Friday, May 16, 2008

In Which LLA Does A Sally Field Impersonation, and Has A Startling Confession To Make...

You like me!
You really like me!




I know, I know... I'm a silly pup.

But that's how I've been feeling all week, just basking in the love.
Seriously, have I ever written *anything* that has received 21 comments?
Much less 21 such nice ones???

I hope it is not too sad a comment on the state of my life that I've been just a little more smiley than usual this week, a state that I attribute largely just to the satisfaction of "being back" and all the niceness that has entailed.

And speaking of "you like me!" - I must like you all an awful lot, too.
Know why I say that???
Because...

I

Got

Caught

Up

On

ALL

My

Bloglines

!!!


Now, that could just be a sign of what a moron I am, or further documentation of my OCD, or proof that I like *you*, too.
The latter is by far the nicest explanation, so I'm choosing to go with that one.

Yup - I had somewhere in the ballpark of 2,800+ unread posts. And in this past week, I've read or scanned each and every one.

Funnily enough, you know what the hardest part was? Keeping comments to a minimum. I figured that you didn't want to be hit with a random comment on how cute something was three weeks ago, so I tried to be quiet (and mostly succeeded) But I was there. I looked over every word*.

And that's a sign of love and devotion, right?

Right?

Good - keep that in mind.

Because I'm done with the "Sally Field" part of this post. And on to the (perhaps) shocking confession part.

Ummmm... while I was gone from the blogiverse, I wasn't exactly gone from 'teh internets.' Not exactly.

And in doing so. I may have, kind of, sort of, ummmm (cheated on you???)

I blame peer pressure.

For months, I had been getting a lot of peer pressure from college friends to "join FaceBook!" "Join FaceBook!" "You got to join FaceBook" etc. etc. etc.

And finally, I caved.
Mainly just to quit getting harassed about not being on FaceBook.
(I guess if enough Sewanee folks bugged me to jump off a cliff, I'd eventually give in and do that, too...)

So I joined.
And, to my surprise, I kind of liked it.
Not nearly so much as I like y'all, it goes without saying.
But I did find some things there that just worked for me.

First off, I have been reading a lot lately. Even more so than usual. And FaceBook has this handy dandy BookShelf thing that I'm really enjoying. It lets me catalog what I've read and what I'm currently reading; it lets me see what my friends are reading; and it makes surprisingly good suggestions about what I should read next.

The other thing that I found that I liked about FaceBook was the ability to post my "status" - just a brief one line statement about what was going on with me.
I found that when I was not able to full-on blog, it was very satisfying to come up with my sentence for the day, and to get caught up with my friends by reading their one sentence.

Some days composing that single sentence was the most creative thing I had time to do! (I had hoped that that exercise might have made me a more thoughtful, more concise writer, but in proofreading this post, I can see that is not the case!)

So. There it was. The Startling Confession of my temporary defection. Hope you can forgive me. Or better yet? Maybe check it out for yourself??? Because I'm telling you, on really busy days??? It's like the CliffNotes version of what is going on with all your friends...






*I also got caught up on my email, too! But that was a total cheat. I just took everything pre-May and moved it to a folder called "Sort Through Later?" Except I never will... So if you sent me anything that needed a response prior to this month? Resend it??? But I had messages from last August that I kept holding on to in order to respond "someday" - and even I recognize the ridiculousness in that!

Monday, May 12, 2008

In Which LLA Attempts To Dip Her Toes Back Into the Blogisphere....


Mother's Day Pedicure, originally uploaded by lla.

Because that's the way to win your hearts back, right???
With a really bad pun, and a picture of my Fred Flintstone feet???

That's what I thought...
I mean, truly, who could resist *that* combination...



Hey Y'all.

It's me.

LLA?
(or Miss Cookie, if you're nasty...)

You might remember me, I used to actually post stuff here, and occasionally you found it funny enough to comment and things?

Yeah. Again, that's what I thought.

It's OK. Neither Flickr nor Blogger recognized me either.
Maybe it's my cool blue toes* that render me incognito????

Anyway - I really am trying to come back. For some reason, I'm just finding it difficult to get the BFC party started...

Where'd I go? Honestly, nowhere really. I just had a six-week period that was insane crazy busy. Nothing bad, but I realized it was potentially overwhelming. And in keeping with my New Year's resolution to "Just Be OK With Things" - I knew that something had to give. And the logical choice was blogging/blog-reading.

Sounds crazy, I know, to give up something that I enjoy. But long-time readers of BFC know that I have "issues." Many, many issues with many, many things. And that my blogging issue is that I get hung up on being the kind of blogger that I want to be. I knew that with everything else going on that I wouldn't be able to write the kinds of posts that I wanted to write, or respond to any comments the way that I wanted to, etc. etc. etc.
Even though I know that no one expects that kind of stuff from me. Except for me.

So - instead of trying to squeeze blogging in, and being unhappy with my efforts, I decided to take a little break. Better to miss it, than to continue and not find the joy in it - or so my thinking went.

In retrospect, it might have been nice to say "Hey - I'm taking a little break here, talk with you later and I'll be back!"

Except, we've all visited blogs where the authors keep making these big huge deals about how they are going to be taking these BIG. DRAMATIC. BREAKS! Only to be posting more frequently than ever a mere 36 hours later**.
What's up with that, btw? How am I supposed to miss you if you won't go away???

So.

Anyway...

The crazy tumultuous stuff is over.

Volunteer obligations are over, Over, OVER AND DONE! (Can you tell I'm excited by this???) And now it's back to the regular old tumultuous stuff that makes up my life. But for some reason, it's been hard to get back into the swing of it here. And I don't know why.

So - here I go, making the plunge (or dipping my toes back in - I guess it remains to be seen which it is...) Because while I feel pretty darn sure that I've not been doing anything particularly interesting, or crafty, or blog-worthy - I have missed it here. So I want to come back.

If you'll have me.
Me, and my Fred Flintstone feet...





*I'm sporting my Mother's Day pedicure - wh00t! I'm not 100% sure about the blue toes. Sometimes I look down and I think "oooh! cute!" and other times I look down and think "what was I thinking???" I am certain about one thing, though. I'm pretty sure that I am either too old, or too uncool to be truly rocking the blue toenails. But it's fun for a change....

**It goes without saying, Dear Reader, that of course I don't mean *you*