Did you miss me?

Hi.

Remember me?

Can you believe I only posted 4 times in all of 2015?

I let an entire pregnancy go by without saying anything on this blog about it.

That’s right. We have another baby here.

He was a total surprise. Such a surprise that I think it took me 4 months just to get used to the idea, while I worked my butt off for months to make sure that once I went into labor important things would still be done, by people I had hopefully trained to take over for me, while I went into newborn baby mode for a while.

In the process I lost my domain, shelaughsatthedays.net.

It expired and the emails were going to a cancelled email address so I didn’t notice.

Then, because people used to come and read this little blog of mine, that domain had some good page rank on it. So someone bought that domain and is using it for one of those crappy, no real content, paid advertising websites. Which I refused to do when I owned that domain and it’s corresponding traffic. So now someone is profiting off of my mistake, and the work I’ve done over the past 9 years of writing this blog also.

So if you’ve managed to find your way here again, welcome back. The comments and internal links are all pretty messed up. But at least the archives remain intact. (Hopefully I’ll get around to fixing the links at least.)

I assume most of you just gave up and followed me on instagram, or facebook, because while I haven’t managed to write, I did still put up pictures.

Anyway, I promised myself that during my baby moon/ maternity leave, that I would revive this little blog. I cried when I realized I wouldn’t get my domain back. I didn’t realize how much I have missed writing here, missed this community, and missed having this place to get thoughts out of my head.

But in the process of this pregnancy, where I would have preferred to stay in bed until the baby was born, rather than get up, work, or talk to anyone, I realized my self care has become abysmal, and I need to fix that. Taking the time for this, for writing, for thinking, for communicating in this forum and community that has been such a part of the last decade of my life, this is part of self care. This is something I need to keep doing.

(Oh the drafts I have, that I never published. They would be all finished, except a picture, or final edit,  and then my very, very busy life overwhelmed me and I didn’t remember to post anything at all. This is what life has become.)

So, hi. I’m back. I’m slowly fixing little things like, back links, and updating the about pages. I’ll publish some of those neglected drafts from last year. I’ll tell some new stories. I share the things on my heart and mind again. Maybe you’ve been with me on this journey for many years, and found me again at this new address. Maybe you’re here for the first time.

After my surprising grief over losing the domain I’ve used for so long, that everyone knew how to find me with, I decided this is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to let my voice grow up a little bit, to reflect who I am now, rather than trying to be consistent with what it has been in the past. I want what I write now to better reflect all the parts of me, including my twisted sense of humor, and fondness for certain curse words. So, a bit more like me in real life.

Somehow I stopped saying things because I couldn’t always figure out how to say them “nicely”. But some things are just hard, there is no softening them, and I need to find a way to say those things too.

Anyway, these are my thoughts as I begin again, committing words to screen, and putting myself out there, as authentically as I can manage.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of the new baby boy. His nickname is Pax.