i have excuses (no, the dog didn't eat my blog posts)

I'm back.

I didn't intend to keep Will and Billy and the boys at the top of the page for so long. I keep meaning to post but I never seem to get around to it. I wanted to assure those who have expressed concern that all is well.

It's time to re-commit to regular updates and to begin, please let me explain my absence:

The last round of chemo was kind of hard. I'm not sure if I was hit with an additional bug but I experienced some really gruesome side effects (I'll let you use your imagination), especially last Friday, when I should have started to feel better.

The truth is, that I am taking longer to recover every round, these days. My oncologist has suggested that I skip a treatment this summer. I plan on taking July off so I can go to BlogHer (Did I mention that I got in? I was so disappointed when I came back from Florida to find that the conference had sold out. I can't really afford this but when I learned that there was a space for me, I hesitated for only a couple of hours before taking out the credit card. After all, my book will be there, I want to be there with it!)

I'm going to ask my doc if I can take August off, as well. It can't hurt to ask, right?

When I have felt well, I have been running around a fair bit. I have had a bunch of appointments (among other things, I have returned to physio and lymphatic massage, after taking a long break), errands and other commitments.

Last week end, for example, my spouse and I took D. to the Cumberland Heritage and Power Festival. There were so many cool things there, a steam powered rock crusher, water-powered toys and little tiny steam trains on which you could ride. I wish I had brought my camera. The photos would have made a great blog post.

I blame Twitter. I find sometimes that I have begun to compose my thoughts in 140 characters. For example, I tweeted about my brain MRI results but I see that I didn't write about them here (I think this is a common problem. I remember Average Jane citing Twitter as an excuse for not blogging). They were great results, by the way with absolutely nothing suspicious in evidence, or as I reported to my spouse, "There is nothing there."

I have had BSG to watch knitting to do.

Promoting my book, while fun, has left me kind of uninspired. But I am getting past that. How many more times can I say, "Please buy my book?" or "Don't forget about the Toronto launch on June 11?"

The truth is I haven't been doing much writing of any kind lately. And I miss it. I just seem to have fallen out of the habit.

But the only way to make something a habit is to do it.

So here I am.