Reasons I haven’t posted since March 24, 2011:

1.  [...]]]> I abandoned my blog back in March, in case that wasn’t clear. But, there were reasons, I swear! I love blogging and missed it terribly, but nevertheless the Blog Abandonment continued for nearly eight months. Yikes! It’s been that long? So, without further ado, I present:

Reasons I haven’t posted since March 24, 2011:

1.  Took both kids snowboarding to Copper Mountain, Colorado, with some friends. Without my husband for backup. We took two babysitters with us for help with all three family’s kids, yet it was still…EXHAUSTING. Number of sweats broken while outfitting two kids with the 87 things they need to put on to leave the house five times a day? Don’t know. My memory of the trip is fuzzy due to dehydration from the exertion and all the alcohol.

So, I had to recover from that vacation, then…

2.  Started a full-time legal and marketing job at the beginning of April. I felt stifled by having a blog in my real name and couldn’t think of a thing to write without inserting a GIANT disclaimer that my views in no way reflect the views of my employer. OBVIOUSLY.

Also, I started living in my car…

3.  Twenty-minute drive to the kids’ fundamental school and then a 40-minute drive from school to work. Plus the twenty-five minute drive home with 2 – 3 days of hitting the gym on the way home to stay sane (it’s all relative) left precious little time to do much extra writing.

At the same time, life started sucking majorly…

4.  A very close family member was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer the week I started my new job. My family was adamant that I go ahead and take the job. Fortunately, my dear relative had lots of local love and family support, so everything was handled beautifully. We just found out the cancer is in remission. It is a miracle.

Life marches on, however, and

5.  Jack’s second-oldest daughter got married in California a couple of weeks after I started the job. Erin was so sick that she and I missed the wedding and spent nearly the entire trip in the hotel room. Stayed in a lovely old place that began to feel like the Overlook Hotel when we ran out of underwear and receptacles for vomit.

Jack did bring me back a piece of cake, though, and Jake, who promptly began throwing up and other things minutes after Jack left to return to the wedding. Southern California weather is magical that time of year, I hear.

Then, to extinguish my last remaining moments of free time during which I might blog…

6.  Brought home the new baby. I purchased a ridiculously expensive, impossibly tiny, designer dog named Bella for Erin in the hope she would stop moving the cat – nearly 20 pounds and unpredictable when pushed to his limit by a young girl determined to carry him everywhere she goes – and it actually worked! The cat was all but ignored, but unfortunately gained what looks like another five pounds due to lack of previous daily fleeing and eluding exercise.

I am now that person with a purse dog. Unexpected treat: Jack, who fought getting a “stupid small dog” like a demon, is absolutely devoted to Bella. He still has not figured out how much I spent on the dog, so we are still married. Avoiding costly ER visits for facial laceration and plastic surgery for daughter? Priceless.

This picture makes Bella look big, but she is only 1.8 pounds. She has long Jim Carrey in The Grinch-like hair tufting out between all of her toes. It’s totally adorable.

7.  Traveled a bit for work. Went to conferences in Atlanta, San Francisco and Denver. Like a moron, I ate a giant bowl of cantaloupe in Denver AT THE VERY TIME the tainted Colorado cantaloupe was all over the news. In my defense, my co-worker ate some too, so I’m at least tied for stupid. Spent the next month convinced that every cough was the beginning of the end.

Uncharted territory ahead…

8.  Jake was diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disability, complete with an almost total inability to comprehend math (dyscalculia). He was struggling mightily, despite an amazing teacher and support structure at his school. He had a 504 plan and we were in the process of getting an IEP in place, but I could tell that without nearly constant one-on-one intervention he would continue to fall behind.

I lose my shit completely and…

9.  We decided to take the kids out of school for me to homeschool them. I have always been curious about homeschooling and teaching in general (My mother was a sixth-grade teacher, coach and computer teacher for many, many years), but always proclaimed loudly and at every opportunity that I could never homeschool my own kids because, well, they are my boisterous, headstrong offspring. I really tried to put that nicely.

For some reason, the President and CEO of the company where I work generously approved me to work around three hours a day from home. I am incredibly grateful because I really enjoy the work and the people and it allows me to still be an adult making adult money and to use my big words and pricey law degree.

