Toni Cheater Pants

I have a confession, internetz.

I have been cheating on you.

It's true.

I have a new lover in my life and it has quietly and unobtrusively eaten the time I used to spend here blogging and reading your blogs.

I am ashamed at my indiscretion.

I am! I swear.

I also know that this new lover is one that isn't necessarily approved of in the blogging community because of its fickiness about boobs and babies.

If you hadn't guessed, I have joined the ranks of those addicted to Facebook.

And addicted I am. Oh, sweet Mother Mary.

I really thought it would be a one-time foray into the underworld but, Holy Hannah, I can't stop! Each day I am asked to be friends with new people: old flames, old enemies, old friends and far flung family members. There's always a new status update and hugs to give and receive.

Oh, I have to tell you it is fun. SO fun.

I am trying to find a way to have two loves in my life on top of family stuff and school. I suppose it doesn't matter if we have clean underwear, does it?

She Lives!

So, you know it's been a long time since you've blogged if blogger says "who" when you sign in.

Seriously.

The delightful AFF pulled me out of the misery chaos that has filled the last umpteen days/weeks since I have checked into this dusty little place by sending an email entitled "Where you at?"

'Nuff said.

I have been sick. My kids have been sick. Twice. My daughter turned nine. Baby Jesus had a birthday, too. We had family functions and messes to make and subsequently clean up. Now, tomorrow, Liam turns two.

Is this mess of celebrating from Thanksgiving until now EVER GOING TO END?

Seriously. I love my son and am so glad he was born but why in the name of all that is good did I have another child within days of Christmas? What do you buy him that he didn't already get 8 days ago? For Pete's sake, there are still Christmas gifts that need removed from their packaging!

Eeek! I must stop thinking about it and find an empty spot in my overflowing closets to pile our loot from Christmas so that my parents and, God help me, Satan and his wife in-laws are coming tomorrow, along with 10-15 other close friends and family to help further trash the garbage heap that is my house.

Yippee!

So, if there are any of you left who bother to stop by and admire my cobwebs, what's up with you? Did you get anything cool from Santa?

Absorbed

I have fallen off the face of the blogosphere.

And as much as I would love to regale you with tales of an exotic vacation or a birth, I cannot.

Nope.

I have just not felt like blogging.

I have been around- lurking at most of your places. I know, shame on me for lurking.

Truthfully, though, I am feeling a little quiet.

As I sit here and think of a friend who just lost a parent, I am taking stock of all that I have to be thankful for and have decided not to feel guilty about my absence because life truly is too short, friends.

So, I haven't forgotten any of you; I have just been trying to relish every last drop of sweetness that the summer has to offer.

To quote Arnold the Governator, "I'll be back...."

Unmotivated

That one word sums up me right now.

I am completely unmotivated.

You could say lazy, too, but I am trying to be more kind to myself.

Ahem.

It seems that when my spring quarter of classes ended on June 14, my drive and ambition flew clean out the window.

Along with it went my blogging ability.

I love to blog. Okay, I love to read other blogs and blog so that I can feel a part of the cool crowd.

I had plans for summer. I was going to twitter. I was going to blog- every. day. I was going to take my children to the lake.

For the most part, I have sat and watched my butt get bigger Liam play.

And, you know what?

I am loving every. single. minute.

But summer is melting as quickly as those yummy freezer pops! And, I haven't accomplished any of my lofty goals so I am turning to you....

Ask me a question! Hit me with your best shot!

Inspire me! Motivate me!

Help me get off my butt and start blogging again!

Puh-lease!!!!!!!!!!!!

Retrospective

I sat down almost a year ago and began blogging. A friend and I started around the same time; she to update friends on the happenings in her midst-of-divorce life, including the highlights and lowlights of dating. I thought I could entertain the masses and make a quick buck or several hundred.

Well, a year later, I have spent way more time and money (inadvertently) through blogging than I will probably ever recoup. I've learned some things along the way, though.

Blogging is not easy. It takes a lot of time and dedication to get a devoted audience of readers and, frankly, I don't have the time to dedicate to it. My son freaks completely out when I approach my PC or get the laptop out. And most of the time I have free must be devoted to my course work right now if I ever want to finish the friggin' degree.

It takes a lot of work. I like to write; I am a skilled technical writer. But your blogs? Wow, they knock my socks off! Some of you are just wicked funny. Others are incredibly talented photogs. There are a few of you who are both. Me? I am neither a particularly witty writer nor a photographer.

You have to have some technical know-how. And me? Not so much. It took me until 3 weeks ago to figure out how to post the haiku friday logo on my posts. Seriously. I can surf the internet and use Word but this blogging stuff? Most of it is way above my head.

