So yes, I dropped off the face of the earth last summer. Life got a wee bit crazy and unfortunately I dropped one of the things I really enjoy doing in favor of other not so fun things. More on that later. I’ve been pining for my blog for awhile now, but for some reason it’s hard for me to just start up again like nothing ever happened. Probably because almost a whole year happened… So I’m just going to dip my toes in the water today and give a little update on what’s happened in the last year.

Let’s see:

1. I got a new job (well, more like a promotion). It came with a $10 increase per hour and, most importantly, my own office space (no more hiding in the bathroom or the far corner of the Nonfiction section when I need to be alone!).
2. My boyfriend and I couldn’t stay where we were renting so we decided to buy a house. It seemed like an impossible goal, but actually, the whole process ended up being fairly easy.
3. After a week of looking, our offer got accepted on a house we loved! Then they decided they didn’t actually want to sell and we lost the house (and I had a slight breakdown).
4. I went on a nice little road trip with my parents and my boyfriend to the Great Smoky Mountains and watched the eclipse in Tennessee.
5. After a lot more searching, a lot of unaccepted offers, and a lot (understatement) of frustration, we bought a house in September.
6. We spent most of the fall (and winter, and spring) updating the house. Luckily, we were mostly working with a blank slate, which is why I wanted the house in the first place.
7. Right before Thanksgiving, we adopted our dog, Henry, from the Animal Humane Society. He got really sick the first week and we spent Thanksgiving week taking multiple trips to the vet and watching our new pup being hooked up to an IV. He got better quickly, though and now he’s as hyper and annoying as ever.
8. My Grandmother died the week before Christmas.
9. I gained back a lot of the 25 pounds I lost last year (and lost all of the muscle I gained), due to my laziness and the longest winter in the history of the world (at least that’s how it felt. Jon Snow would probably argue with me, but eff that beautiful bastard. Also, he’s not real). Our daily walks stopped due to -25 degree wind chill and snow storms and that fun stuff and it seems like all I crave in the winter is Pizza Hut, go figure.
10. I went from vegetarian to pescatarian on New Year’s Day, and it has opened up a whole new world of food. I feel weird about it, but I wasn’t being healthy as a vegetarian and eating salmon and tuna has helped me eat more balanced meals. Though I would be lying if I said it wasn’t partially because I wanted to be able to eat fast food again. Best reason to make a life choice, I know. Those fish sandwiches and fried shrimp though…
11. I watched A LOT of Grey’s Anatomy. About 14 seasons worth…
12. Speaking of TV, I FINALLY watched (and read) Game of Thrones. Though I still have to close my eyes and hum 1980’s pop hits during the more grisly sequences.
13. I started writing a lot of poetry again, for awhile at least. I even subscribed to a bunch of literary magazines and narrowed down which ones I’d like to submit to in the coming months. It’s been a little bit since I’ve written now, but that’s mostly due to being sick and and going straight from work to supper to bed. I am not planning on posting any more poems on my blog, because I learned (too late), that once you post something on a blog, it’s ineligible to be published in literary magazines. Whoops.
14. We adopted our cat, Dragon, from the Animal Humane Society. Henry loves her, but she thinks he’s the devil and treats him like a bomb about to  go off at any second. They’re acclimating.
15. I turned a quarter of a century old. My birthday is usually one of my favorite times of the year, but I was very sick this year and couldn’t even enjoy it. Plus, snowstorms in April…. (grrrr) My boyfriend and I did go away for a night to stay at the St. James Hotel in Red Wing (because it was nonrefundable so I just enjoyed my NyQuil in a hotel bed instead of my own).

And that brings us to today! Today is the first day I feel mostly over the sickness that has dominated my April and well enough to do more than just watch Shonda Rhimes TV and eat clam chowder (I’m actually watching How to Get Away with Murder as I write this, but don’t judge. Small steps). I will go more in depth into some of these things in subsequent posts, but for now, it just feels great to actually be typing again.

That’s it for now, but I’ll be back! Until then, take care everybody.