

– I’m feeling really guilty, and pathetic, and ridiculous when I do stupid things like leave my Kate Spade wallet on a bench. (it was worth revisiting twice.) I worked freaking hard for that wallet. A decade ago, i naively believed that when I’d made something of myself professionally, the purchasing of a “Kate Spade” bag (I LOVE her style!) Would symbolize success to me. Pretty much, it didn’t… Funny how, at the end of the day, it’s still just an overpriced handbag. (or wallet) but I certainly don’t want to lose it…

– mostly, I’m wandering around aimlessly. I wash some laundry, back some bread, write a note to stick in the mail, walk the dogs, check my email… Think to myself, this is a great time to finally start playing the cello! because, you know, I’ve always wanted to do that. But I have books unread, and a novel that’s written but in desperate need of being cleaned up… So I ignore it. I don’t know why. All summer long, I knew school would come so my time line was “the second full week of school!”

This is the second full week of school… It is here, today. Now. This minute…

And I just don’t even know where to begin. I feel kind of like that wallet is sitting there all alone on that bench, all over again. Everything important and vulnerable at risk, in the hands of someone else, because I was careless and left it there…