Hello, it’s me. For the first time in… over a year. Long absences aren’t infrequent in the world of blogging, and sitting down to write this post already has me feeling a little cliche. I hope you will understand, though, because I think I did have a good reason for disappearing.

The thing is, shortly after my last post on my blog, my mother passed away unexpectedly. We knew she was sick, but I guess you always think there will be a little more time, especially since my mom was only 49. Losing my mom quickly split my life into two parts, the before and the after. And the after has sucked for a really long time. But now it’s starting to get a little better.

I haven’t stopped writing during the past year, but I stopped sharing things. I think I’m ready to get back to that now. I hid pretty much all of my old posts from my site, though. I’m not sure why. Maybe I felt like the things I was writing about were no longer relevant, or silly in the context of my mother’s passing, but I am ready to start fresh.

As soon as I posted this (originally under the title “Testing”) I was surprised to have views and comments (shouts to Michelle for being awesome) so I know you’re still out there, and hopefully still the amazing community you were a year ago!  I’m sure it will take me some time, but I’m ready to begin again.

Thanks for reading. 🙂