No.  Nobody is pregnant (which… actually is too bad in some ways.)  It’s been a long time since my last post, and a lot has happened.  I ended up having to stop my paid writing gig because I frankly couldn’t keep up with the deadlines in addition to my full-time job. Meanwhile, I bought a house, which any of you who are homeowners know is essentially a full-time job of its own… and it came with a number of expenses that I didn’t count on (despite my outlining a budget in advance.)  It was a serious financial struggle, but it’s gotten better and I’m slowly digging my way out.

There’s also been a total solar eclipse (which I was not able to make the totality for…) and more recently we were hit by Hurricane Irma.  It was a monster storm that I’m certain you saw on the news and it was impressively strong even when it hit Orlando.  With that said though, what we got was nothing compared to the coasts and the Caribbean before that.  Some in Irma’s path were literally destroyed, but in contrast, the worst experience we had was power loss.  That’s not to downplay the heat though, a lack of air conditioning on 90+ degree days (and nights!) will wear on you.  By night three (of six) the heat was draining, stifling, and had a major effect on our sleep quality.  Combine that with the fact my house gets running water from an electric pump in my well, and you can imagine it was an unpleasant week.  It also amounted to a lot of small, unexpected costs, but I have to say the Chinese take-out that was open when literally nothing else was (even Waffle House!) were the real MVPs.

Socially… well… I don’t know.  I’m not isolated, I have some new friends, and I’m seeing more of people whom I’ve grown close to over many years.  But I’ve also lost some people.  Not specifically as a result of them outright leaving, but more a matter of my becoming a lower priority in their life.  I’ve mentioned before that it frustrates me when somebody speaks the world of you but doesn’t back those words up with action.  Eventually, you just have to face the fact that they simply don’t want to admit how little you mean to them now.  It’s not a matter of meanness or intention, more a matter of priority.  Some people aren’t as good at admitting they are selfish as I am.  Regardless, I’m not lonely, and I don’t think I’m going to be anytime soon… even if I still feel like finding “the one” is probably not realistic anymore.

Work and the house have been all-encompassing.  I’ve been (kinda) lazy and haven’t really done any sort of dedicated workout since I last posted. That is, until tonight when I decided to see if I could still push out a respectable 5k after not running for a year.  (Spoiler alert: I can.)  But I need to do a lot better.  My friend Leslie has returned from Japan and one of her first executive orders was signing us up for the Spartan Race come February.  For those not familiar it’s a 5k (roughly) but it’s 3+ miles of insane obstacles, so I’m going to need a lot more stamina than a 5k, especially if I’m going to help the others on my team.  It won’t hurt to tone up a bit either, my laziness hasn’t made me fat, but definitely fluffier than I prefer to be.

I’m going to re-apply myself here.  I’ll be house-sitting for my boss over the next two weeks, so I’ll have some time.  I’m in a place now where writing makes sense for sorting out my thoughts and sharing.  I also have an article I’ve been saving from my paid gig.  It was requested, but then decided it was too racy for our audience, so I asked the editors if I could publish it on my own site and was given the rights to it.  Check it out, I think you’ll find it pretty enlightening.  If all goes as planned I’ll have it posted tomorrow.  Until then, welcome back and thanks for reading.  Stay tuned…