Hi!

Yes it’s been quite a while (*coughTHREEMONTHScough*) but here I am back again. And no, I didn’t have a baby, or traverse the Antarctic, or fall into a large crack in the ground… I just got a little distracted. Yes, for three months. I know.

I seem to have developed  a quite severe attention problem; how much blame can I apportion to my brain and how much to the daily stresses of parenthood  / the fast pace of modern society / alien interference? What level of mental acuity is “normal” anyway? Although we have been rather busy, what with trips away for Christmas, family coming to stay at our place, fantastic beach weather, my eldest starting school!!!  … er… what was I saying?

Picture me (or Jennifer Garner, if you prefer) sitting at my desk, holding a pen ready to start getting those paragraphs down onto paper. Then the pen turns into a little plastic hammer, and the paper turns into that game where the mole pops up and you have to hit him before he disappears*, except now there’s another one to hit, no too late, ok go for that one, no he’s disappeared, where’s he…why can’t I hit a single goddamn one!!??

…is sort of how tackling this blog after such a long break feels for me at the moment.

*It’s called Whack-A-Mole. Possibly changed to ‘Whack-A-Wombat’ in Australia so as not to offend our small yet vocal population of moles.

In an attempt to calm the turbulence that hits when I think about doing a post , here are some pretty pictures.

Some of what I’ve been doing while I’ve been gone, actually.

Yes, my name is Michelle and I am addicted to Instagram. I love the ‘INSTA’ part of it; click, crop, post; instagratification.

Thanks to Erica who gave me the idea – I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before; I said right at the start of writing this blog that it’d be a grab bag! Anyway, like I said before, wombats.

I have missed blogging, it takes a bit more time and energy (and focus! Shit.) which can be hard to come by some most days, but it’s worth it for the stimulation of writing and the thrill of clicking ‘publish’.

I have set myself several new goals this year –  I did a stocktake of last year’s and was stunned to realise I’d actually achieved most of them! I mean, what? I somehow achieved them despite myself. Most of them had been carried over from the previous year (or years) and were very familiar to me, like a warm old blanket. One that might’ve smelled a bit. And had gotten so heavy it kinda weighed me down…and was made of really scratchy irritating fibres that always made me itch. Well itchy old Blanket of Dreams has been springcleaned and I have a brand new red Cardigan of Ambition! …Sorry, I’m sure with some regular practise I’ll get better at this writing gig, though the same can’t be said for my fashion sense.

Anyway my main goal is just to manage my time better. So I can post more often, spend more quality time with the kids, finish some creative projects and improve my fitness while also not living in squalor. Achieving this will involve being a bit more focused, naturally. Which is a decidedly unnatural state for me, but I don’t think I’m so far gone that it would necessitate a complete personality change. Partial, maybe. If anyone’s got any suggestions about some practical ways I can turn my goldfish-sized brain into perhaps, a tuna-sized brain, I’m all ears. I’ve already got ‘LISTS’, and make loads of them; I just have to stop losing them!

– Michelle