Testing...1...2..3...

I know; its kind of silly for me to be back here.  After three months of flagrantly neglecting everything blog under the sun. I'm probably just better off talking to myself in a mirror and cracking myself up over my bad jokes.  But as I'm a product of the blog culture and ever in need of love! and validation! and interwebs community! here I am. Its been so long that even the blogger.com format has changed and I have no idea what I'm looking at here--so be prepared to be amazed by my utter lack of computer savvy; it really is staggering.

So what have I been doing for the past three months?  You know, this and that.  And by "this & that" I mean a whole lot of park time with the bike-riding 6 year old and feeding my Words with Friends addiction. But what really took me away from my usual blog time was the fact that I took an online writing workshop for 8 weeks and spent most of my time writing fiction instead of blog posts while Ethan was in school.  How was said writing workshop, you ask?  Well, lets just say that I paid a lot of money to be told that I am, it seems, somewhat wordy.  (see what I did there?)

Yeah, filed under "really, Sherlock?!" and "thank you, Captain Obvious!" I was told that my story needed a little "narrative chiropractics."  Um....who's wordy now Mr Wordy McWorderson instructor?!!!

I kid.  It was actually a really great kick start for me & helped me start to hone the monstrosity I started two Novembers ago for NaNoWriMo.  I really liked the instructor--he gave us a lot of fantastic reading to do on the craft of writing (zOMG, I love reading about writing, people.  Its almost more fun than actually writing because I'm a WAY better writer inside my own head than I am on paper), and some challenging exercises (re-writing the endings and beginnings of our favorite novels--nothing to put you in your place like trying to emulate Barbara Kingsolver--#fail!).  But I got a real chuckle out being told that I was too wordy by someone who crafts phrases like "intergenerational wheels within wheels" and "narrative chiropractics."  Definitely more succinct than my ramble-y wordy prose, but still....so fancy.  One of the exercises he gave us has taken on a life of its own and I'm now 40-some-odd pages deep into some cheeky chick lit (think Bridget Jones more than 50 Shades--which I refuse to read based simply on the sheer number of times the "writer" apparently uses the phrase "inner goddess", but that's for a whole other post.)

So that's what I've been doing with my time.  But I've missed the happy little space that is my blog, where I can ramble at will about Ethan and his shenanigans, so I'm back.  I hope to keep up with the fiction, but I'm also hoping that I can find my way here more than once every three months.  I've never been really good with balance, or consistency (or laundry...anyone have any ADD meds they want to share with me? Squirrel!!!!), but I'm hopeful.  We've got an epic summer coming up and I want to be sure to remember every single little detail of it and the blog's the best way to do that.

So what are we doing this summer?  On Tuesday of next week, Ethan finishes kindergarten and will officially be a 1st grader.  Oh my god, people.  Seriously---this baby:

is going to be in bona fide elementary school, with the reading, writing and 'rithmatic and all that.  Oh my heart.  Where did the time go and all of that wistful nostalgic waxing poetic stuff?  Its hard to even believe he was ever that tiny, but so hard to believe he's not a baby anymore, too.  While my lady town has absolutely closed up shop, I totally get why crazy ladies like Octomom are out there and keep popping out the babies.  Look at that face--if I could chew those cheeks through the computer screen, I totally would.

After a couple weeks of glorious sleeping in and lazing through our mornings with no agenda and spending our afternoons poolside with friends, Ethan and I are embarking on a cross country adventure to New Hampshire, where I grew up.  Ethan's not been there since he was this big:

when we went for his first Hannukah/Christmas with my family.  So, considering he's this big now:

I think its time we head back to where I started out and introduce him to the people and places who made up my life before I ventured out into the world.   There will be trips to the houses I lived in, the schools I attended (so clearly, tons of fun for him) and I will take him to the beach and the college I went to and we'll be there for the 4th of July, which is going to be so fantastically old school with s'mores and sparklers and parades and all that stuff-of-childhood that I'm practically busting right now just thinking about it.

Then there will be the summer camps.  When we return in July, Ethan gets to attend three different camps, one week a piece, at his school.  And when he's not in camp, I imagine we'll be bike riding and heading to the beach and doing art projects and playing with friends, and hanging at the pool and zOMG, I can hardly stand it!  Yay, summer!!!!!!

Here's a little bit of E from this week.  He discovered the pure glee of breathing underwater with a snorkel while at a friend's pool.  I imagine this is the view of my summer right here: