I'm still a little agog at how much time has passed since I wrote here regularly.  For a long time, sitting down to write these blog posts was just a part of the rhythm of my week, every week.  I made mental notes about things that I saw, or did or heard about all of the time so that I could come back and write about them.  Often the photos I took were specifically curated for posting here.  I kept a little notebook of ideas right here by my desk where I jotted things down so that I wouldn't forget, I wrote in the margins of my big old desk calendar and usually had a little stack of brochures, flyers, playbills, ticket stubs and bulletins to use as reference for my subject matter.

But then, that weird, bizarre, insane lock out thing happened and things changed.  For awhile, I still wrote down ideas and collected brochures always thinking that, any minute, the universe would self-correct and I'd be back at it.  But after awhile, somewhere during the 5 long months away, I cleaned off my desk, threw things away and so now we are basically starting from scratch.

Well, almost.  I still keep my big old desk calendar. I write everything on my desk calendar so that I don't forget important stuff!    So I'm relying on that right now as a memory trigger.  So let's give that a little peekie.

It seems that in the past 5 months I have worked 28 shifts at the museum, went on 14 hikes with Joy,  attended one City Hall meeting,  took the kitties to 3 different vet appointments and had 6  medical appointments of varying sorts for myself (all of them with no issues at all - yay).   Let's see there were 3 holidays too;  Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labour Day! There was one bout of kitty sitting for other cats, a few luncheons with friends and all sorts of fun weekend adventures with Tim that, unfortunately, I do not write on my calendar. Dang.  I did win several photo awards though so that was a nice surprise.

Tim's and my birthday happened along with a lot of other friend and family birthdays, all well celebrated, to say nothing of 5 months worth of laundry (which probably equals a metric ton), endless yard work, housekeeping, and enormous number of meals prepared, cookies baked and general housey stuff. 

I've been to the library at least 5 times (once per month) which means I read about 20 books and I've been on a minimum of 60 noonwalks with Tim.  Those noonwalks turn out to add up to roughly 156 miles. Holy Cats! We could have walked from our house to Pt Lucie Florida by now!  (it's on the other coast by the way) Let's see that's about 20 weekly grocery shops (ugh) and I refuse to work out the average cost because I know it'll just tick me off.

Well I guess it turns out that while we did a lot of stuff, most of it was just ordinary life stuff which is not terribly fascinating.  Sorry about that.    I do recall a few weekend fun things though.  One very hot day this summer Tim and I went up to the Tampa/St Pete's area to check out the Botannic Garden. It was amazing and gorgeous (and free!) but it was so hot that we didn't stay long but we will absolutely return when the weather is friendlier for outside stuff.  We also went to the James Museum of Western Art and Wildlife which was awesome!

You might not expect to find a Museum of Western Art in Florida, I know we didn't.  It was an amazing place, right down near the waterfront and around the corner from the Dali museum.   We spent a good long time wandering around admiring beautiful western themed art and taking a few photos  - to our surprise they did allow photography!  Here's a few:

Naturally, I took photos during all of those hikes with Joy but I won't try to sort through and post a ton of those.  I will however, share a few of my favourites.   I hope you don't mind:

I think we are pretty much all caught up now, at least on my end.  How about, from here we just move forward :)  

What happened with all of you during this past 5 months?  What's new and exciting in your lives?? Do tell!

​Hugs all 'round

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hello hello hello!  It appears that I have returned! YAAYAYAYAY!  I am so excited! 

It's been a long time my friends, about five months? something like that. And I hope you know that I didn't just wander off and get lost. Or lose interest and give up. I didn't get abducted by aliens or join witness protection.  I have not been here because I couldn't get here!  Way back in May there was some bizarre computerish thing that kicked me out of my own blog creation site and refused to let me enter again, no matter what I did.  No matter what Tim did. Just nope, not happening and I almost (almost being the operative word) gave up entirely.

I say almost because clearly, here I am again.  I tried to make my peace with the idea of never being able to blogpost again, I really tried.  But I missed it. I missed writing. I missed getting feedback from all of you. I missed that creative part of myself. So every once in awhile, not often, just now and again, I would quickly try again.  And then be rejected again.

Eventually I would have these little conversations with myself about accepting the inevitable and moving on and most of the time I would nod along with myself and agree and say, "Yes, this is probably a good thing. It's time to find a new creative outlet". But then I never did anything further. I mean never even tried, which is unlike me.  

Perhaps way deep down in a dark and dusty corner of my heart, behind cobwebs and a rusty old filing cabinet, I still believed that one day I would be able to return and that's why I never bothered to find something new and shiny to play with. Maybe? Or maybe I'm just lazy.

Either  way, today is an exciting new start to the same old blog which sounds like crazytown opposite day!  what I mean is that it's the same blog and it's still me, but perhaps a slightly different version of me. The one that reallllllly missed writing this blog and kept trying despite being turned away (in a technological sort of way) repeatedly for 5 months!  Perserverance is my name!  Well, no it's not.  Sam is my name but we already knew that.

So now what?  I'm not  sure I will be able to adequately "catch up" on everything that's happened but over the coming weeks, I'll give it a good try. AND I'll move forward with anything new and exciting, or old and boring, or just whatever is rattling around in my little punkin' head.  And if you want to reach out with questions or ideas or just a howdy do, I'm ready for ya!

Fingers crossed that today wasn't an anomaly, it wasn't a one-off and I will be able to return again next week at which time I will write a real post (like this one isn't real?)  At any rate, I hope all of you are doing well, healthy and happy.  Have a Great Weekend and if luck holds, I will see you again next  week!  

I love saying that!

​Hugs and hugs