Starting for the Third Time

OK--19 days since I said I was re-starting the blog, and nothing so far.  Partly writer's block.  Partly because if you ever look at the old blog, you'll see that it's usually pretty darned positive.  It's where I post the good things in life, and I often fall down the rabbit hole of reading my old posts and smiling.

And partly because I've written two posts.  One I stalled out on, because I was trying the get The Storm (aka Hurricane Michael) out of my system and is really isn't going to leave.  And there are no words big enough or horrible enough to describe it.

And then I started another one, where I sort of whined about how I have various reasons for not liking December in general, and I have a cold, and then I wandered back to that big horrible Storm again . . . and then the whole post simply disappeared.

So getting back to why I write a blog.  It's about me--yeah, a selfish reason.  But I read it, and Bob reads it, and the occasional passing person, and that's about it.  So it's sort of like a personal diary left out on the table and unlocked but not too many people look at it.  But writing like someone else is going to read it makes me edit my life a bit, think about it from the outside.  Sort of like when I'm working on a project--sometimes I'll hold it up to a mirror, or take a picture and study it, because then I look at it from another perspective.

Our laundry room and kitchen for a week

So I'm going to come out and say that in a way, I feel cheated by that damned storm.  We have *not once* complained about the damage done to our yard, or the inconvenience of going a week without power.

 We have shaken our heads in relieved amazement and gratitude and said "we're fine."  We sat on our front porch during the hurricane (because if the enemy is coming at you, you might as well see it, and besides the porch was on the leeward side of the house).  Over the freight-train sound of the storm we could hear the tremendous crack and thud of trees hitting the ground (and expecting the huge crack and thud of a tree landing on the house--but that didn't happen).

The next day the sky was clear and blue and cool and all of the light looked weird.  Most of the tree canopy and a dozen or more trees were down or cracked in half.  Mirable dictu the only real damage was to the release pen into which we had herded the peacocks--but it took out the front part and didn't hurt them although we had to cut the side open to get them back out.

So we had--and still have, and will have for several months--a godawful mess to clean up.  And even more so because some trees were leaning precariously so we had to pay a few thousand dollars to have them dropped as well.   Any decent day (have I mentioned this is the wettest year Tallahassee has ever had?) sees us spending hours cutting, dragging, and burning.

We've made dozens of brush piles

I rather liked this one--named it the Triffid
.  About 15-20 feet high and I think it walked around at night.
  Unfortunately it was in front of the garden and unstable
 so we had to dismantle it.

So no, I'm not happy about what Hurricane Michael did to us.  But I can't beat my breast and say "O poor us" because it's frickin' NOTHING in comparison to the real storm damage.  And I've got serious survivor's guilt.

But y'know--it feels good to admit it.  So now maybe I can move on to other things.

The Return

Welcome back!  I've missed me.

In 2010 I started a blog (News From the Swamp: http://ann-newsfromtheswamp.blogspot.com/ ).  What with my computer dying and a problem with my email address--I lost access to it.  I can read it (and so can anyone else) but I can no longer add to it.

And what the heck--except for Bob and myself and the occasional random passer-by, no one read it (Facebook, Instagram and the like have replaced blogs).  But I've realized that I miss it.  I miss having a journal of the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of my life.  I miss trying to remember when thus-and-so happened and not being able to check the blog.  I miss just randomly reading it myself for the memories.  I've tried a few times to keep a journal but end up never writing in it.

Every time I think about restarting it--I bog down.  How does one catch up on 10 months?  Where does one start?  I was going to start with last February (where the last one ended) and sort of plod along.  But, on the other hand, I want to start off with Hurricane Michael which has been a rather major event, to put in mildly.  So the first several--or many--posts will be pretty random.

But at least I'm back--and it feels pretty good.