I’ve been saying for months that I need to press the pause button, so I have some uninterrupted, concentrated time to think and recharge.  My thought is this would be a day at home and everyone in the house will pretend I’m not there.  Yeah, I know that was wishful thinking! My kids can pretend to be ninjas and spacemen and super heroes, but they cannot pretend I am not there.  Sebastian doesn’t know what a creative retreat is and when he has to pee, my elbow is the one he will bump with his nose.  Jeff would do his best, but there’s only so much a guy who works full-time and is a full-time grad student can do to keep me fenced off. So, he brought up the idea of giving me the chance to go a local hotel for my own creative retreat.  The idea was still on

In a recent comment, Cami made a request. “I for one, would love to hear you talk about balancing a blogging career with kids and family.  I’m just getting mine rolling and I feel so overwhelmed at times.  You’ve been going at this longer and I would love to hear your ups and downs and ways to manage it all.  Balance.  The great juggling act of life! 😉  Thanks for all your words!” Oh, Cami.  You’re asking the blind to lead the blind.  Everyone who knows me even a little bit, knows that I struggle with balance. I struggle. I can manage okay when our routine is in motion, but when it’s off, because of a snow day, vacation, sickness, whatever, all of the balls I’ve managed to keep airborne, awkwardly at times, come falling down.  And it’s not the funny, slapstick routine where the balls fall down and the clown spastically tries to catch

On the way down to Atlanta and back last week, Kriste and I listened to the first two audio books in the Divergent series.  I’ve become a real fan of listening to “books on tape”, as I call them (and Jeff makes fun of me for it), when riding in the car for long periods of time.  It makes the trip so enjoyable. The story brought up a conversation… which faction would you be in?  Kriste answered without hesitation.  “I would be in the happy farming community one.”  Amity. I had to think about it for a minute. “I think I would be in Candor.” (And yes, I realize this whole conversation and the fact that I’m relaying it again on my blog, makes me a bit of a nerd at the moment, but hang in there with me!) Kriste raised her eyebrows.  “Really?”  The answer sort of surprised me, too.  In