Hello there! How the hell are you?!

Hello Blogger Friends!

It's been a YEAR since my last blog – maybe a little more by a few days, weeks, or months, but that’s all semantics- and now I’m back!

I guess we can chalk the year or epic absenteeism up to a need to do some soul searching, major life challenges, just life in general, blah, blah - but I'm happy to say that life is now GOOD. I very much I hope that you've been thriving as well, and that life is treating you gently. Because I can’t make an epic blogger return, without providing some explanation of what they hell kept me away, I’ll let you all in on a few things that have gone down:

1^st:

I became a mom overnight to a healthy (now... thank God) and happy little boy! A real mom! A fulltime, boo-boo kissing, bedtime story reading, non-stop, all-the-way mom! Not to say that being the Stepmom of my beautiful 10 year old Ladybug, didn’t qualify me as a real mom, but I’m sure you all know what I mean. And yes, I am VERY serious by saying it was an overnight kind of, sink or swim, welcome to the motherhood, sudden and extremely surprising dive into parenthood. A dive that at first, I almost didn’t make. It is a very complicated, and convoluted story that I fully intend of divulging in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say for the purpose of this post, that all is well, we are all happy and thriving, and I am so very lucky and blessed to have him.

2^nd:

The passing of my father. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced pain that ran that deep, in all my 30 years of life. My father passed away on April 29^th, 2013, and I can honestly say that his passing changed me in ways – both positive and negative- that I never could express in great enough detail here. Because of that I will just say, it broke my heart, and kept me away from this blog, and pretty much suspended my life until January of this year. As stated above, I’m in a much happier and much more mentally healthy place now, and I am looking forward to all the incredible blessings life has to offer.

3^rd:

I was promoted at my job! It was a HUGE promotion and an incredible opportunity, but I quickly learned that the new role would consume much more of my time than I anticipated. Can’t complain though- I’m thrilled to pieces to have this opportunity!

I could go on and on about the How’s and Why’s of my year without blogging; Work, kids, hubs, blah, but instead I’ll just say that I’ve missed blogging dearly and will make much more of an effort to blog more frequently from now on.

And to remind myself of this new promise:

I look forward to seeing your comments, and look forward to posting all the amazing information I have collected as of late!