I'm baaack...

I have been informed by my beloved husband to work on my blog because - and I quote - "I’m tired of looking at the same damn thing every time I check it."

Honey, this is for you.

So, I have been the worst blog mama ever. I have abandoned you, C'est la vie, and I apologize. I wanted to blog, I truly did, but you know it goes when you've let something slide for so long, it just becomes harder and harder to get back into it. The pressure! Now I feel as if I must write something incredibly witty to recapture my dear readers - all 4 of you.

This has been one hell of a summer, really one hell of a year. In the past 5 months, we have decided to sell our house, put said house on the market, searched for another house, sold a house, bought a house, and moved. I could've just said, "we moved," but that just wouldn't have done it justice.

Getting a house ready to sell is a huge pain in the ass, dear readers. Add to that hassle the fact that my darling, beloved husband LEFT TOWN while we were getting it ready to show it (hey, you asked for this post). I never fully understood the stress of househunting til now, and I have a new appreciation and empathy for everyone out there who is trying to sell their home. It's a lot of physical work, and then a lot of fretting. We were lucky, though, and sold our place within a couple weeks of listing it. We were also fortunate to find another place that we absolutely fell in love with.

I know that people move everyday. I won't say that we worked harder than anyone else (though we did have an incredible amount of crap). But I will say that this was more than just a relocation; it was a reassessment of our life. One that I'm very thankful we made - it has lifted an emotional burden I hadn't even fully realized I was carrying. But coming to decisions like that isn't easy.

So here we are, a few months later, the move thankfully behind us, the sweltering summer days (apparently) just a memory, and ready to take on the next challenge in life, whatever that may be. I've been waiting for fall this year more so than any other time in my life. Gone are the days when I dreaded the end of summer. This fall, to me, has signified a new beginning, a renaissance if you will. To me, the cooler days of autumn, when the earth seems alive and breathing again after the oppressive, humid summer, have been my beacon. Just make it through the summer, and you can calm down in the fall, I told myself.

And you know what? I have. Our life is probably not all that less hectic now; in fact, with September comes the multitude of meetings and receptions that every organization starts up again after Labor Day. But I feel so much lighter, more settled, more energetic. We still (much to my husband's chagrin) have boxes to unpack, furniture to find or rearrange, pictures to hang...but we're getting there, and it feels great. We love our home. It feels more like home after one month than our previous house did at two years. We love our neighborhood, our neighbors, everything. I'm happy.

Lots of other things have happened this year. Life does, as they say, go on. Perhaps I'll delve into some other issues at a later date. For now, I will just say - I'm back.