Better late than never

So it begins…

Almost a year ago now, my husband bought me a new computer. I'd been eyeing MacBooks for a while when the purchase took place.  We had just moved to California from Georgia and everything/one I'd ever known so truthfully I think this was his "thanks for being willing to move 2500 miles away from home with me" gift.  I'd just endured a cross country adventure with 3 kids under the age of 9, my mother, aunt and of course my husband.  We'd looked at our "new" pink house that had been built almost a century prior and had recently been inhabited by 2 cats that apparently didn't have good aim.  I'd cried when I walked in, inhaled and saw the old house that according to my husband had character.  (I often times feel like people use that word to make themselves feel better about their surroundings.  I wasn't buying it.)  The yard was scant and butted up against a busy and noisy main road.  The impression of my new house, that had only been seen via the internet before we arrived, was going from bad to worse when I saw how tiny the kitchen really was.  Maybe it was the extended travel  time getting to me or the fact that I was in a completely new place but I felt myself beginning to unravel.  How in the world was I supposed to make this strange house my home?  I took some deep breaths of the calming lavender my mother and aunt picked from my front lawn and begin to think of this house as a challenge, an adventure, a future memory.  What do we do next?  Wash clothes, of course!  That's what every mother does on an almost daily basis.  And what did we not have? A washer and dryer.  Off to the store we headed where my mind was going 90 to nothing thinking of the house, the adventure, the challenge and I cried…again.  But then I realized I better pull up my bootstraps and look ahead.  By the time we made it to the store I had decided the house couldn't be as bad as I was making it out to be and that one day I'd be looking back on my time in it as a fond memory.  We ended up at a store that sold a hodgepodge of things, including washers, dryers and computers.  After making our big purchase of a washer and dryer that happened to take FOR-EVER, I talked my husband into gawking at the computers with me. Now he's not a fan of computers that don't run on Window so he'd hardly look at the MacBooks with me.  But I was insistent that it's what I wanted in the future and the next thing I knew the future was happening!  I was like a giddy kid on Christmas morning, staring in unbelief at the new toy I had surprisingly procured.  I may have even jumped up and down in delight right in the store.  (Bless my husband's heart!) And then my husband looked at me and said, "This comes with one condition.  You have to start blogging again."  When he'd met me I wrote, a lot.  I'd blogged, I wrote word emails, I wrote just for myself.  I wrote all the time to chronicle life.  But then I'd stopped. I had given up something that reminded me of the past.  And as much as I missed it, I couldn't bring myself to do it.  However, my husband encouraged me over and over to write but I just couldn't, or wouldn't.  So when he gave me the computer I reluctantly said "ok" to his request and now almost a year later I'm finally holding up my end of the bargain.  Thankfully my husband has a heart of gold and the patience of Job.  So, let the blogging begin!