Tap, Tap, is this thing on??

No blog post since April.  Crazy.  The addition of Theo to our family seemed to be the tipping point for me on so many of my side dish amusements.  My gardening is only basic maintenance; my cooking is uninspired but nutritious, with oodles of shortcuts.  My ability to read a book or anything longer than a blog post or Facebook update has disappeared. My only photos are on my iPhone, so Theo has only dark, blurry pictures to commemorate his first year.  Church has become a Sunday only affair, which I hate, but right now is all I can manage.  I have made a few trips to the monastery that is attached to our eparchy, and those pilgrimages have been soul savers. 

 I have enjoyed caring for Theo, and watching Melanie be the cutest 3 year old ever, and hosting innumerable teenage gatherings and shuttling  people back and forth to choir and buying  an enormous amount of food every week, and keeping us a few steps ahead of squalor every day.  I sleep the sleep of the exhausted when I am able to sleep (any other mid-forties women understand that comment?).  I began an intense exercise regimen with some church friends in September, which has given me my strength back after feeling very weak from Theo’s birth.  It took me a year to even gather the energy after he was born to try to exercise.  I can now say I am stronger than I have been since before I was pregnant with Melanie, which gives me hope for my continued strengthening.  It never is too late!  I am still doing iconography weekly, praise God, and have taken two workshops since Theo was born to improve my skills.  My husband and I celebrated our 20th anniversary this year, and have had to pour renewed energy into our relationship if we are to have any time together at all.  Having nine children from college age to one year old all living under our roof is a full, full life.  

 

But I really miss blogging.  The entire blogging universe has change so much since I was active, I really don’t know how to be part of the blogging “community” anymore, but I figure if I write, at least I will have a record of my thoughts. 

And now it is time to get the kids on their schoolwork.  I did fail to mention that I am still home schooling the bottom 6 children, if you count Theo and Melanie as being home schooled, which  I do.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with something besides my task list.  Here is to hope springing eternal!