And, I don't Twitter. I know, I know. AFF says I must in order to grow my readership. I have tried but do you really care that I just took a shower and am now watching the dust bunnies crawl under the stools at my breakfast bar? I do intend to make a concerted effort to learn this Twitter stuff over the summer when I am not in class (did you hear the hallelujahs surrounding that? No class for 3 months! Woot!) but I am doubtful.

Some days when I do sit down to blog it is sort of with a heavy heart. I want people to find my stuff funny or touching or worthwhile. I want the comments. You know what I mean. We all start for different reasons but the comments? They're a blogger's crack.

So, for now, I blog to stay in your lives. I love reading about your kids, in-laws, your trips. Truth be told, I know more about your lives than I do about many of the people whom I see on a regular basis. Blogging has become a community for me and that is the main reason I stick around. And this community that requires no zip code, no taxes, no real names? I am glad to consider myself a little part of it...

Oops: Missed my 100th Post

Yesterday was my 100th post and I totally spaced on it. I was stoked as I watched the number creep toward that milestone and then, yesterday, I just missed it; I simply forgot. I have to blame it on the hangover-effect Black Friday and Turkey Thursday (triptophan, yo!) induced because for a person who is sleep deprived, voluntarily leaving the house at 4:20am is, well, stupid.

I have to thank those of you who read my blog on a regular basis and comment because I thought for a long time I was writing just for the sheer act of doing so, which was okay because this exercise of journaling can be quite cathartic at times, whereas others it is like an exercise in redundancy. To get that confirmation, though, that someone else at least read your thoughts is a high, though, and a reason to keep pressing on.

I understand that the tradition is to post 100 things about oneself in honor of this milestone, of sorts. I will do that but over the course of several posts because, frankly, my boy will not allow me the time to put down 100 and, really, what is the point in coming up with them if no one takes the time to read. So, beginning tomorrow I will share some things you do not know about me!

As always, thanks for reading and, especially, commenting!

Posting/Procrastinating

I am so far behind in my school work that it is frightening. If I start thinking about just how deep in this I am, I get butterflies in the stomach and diarrhea (TMI????). It is true. I don't exactly know how it happened and it is really not like me but I just let my course work slide this time and now it is down to the last several weeks of the quarter and I am going to have to work triple time to catch up- if that is even possible at this point.

So what am I doing?

Reading blogs. It's true. I should be reading an oh, so riveting book about power, privilege and differences but I am reading your blogs. I can't help it! Your lives are so interesting and your writing so talented that I just can't stop.

My husband threatened last night to schedule an intervention. He says besides having a new man in my life (our darling son) who steals all of my attention and affection, I have become an internet addict and have to check email about 1,000 times a day. I also try to turn every embarrassing family incident into a post for my blog. Sadly, it's true.

But, I don't get out much. I don't have a lot of adult conversation so reading my favorite blogs is a link to the outside world; an escape from the monotony and insanity of my days.

Oh, gotta go...my email just chimed. Then I probably should read. Or not.

Technologically Un-Inclined

I am not technologically inclined. I'm not. I try to fake it but, eventually, my secret leaks out. When I returned to college a few years ago, I was stopped dead in my tracks with the way technology had infiltrated the classroom. When I began college in, gulp, 1993, no one in my dorm had a computer. No one. I went to a university that had 17,000 on campus and my dorm housed around 300 and there was not a computer in the place. There were labs scattered around campus and only about half the computers in the labs even had Microsoft Windows on them. Personally, I had never used Windows in '93, despite the fact that my dad had had a computer in our home from the time I was in third grade. We always had an IBM compatible computer and used, I think it was called, First Choice.

So, as I was saying, when I returned to college, I was overwhelmed by Power Point, BlackBoard and all the other programs I was pushed head first into. Luckily, I was familiar with the internet because we have had a computer but I was a SAHM who emailed and surfed (okay, shopped) more than anything else. I was fortunate enough to be in class with some really nice 18 year old kids who thought it was freakin' hilarious that I couldn't Power Point or IM and they gave me a crash course. Most everything else I know I have picked up by accident or a tongue-in-cheek visit or call to Tech Support at my university.

Now, though, I am blogging. And I like it. I love to read all about your lives and enjoy giving you snippets of mine. The problem is I am jealous of your knowledge of how to do things like "go pink for October" and just honestly don't have the time to look into learning more about it. So, bear with me as I am still a newbie at this blogging business. I am going to commit some time over my Christmas break to joining the 21st century with my blog. I want to list all of the cool blogs I read. I want to put the Haiku Friday logo on my posts but, alas, I am not advanced enough at this juncture to doing it.

I am determined, though. I am. Mark my word, I am coming. I am.