Back By Popular Demand

Okay, so the title sounds as if throngs of adoring fans are sending e-mails in droves begging, pleading me to post something, anything.  Although I am sure it is hard to believe, that is not actually the case.  However, I don't need thousand of adoring fans when I get a message like this:

hey you! time to blog again...I miss it :)

There it was so cute and unassuming, sitting in my Facebook inbox just waiting to make my day.  When I read it,  a smile spread across my face and planted itself in my heart.  Thanks, friend.  It was just what I needed.

As I have probably said before, I blog all the time- IN MY HEAD!  I have powerful thoughts and insignificant ones, all of which are chronicled in my brain but never make it to the computer.  That, you see, would require effort.  Keeping my house running the past few months has required every ounce of effort I could muster.
Mark left for DC the first week of January and he didn't return until the very end of February.  I know February is the shortest month, but boy did it seem long this time.  Much of the time I felt like I was wading through wet cement in boots.  (Wish I had the toned thighs to prove it.)  Any time I would think about blogging I was either too tired or too overwhelmed to say much that wasn't whining.  I would alternate between feelings of loneliness and guilt.  First, I would bemoan the fact that I was so lonely.  Poor thing!  I can throw one heck of a pity party.  Then something would jolt me back to reality.  A story about a terminally ill child.  Remembering a friend who lost her spouse.  My sadness would end.  Theirs would last a lifetime.  Then I would find renewed strength.  One time I thought about posting a photo of that WW II ad with the girl rolling up her sleeve and showing her muscle that proclaims:  "We can do it!".  Then back to the pity party again.  It felt like I was being tumbled around in an emotional dryer.
One day, when I was trying particularly hard to hold on to my sanity, I decided I needed a diversion.  I had lost any time to do the things that refresh and rejuvenate me- reading, knitting, even blogging.  I knew that I owed it to myself to carve out a little time for me.  I decided a good book was in order.  Something easy and fun.  Something that would transport me to another place.  I found just the thing.  After much coaxing from two of my kids, I finally picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I wasn't against reading it.  It's just not an appealing setting for me.  Besides, I saw the size of the books after 1 and 2.  It wasn't a pool you could dip your toe in.  It was all or nothing.  How could I possibly commit the time it would take to complete the series?  Besides, there is a stack of books next to my bed waiting to be read.  So, I begin, rather nonchalantly.  Okay, maybe even cynically.  What's the big deal?  What's so great about Harry Potter anyway?  The first few chapters were okay.  Easy reading, not especially knock-your-socks-off.  Then it happened.  My socks were knocked off and I found myself stealing away to my bed room in the middle of the day.  Sorry guys.  Mom HAS to read about the Quidditch match.  She'll be back from Hogwarts real soon.
Speaking of that, I need to get in a chapter or two of Book Five: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix before I go to bed.  Besides, it has been so long since I have written,  I wouldn't want to pull a blogging muscle. 

Hope to be back more often.
Dina

PS.  Mark is in town now!  :-)