Hi everybody! It’s good to be back. I missed you!

I’ve thought of what I’m going to write in this post a thousand times and I still haven’t come up with anything brilliant so I’m just going to do what I usually do and state the obvious. Then I’ll just see what happens after that.

It’s been a long month not coming here to write. I really missed it. It was an exercise in willpower. I think I wrote posts in my head nearly every day. I would have broken down after the first week if I weren’t so stubborn about keeping my word. And I wonder where my kid got her stubborn streak? Hmph.

I learned a lot about myself and my affection for blogging. I thought I might get caught up in my real life and forget about the internet but that didn’t happen at all. If anything, it just cemented the fact that I do love blogging and I’m probably never going to quit. Some people like Facebook, some people like Twitter or Flickr or MySpace and some people don’t like the internet at all and choose to use their time wisely and write novels for money. Not me.

I like blogging. It’s the perfect medium for me. Sharing but not too much sharing. I can say what I want to say and then walk away for a day. I use all those other internet social sites but I don’t love them as much as I love blogging. So what can I say? I guess I’m here to stay.

Next time I start getting burned out, just tell me to take a week off. No more month-long sabbaticals. Unless of course I have another kid and for some reason I am struck down by good sense and decide to be a mom every second of the day. But even then I don’t think I could stay away forever. You guys are too good to me and I miss sharing.

So anyway, how’s it been going this last month? Weren’t the guest posts pretty fantastic? I didn’t turn anyone away either. I wasn’t choosy. I just put up what came my way and it worked out. I have a few posts left in the vault too in case I ever want to lay low again but keep the content coming. I was really pleasantly surprised with what the contributors came up with. It was refreshing. I know some people were annoyed with me but I think all in all it was a good experience. If anything, it amused me. I had a lot of fun illustrating most of the posts.

What have we been up to while I was laying low? A lot. Probably more than I could ever condense into one post. I might write about a few of the things we did. There was the time we made bread. That was fun but the bread was pretty bland (I need a good hearty wheat bread recipe). We discovered a few new parks. We spent a lot of time at the beach and my mom’s, where I found a treasure trove of old toys from my childhood. We went to Bethany’s a lot, though she did a pretty good job of documenting her side of our visits.

While I’m on the subject of Bethany, I need to come clean. She’s been editing my posts for quite a while now. I may have mentioned it now and then but I don’t think anyone knows how much she really does. She is my right-hand woman. She has the password to my blog and she uses it. Frequently. You might think my writing has gotten better. It hasn’t. She also edited all the guest posts. She put in a lot of time. Many times she put pieces of posts together and even published them for me after I’d passed out while putting Baby Bug to bed. She’s a friend indeed.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need to pass on some credit to my own very personal editor. She spoils me. She’s also a freak. In more ways than one. She’s one of those people who knows everything, like a walking encyclopedia. You can just ask her random things like, “What is cream of tartar?” and she’ll know the answer off the top of her head.* It’s almost annoying. Except it’s super handy when you don’t know how to spell very well and she’s only a click away on instant messenger.

I’ve been hesitant to gush about my friendship with Bethany on this blog because it just felt like bragging. I know when I read other people’s blogs and they talk about this or that friend, I sort of glaze over with a you-had-to-be-there sort of feeling. But I think Bethany has crossed over that line here. She’s pretty much become a character in my life and on this blog. She is a character.

Honestly, I think she was a character sent from God. You know how you have low points in your life and you wish or pray, or whatever you do when things are really bad, that someone would just come rescue you or show you the way out of some particularly difficult problem? Well, without revealing every detail of my life, I just want to say that Bethany has been that person. She sort of dropped out of the sky like an angel and has really helped me through some hard lessons that have been plaguing me for years. Maybe someday I’ll be able to write about them. Maybe I won’t. I don’t know.

I just want to say that praying (or wishing or dancing rain dances—whatever you do) really works. It might take a day or a year or even five years but people do come out of the woodwork to help you through. And sometimes as a by-product they edit your blog posts and help you with your over-use of commas!

So I’m back! I’m just going to stop my rambling right there and say I can’t wait to write something else tomorrow!

*Editor’s note: I did not know what cream of tartar was off the top of my head. I had to look it up on Wikipedia.