"I'm Back"

After one of our longest walks,
while carrying bags of groceries and getting lost. 

Wow, here I am, finally, after a two-and-a-half-month absence.

I returned to Kenya the last two weeks of September. Leading up to that, I had a lot going on and the muse was just not with me. I haven’t done much writing the entire year; haven’t worked on any of my to-do lists actually. I told myself that the trip to Africa would rejuvenate me and I’d return home the first of October ready to rock-n-roll.

And here it is – October’s almost over. I need to explain what I have been doing all month.

First of all, the trip was fantastic. One of my best ones (this was my sixth, by the way). The friend who went with me and I were healthy and injury-free, and after a few days in-country, we were both sleeping better than we did at home. We ate only one or two meals most days but were never hungry. We walked several miles almost every day. We reunited with old friends and met some new ones.

By the end of the first week, even though I had enough other stuff to do, the muse returned, and I started writing a story, based in – of course – Kenya.

I think that this is a fact, but I don’t suffer much jet-lag going over, but coming back home – yikes! Jet-lag for a week. No sleeping at night no matter what pills I took at bedtime (sounds like an addict, huh?). I suppose it was mostly from being on a high from the trip (another addict metaphor).

I still had to hit the ground running. Got home about eight on a Tuesday evening and had to be back to work at 7:30 the next morning, and the following two mornings. That first Saturday back I even had to work.

By the next week, I was starting to sleep a little. Then the second Saturday I already had to give a talk on the trip, for a women’s group out of town, which meant being on the road by seven. The next day, I gave the same talk to my church.

Last weekend, we had a family wedding, which meant out of town family spending Saturday night at my house. Which meant tearing through the entire house cleaning on Friday, as it really hadn’t been deep-cleaned in over a month.

Oh, and I almost forgot. We also bought a new car the Monday after I got home, and I got a new haircut a week ago last Friday.

Yikes! No wonder I’m tired!

With all that already on my calendar, I had hoped to jump back into writing and keeping up this blog at the beginning of the new round the first of the month. And here we are on the 27^th.

Oh, well. Moving forward.

I did work some more, the other day, on the story that I started while in Kenya. I guess I have no immediate goals other than to finish that, maybe by the end of the month.

I had a crazy thought while I was in Africa. That I would participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Yeah, a really crazy thought. We’ll see. I’ve taken a few unnecessary commitments off my November calendar already. I even told Hubby that maybe we should cut back on Thanksgiving dinner, just inviting our kids, instead of the twenty-plus people as in past years.

This has run on long enough. I’ll review my life this week and come up with some goals by next Sunday. In the meantime, how is life treating the rest of you? I’ve missed reading all your blogposts, so maybe that will be my immediate goal – to get caught up with you all.

Take Care Fellow Rounders, Chris