Things start to settle down…

10.  I get the hang of homeschooling and realize Erin would be better off in our zoned elementary school, especially since it is now graded even higher than her former school. She openly despised homeschool (despite begging me to make the decision in the first place) and it was hindering my ability to teach both of them and, frankly, depriving me of the will to live.

Erin starts school next week. Jake is 100% fine with this turn of events and even told me it would be better for just the two of us to do homeschool. Phew!

11.  This just in. Just started Jake on the Feingold program last week to see if it will help with some of the behavior issues. It is a fairly controversial program, and a radical lifestyle change since you can’t eat any artificial colors, flavorings, preservatives or salicylates, but I feel compelled to give it a try. I truly believe I am seeing a calmer boy, with just a few days under our belt. I have written before about Jake’s reaction to red dye, and absolutely believe he has a sensitivity to artificial ingredients.

Jack is not convinced the program has merit and we’ve already had a scuffle after he bought Jake some gingersnaps that contained cloves – lots of salicylates. I will report back on how it goes.

That’s pretty much it. No more or less than what others probably have to deal with during the course of an (almost) year, but I just couldn’t find time for my blog.

See you in eight months! Just kidding. I hope.

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Or with them here:

Instead, I am here:

Working on a deadline. Next weekend…

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Mom is in good [...]]]> Haiti is still quite relevant, of course, but I am tired of looking at that post title in Comment Luv as I leave my nuggets of comment wisdom around the Internet. I’ve been a little busy, what with flying off to my hometown to see my mama who broke her hip.

Mom is in good spirits, although not at the times when she’s told how much physical therapy she is going to need and how she will have to eat more than ice cream and Taco Bell if she’s going to make the best possible recovery.

I was terrified when I got that call from my brother last week. Ever the drama llama, he first says EVERYTHING’S OK. SHE’S FINE. JUST A LITTLE PROBLEM. I’m wondering who in the hell he’s even talking about and then, Mom fell and broke her hip and…gotta go, the doctor is here. Click.

Processing. Processing. Freaking out!

On the next call he says, I JUST SAVED MOTHER’S LIFE! A STUDENT NURSE CAME IN AND SAID SHE WAS THERE TO GIVE MOTHER HER DIABEETUS MEDICINE. BUT I SAVED HER. Mom isn’t diabetic and yes, he calls our mom Mother. From birth. It’s a little Norman Bates.

I wasn’t able to fly out until the next day, and it was torture waiting to see for myself that mom was ok. She was. When I saw her lying in that bed I brushed right past all the people in the room to give her a kiss and a hug. This is the first time something medically super-significant has happened to her and it made me feel like a child again.

My brother was there. He had been helping my dad with everything, even spending the night there with Mom on a hospital cot. He looked tired. Understandably so. Fighting off student nurse assassins (there was a second attempt on her life with diabeetus medicine) is hard work!

My brother is the opposite of zen-like calm, but he sure is entertaining to me. And it’s all about me. Just ask him. Also, and he’s going to kill me if he reads this, he paraded around the hospital in the most enormous coyote-fur coat I have ever seen, one of two fur coats he wore last week. I asked him if it was cat fur. I can needle like an eight-year-old in times of stress.

So, mom has a 10-inch scar and a titanium hip ball, the part she damaged in the fall, which was the fault of the Ugg boots she was wearing at the time. The toe caught on the carpet in her bedroom and she fell. I guess the bottom line is that it was all my fault because I gave her those Uggs somewhere around 2000 after they were one of Oprah’s favorite things. Let’s just say it’s all Oprah’s fault. She has deeper pockets.

Mom kept her iPhone by her side or on her ear pretty much the the entire time, when my brother wasn’t moving it out of her reach to keep the room organized. By the time I left she  had finally figured out how to get broadband service on her computer because the hospital doesn’t have wi-fi. Mom is a full-on nerd.

Also, SNOW! It started snowing last Thursday night and continued until the next afternoon. I woke Friday morning to one of my favorite things in the world, utter quiet and going to a window to see a blanket of fluffy snow outside and snowflakes floating down so peacefully. You see the white glow before you get to the window, and it is just magic. I can’t wait for my kids to see snow.

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