we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming

oh, blog.  how i've missed you.  it's been a busy summer - much busier than i thought it would be.  i've traveled from coast to coast, consumed more peanut m&m's than usual, enjoyed many a make-up free day, laughed out loud at myself on more than one occasion, added way too many new songs to my iTunes library, and made many memories with family and friends.  a successful summer by any measure.

it's been hard, though, to find time (and motivation) to write and reflect and process and analyze and share and laugh.  and that's something that i need to do in my life.  i don't just enjoy writing... i need it.  writing helps me to organize and understand thoughts.  many times i don't realize how i feel about an experience until i see the words in front of me.  i know i have shared a lot of personal feelings and experiences in the past seven months - none of which i am ashamed or for which i apologize - rather, i express my gratitude to those who read this blog (i think i'm up to 10 readers now?!) for respecting my need to process my thoughts by getting them out of my head and on to the screen.  thank you for allowing me to work through my trials and struggles in this private/public forum.  thank you for your kind words and thoughts of comfort and encouragement, for sharing your own stories with me, for just letting me know that i am not alone in all of this.

having said all that, i think i'm ready to start writing again.  i know i'm ready to start working again - summer is great, but not doing anything all day long? gets really old, really fast - but i think it's also time to start getting back into a routine of writing, reflecting, processing, analyzing, sharing and laughing.  because i've missed it.  and it's something that i need to do in order to stay sane.  and i think we can all agree that it would be best if i stayed sane this year, if only for the sake of my students.

i have quite a bit of catching up to do from the past 3 months... which may or may not get done before school starts.

stay tuned.