Use It or Lose It

I'm back!

It's been three weeks, 10 air plane rides (you read that right), five beds, three time zones, 2 bouts of jet lag and miscellaneous digestive issues.

And yes, I had a great trip. But you know how they say, if you don't use it you lose it? I kind of feel that way about blogging. And being part of the on-line writer community. I feel kind of out of touch and to be honest, wondering what I'm doing here.

I had a lot of time to reflect. Especially about important things like life. And what I'm doing with mine. No easy answers. You'd think that by the time you get to my age (hey, these are real grey hairs!) you'd have figured all that philosophical stuff out.

Not so, apparently.

I did come to a couple conclusions. Like I'm going to be making yearly trips to Romania. The reasons for this deserve its own post so stay tuned.

I can't take a break from writing, even when I purposefully set out to do so.  Another thing I learned on this trip? Not to travel without a lap top.  Because, one up side to the travelling part of travelling, is you get a lot of time to think.  No house or kid distractions, which can add up as you know.  I surprised myself on the late night 3 hour drive from Bucharest to Brasov by thinking up the whole first chapter of my new book idea. Thankfully my friends set aside a laptop just for our use, so I was able to write that baby up before I forgot it. I actually ended up writing four chapters before leaving Romania for Germany. (Where I did not have a laptop and thus didn't do any writing, but I did take a lot of notes on my iphone).

So, I settled the matter, the wormy question that keeps plaguing me--am I a writer? Yes, it seems, I am.

I also made another fairly significant decision that I can't quite get into now. ( I know, that was mean. Sorry. I blame the jet lag.) It's one of those things where you know you can go ahead and do or not do something, but to do it is kind of risky and scary, but it could also be amazingly wonderful. Or not.

I'm so grateful that I get to travel in this life. I know it's a luxury and not many people get to do as much as I do. I've learned a lot about writing as I've journyed, things I'll share in future posts.

There, that wasn't so bad. Like riding a bike.

And I totally missed you guys! What's new with you? What did I miss? (Besides Boston Rob winning Survivor).

Friday Four or Five-- I'm M.I.A

1. Like The Byrds famously sang, "There is a season, turn, turn, turn." So yeah, this is a season with not to much writing and blogging for me. Back in January you might remember how into the Zone I was, with so much writing and blogging bliss. But I knew what was coming--that the calendar was destined to get filled up with other things and that April/May would not be writing months for me.

2.This is why I've been kind of M.I.A. in the blogosphere lately. I'm in another sort of season right now. All my kids are home, and even though they're young adults now, they still need me. And it's birthday season, my husband and daughter one day apart and a very good friend, all celebrating this week. Plus my parents arrived to take over house management duties while my hubby and I are away,  which meant getting the house cleaned up and ready for them. Then there's packing. And more cleaning and organizing and more packing.

3.Tomorrow we start our journey to Europe (Romania, Italy and Germany).  I won't be taking my laptop with me, so I won't be blogging again until the end of the month. I know I'll have lots of great things to share when I get back, so it'll be worth it. But, I'll try to tweet as much as I can, maybe figure out how to do twitpics.

4. Then the season turns again and I'll have more time for writing and blogging over the summer. In fact, I've got an outline done and ready. Come June I'm tackling the first draft!

How about you? Are you good at letting the seasons change?