What's In My Teapot?

Aunt Sara is gone. The reality is there, echoing down the recesses of my mind, lodging behind the lump in my throat, but it still doesn't seem right. We knew it was coming, knew that after a three year battle with cancer, the disease was taking it's final toll, and we even had the mercy of getting to hold her hand and say Good-bye, but I still want to turn back the hands of the clock and find her sitting on the couch at a family gathering, her good humor filling the room. Aunt Sara was a grandmother figure, and especially so since by the time I married into the family, Wesley's paternal Grandmother, Aunt Sara's mother, was already gone. She, therefore, made it her business to love and bless her extended family in a way that succeeded in endearing herself to all of us. It is therefore no mystery why we will miss her so very much. There were the homemade cards to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and new arrivals. And these weren't just any homemade card...

Let it be known that we were not looking for a house to buy. Nor were we planning to sell our current abode. In fact, only days before we decided to do both, we were cleaning out our basement and making long-overdue plans to remodel the space into a school room. Then our neighbors put a sign in their front yard and we looked out our window and began to wonder about the possibility of relocating our stuff across the street. After all, their house has a larger yard, four bedrooms instead of three, a laundry chute, and a window seat in the master bedroom. Best of all, the basement is already finished, with a room that could be perfect for school, which is quite appealing right now, since neither Wesley or I just love DIY home-improvements. (In fact, there are MANY other ways we would rather spend our time and energy, given the choice!!!) Also- there's the yard thing. When we moved into this house on the edge of town seven years ago, we knew the yard wasn't huge , but ...

Today is the day, I told myself firmly, that the silence will end. I have written (or started writing, shall we say?) various posts, but in the end they never came to be, and the longer it goes, the harder it is to break ground. Dry ground does not yield easily to a shovel. Especially when the shovel is a garden spade and the ground is the Sahara Desert. I envy writers who can plow through all manner of obstacles, from busyness to brain blocks and everything in between, but I have proven to myself- and the world at large- that I am not numbered among the stalwart. Rather, I have turned this space into the very type of blog that I despise- a dormant one . It is not fun to awaken to the fact that you have mastered the very habit that you most feared, but I have pondered my options and have come to the brilliant conclusion that I have but two: to quit or not to quit? Indeed, this is the question. I could fold this blog into an envelope of the past, and maybe someday, if I e...