It's been four months since I posted on my blog. I didn't plan to stop writing. I just did. It's not coincidence that my second to last post is seeking advice for burnout. Last year was an intense year. It was good intense, not bad intense. But it was still intense. I'm hoping to keep the good this year but loose some of the intensity. (I've found this is easier said than done though when you're the mom of four kids!)
Just to show how complete my burnout was, I hadn't even looked at my blog for probably three months. Then last week, I pulled it up. I thought about writing a post, but then I didn't. It's been in the back of my mind for a couple of days. Then tonight, I got an email from someone saying she missed my blog. It was just that little bit of motivation I needed to tip me off the fence - and into writing a blog post.
So, since I'm sure you've all been dying of suspense, I thought I would catch you up on what I've been doing the last four months instead of blogging! My book reached its one-year anniversary. I feel good about it's first year. I hope it will continue to reach people and I hope to continue speaking about it. But, I also somehow felt permission to slow down a bit now that the first year mark has passed. My speaking calendar has slowed back to a "normal" pace, instead of the fast-forward frenzy it was in. I'm excited about that. I love really love speaking to groups and I'm looking forward to my engagements this fall. I have two particularly exciting speaking adventures coming up. Tomorrow, I'm flying to Ohio where I will do a two-hour workshop at the Toledo Public Library on German research. Then, on October 15, I will be giving my book lecture as the Ryan Taylor Memorial Lecture for the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. My whole family will go with me on this trip (but don't worry - not to the lecture!). We decided to drive and make a five-day vacation of it, including overnights in Montreal and Quebec City. I've wanted to go to Quebec City since we moved to Massachusetts five years ago.
I've also been writing. I love writing! I finished a BIG project that I've been working on for some time and submitted it last Friday. That's one reason I feel ready to start blogging again. I don't want to say more about that right now, because there will be a long wait before I know anything else. Right now, I am just enjoying the accomplishment of having completed it. I have not done much magazine writing, but I am currently working on two articles for the Godfrey Update, a publication of the Godfrey Memorial Library. I've been writing for their semi-annual publication for several years now and enjoy that too.
And best of all, I've been spending lots of time with my family. My kids were home for the summer, of course. I really, really love summer. Mostly I love summer vacations. We had some great trips including a two-week trip where we drove to Austin, TX for my sister's wedding and saw some sites along the way such as Smoky Mountain National Park, Memphis, and Shenandoah National Park. We also spent four days in Acadia National Park (ME) later in the summer. It was beautiful. And, my husband and I flew to Brazil for a week in August. We laid on the tropical island beaches, hiked through a rainforest, listened to samba, fed mango to wild monkeys, and wandered the big city sites of Rio de Janiero. If I was motivated, I'd post photos - but I think I'll break back into this blogging through gradually. School has now started and the summer fun is over - back to fall craziness with an incredibly tight schedule and a little bit of chaos most of the time.
That's it in a nutshell I'd say. The question is...am I going to start blogging regularly again? I'm just going to blog when the desire strikes, and not worry if it doesn't. Hopefully, I'll blog about my Ohio trip and share some thoughts on tracing those tricky German ancestors.
