I didn’t mean to leave you hanging for so long after my last post! But here I am to offer a bit of an explanation. This might be a bit long, so hang with me.

During the week that I posted last, Liam had been sick for two weeks and I was pretty stressed out financially about missing work. Not only that, but David was out of town all week so I was on my own. I was struggling emotionally anyway, and then suddenly I found out that our beloved church is closing. I’m not going to get into that here, but all of those things left me feeling incredibly unsettled.

My first instinct was to do more. I started making plans to ramp up my blogging and was thinking about starting some sort of creative business. I was hyper focused on that for a couple of days. I was having a hard week, dissatisfied with my life as it was at that point, and I fell prey to envy. I spend a lot of time online and although I can usually avoid the trap of comparison, some ideas seem to have seeped inside me slowly to the point where I thought adding something else onto my life to have success in an area that was all my own was the only thing that would make me feel good about myself again.

My thoughts were running in this direction when out of the blue they took a drastic turn in the opposite direction and I can only say that it was the Holy Spirit. Suddenly I realized that what I actually needed was to take a break from the Internet. Since having that thought, I’ve taken a big step back and have felt a lot of peace with that decision. What I mean by taking a step back is – while I am still checking email, posting occasionally to Instagram when I have a photo I want to save (for my Chatbooks), and every few days checking my Facebook groups app and notifications – I haven’t been doing anything with my blog, haven’t been scrolling social media, and haven’t been reading any blogs other than a few that I have delivered to my email inbox.

I still love the Internet and the world of social media and blogging. I love that it can be a career for some people and I still have so many ideas that I may think about pursuing in the future. But right now I need to think small, and to focus on my family and my community. I need to free up the mental space that has previously been devoted to blogging and social media (because I was constantly thinking about it, even when not actively working on it). I need to find a new church, I want to figure out how to exercise again, I want to actually make progress on our home and continue celebrating small holidays with my kids. And I’ve actually found a more reliable way to bring in extra income that is perfect for my introvert soul.

I envision that I will still write here when I feel like it and I have the time. I will continue posting to Instagram as well (although that has gotten less frequent since my phone’s forward-facing camera smashed). And I do hope to return to a more active Internet presence one day.

So since I don’t know when I will post next, here are a few random things to share:

• I was happy to be a guest on the Sarah R. Bagley podcast recently! We talked about living a creative life as a working mom, and although it was recorded over a month ago, most of it is still very true today.
• I completed my Lenten spending freeze and I did pretty well, with only a few minor kid-related infractions. I’m not jumping back into spending, but one of the first things I’ll probably buy is a swimsuit for myself. I’m determined to take the kids to the pool a ton this summer, inspired by this blog post.
• Meredith started gymnastics, and she loves it. I’ve been so apprehensive about extracurriculars for the kids, but this is making me excited.
• I have so many good books in my queue. I just finished reading a super interesting historical memoir (aka biography) on Galileo called Galileo’s Daughter, and now I’m blowing through a YA novel called I’ll Meet You There recommended to me by my dad of all people. Follow me on Goodreads from now on to keep up with my reading life. I’ll also try to continue posting reviews on Instagram.
• Last week my car got hit from behind by an uninsured driver and needs a ton of work, so you can imagine the fun I’ve been having dealing with that.
• Finally, but most importantly, Easter has meant a lot more to me this year going through this church turmoil and changes within myself. It also helped a lot that I was keeping up with the daily devotions of the Lent reading plan that I chose. It almost always takes something hard for me to actually make real, positive changes in my life, and I’m just trying to embrace that.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope to keep connected with all of you and I’d love to keep hearing from you. Email, Instagram, Voxer, text – I’m here. :)