in which shenaynay ends her sabbatical

q. shenaynay

The trouble with trying to blog again after a year of silence is that there's so very much that could be said.

Well, first I must warmly say to the small, loyal band of you who have continued to check this dormant hive regularly for any hopeful flickers of impending revival... to all who prayed for my family during my battle with breast cancer this past year... to all of you who have asked us not if but when we'd get back to blogging... to all who let us know that you missed us... well, bless your hearts, and thank you.

I always found delight in this happy little blog, and by all reports it would seem a good many others have, too.

But about this time last year I found I had no room left on the edges, no energy to spare for the noise of words; my thoughts were so fractured they refused paragraphs. It became clear that I needed to lay everything aside and go away for a while. I needed to be quiet.

But when you have to go away, it's a very sweet thing to be missed. It helps you heal. And as you heal, eventually the edges ease out, words begin to hum pleasantly again, paragraphs fumble their way back to you. So here I am trying to remember my password and mumbling a hopeful speculation to myself that maybe it's time to blow the dust off the Beehive.

For much of the year that's now behind us (praise the Lord), our life felt something like being inside a sloshing snowglobe. We didn't know if or when it would stop or where it was all going to land, and all we could do in the meantime was grab ahold of something solid, try not to get too dizzy or too banged up, and remain resolutely determined to find some beauty in a blasted, tumultuous blizzard that nobody had forecast.

We did get mighty banged up, I can't deny that. But then again we're still mining the beauty out of that blizzard, and I guess we always will be. God is good. I am still here, and I am well, and I am happier to be alive than you can probably imagine. How many ways has the Lord saved me? I am too small to know such things.

Many, many things besides this blog were put on the back burner during the months I've spent recovering from breast cancer. Everyone in our family pitched in as they could to try to fill the mama gap, but even so we sort of limped along, and in a busy household during such a challenging time many things are simply left undone. Which means that once I began to slowly step back onto the stage of my life (with only a fraction of my usual energy reserves), everyone and everything (and I do mean everything) around here was in need of deep attention.

And then... along came Fa's wedding! Need I say more? Well, yes, actually. But that deserves its very own post.

So I'm still not caught up, and you know what, I may never be. And for the most part, that's okay. I don't care as much about all the frittering details as I used to.

Still, when the lady of the house can't locate a paperclip/slotted spoon/crazy glue/can of beans/sharpie marker/needle/bandaid/andsoforth, stuff has to happen. And one thing leads to another, and another... that one closet you simply had to whip into submission will only serve to highlight the wretched state of every other closet in the house by fresh comparison, and there go your next five weekends. Heh, more like your next five months...

So even after my brain began to feel a bit bloggish again at odd moments, I resolved that I must not let myself fire the old Beehive up again until I had gotten the corners of my life tucked back in to some degree.

So are we there yet? Well, no. But life will go on one way or another, Lord willing. And it ought to be enjoyed, don't you think?

So hey nonny nonny and fiddle-dee-dee, here I am -- just look at me blogging!
(Hat tips to Shakespeare, Scarlett O'Hara and Roo, all in one sentence. Beat that, will ya?)

But I'm warning you, open my freezer door at your peril.