After my last mental meltdown of the 'how to handle blogging, what to do with bloglines, comments, posts, blah blah blah', I decided to keep bloglines. After I'd unsubscribed to everyone, I had to resubscribe to everyone. It was the right decision. I enjoy spending time reading posts. I try to stay in touch and usually feel caught up. I don't generally stress when I fall a bit behind. Life shifts and settles unevenly now and then. If it's crazy now, it'll be calm later. So I'm feeling good about the whole 'How to Blog and Have a Life' thing. And that's not the point of this post anyway.

I have 709 posts from "friends", the group I came up with to put everyone in, except for a few blogs on sewing, or hospitality, or writing. 709 - that's quite a bit. And I can't really do much about it right now. It feels a little rude on my part. Or at least inattentive.

In spite of that I'm going to hit all read, and may well do that again when I get back home in about a week. And I'm going to just take my sweet time working through the alphabetized list of however many blogs I subscribe to - I think it's close to 100. Because that's how many I really enjoy reading. I'm going to think of it as 100 visits for coffee with a girlfriend, and that's going to take awhile.

Please don't think I'm rude - or uncaring. Not that I'm never either, but rarely intentionally so. It's just a tad bit busy here, in a good way, but still busy. Sarah and I were able to share a two hour dinner at Chili's tonight. Not only was the chips and queso great, so was the conversation. When you have a close, healthy relationship with your adult children, you not only don't leave behind a lot of unfinished business someday, you can be honest with each other here and now. We were able to chat a bit about how this emergency arrangement is working, or not, and discuss some adjustments.

I'm hoping over the next five or so days I have left here to not only keep up with the laundry, and diapers and hungry children, and trying to drive around DFW without any wrecks (can you believe the people here care if you actually turn into your own lane, instead of borrowing a bit out of the corners of theirs? Seems a bit picky to me!), but I'd also like to do some loving on my three grandkids - reading stories, and maybe running a few errands that include the pet store, or McDonalds, or tents under the trampoline. We also cut out nightgowns for Addison today and we're hoping to sew them together while I'm here, accomplishing not only dressing the baby for bed, but a great sewing lesson for Sarah. After this nightgown she should be able to sew about anything she wants. On top of that Sarah decided it was the perfect time for me to learn to knit, and I'm not the most coordinated person on the planet. And I still haven't even seen my son and daughter-in-law since I got here. So it's not likely I'll catch up with reading posts til sometime after I get back home and deal with the fires that need to be put out there. I don't even want to think about those right now.

I haven't forgotten any of you - I'm not trying to ignore anyone - I peek at a few posts here and there right before bedtime, but we're just all working hard to keep this ship afloat, so please, please be patient with me.

Because life shifts and settles unevenly now and then. If it's crazy now, it'll be calm later. At least that's what Sarah and I came up with after two hours and a plate of chips and queso at Chili's. Cheaper than a visit to the shrink's couch, and worth every single calorie.

Labels: Glimpse of the Heart