The Scene In Which The Words Are Back

When you used to blog all the time and haven't really in, say, more than a year (with minor exceptions), starting off a post can be sort of weird and awkward. It's like running into someone you used to be super good friends with and then didn't talk to for awhile and then ran into at the market and you're like "oh....hi...." and then some weird conversation ensues about how nice the weather's been, and if you're like me you sort of sway awkwardly from side to side because what you really want to do is blurt out something like, "Did you ever break up with that one dude that was totally an asshole and screwing with your head? Also, it's weird you never called me back, right? Are we just pretending that didn't happen?" and you're talking, but mostly just resisting the socially unacceptable word vomit urge.

.......um, anyway.

So for awhile there I had tons of stuff to blog about, and everything seemed like a funny story, and the words would pop into my head faster than my little fingers could type (which is saying something if you've ever seen me type: my husband refers to it as "violent") and then OUT OF NOWHERE, the well ran dry. Thank god I make my living in flowers, not words, because it was just gone, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. And not only that, but I started putting all this weird pressure on myself to KEEP DOING IT, and BE FUNNY, because that's "what my thing is" and then one day it sort of occurred to me, hey, eff it. IT'S A BLOG, and on a good day, like three people read this.*

I mean, really. There was no drama, people! There was no strife! There was no complaining, no crazy house stories, no insane travels, no hilarious pratfalls! I was a happy newlywed living in my cute little house and working on my gardening and decorating projects in my spare time between puttering around my flower shop and cavorting with my hunky new husband and our adorable puppies. Had I any tendency towards pastels and soft, wavy haircuts I was an Estee Lauder "Beautiful" ad**.

That is, until I decided it would be a super bright idea to not only re-do all my website and print design pieces but also found myself looking for a new studio AND packing our old one AND renovating the new one AND moving during wedding season AND hiring a new employee AND doing all this when we aren't really working too much AND meeting with new clients AND, AND, AND....and for awhile there really nothing that didn't involve flowers or paint or moving boxes or figuring out cash flows was really first and foremost in my brain. If "Beautiful" had a sister perfume of "Tired, Stressed and Financially Insecure" I was wearing it this winter, at the shop. (Sidenote: wow. Many thanks to my husband for still loving THAT version of me all winter.)

Also, because this post is nothing if not about rambling thoughts, I turned 30 this winter, and with that came not the mounting dread of getting older, nor the mental berating of myself for not completing everything on my "bucket list," but an honest to goodness sense of "oh thank god." Rather than dreading it, 30 to me represented the ability to completely rock my own sense of person (which, I believe, if you're lucky you spend your 20s trying to figure out- or at least figure out enough that you claim to be able to own it at 30), embrace what I am and what I'm not, and say eff it to the rest.

HECK YEAH, my brain told me, you  made it through that crazy-ass decade known as your 20s. Congrats, kid. You got a degree. Hell, you got two. And then you got a job, and then ANOTHER job, and then you decided to heck with it, and opened a business, and it WORKED! And you survived dating! And found THE ONE, and somehow managed to convince him to marry you, WOW. And you had a condo! And now you have a house! And rent another house to work in! You're like a FREAKING LAND BARON, and you have dogs to boot. AND you get to do stuff you like doing and you don't have to pretend to like stuff you don't like because it's the "cool" thing to do! WAY TO BE. You earned a decade of rocking it out.

It's sort of incredibly freeing, right?! Be yourself. Be TRUE TO yourself. Yay thirty.

Also, I pierced my nose to mark the occasion, or at least that's the excuse I used when I was in the situation where I could finally get it done and didn't have any  major life event (i.e. my wedding) coming up in which I'd be forever scarred by my adolescent bad decisions in having random facial piercings in my eternal memory.

So far it hasn't been a bad decision. Even my mom, who answered my "Guess what I did!" photo text with a voicemail saying, "So.....you stuck a diamond in your face." thinks it's cute.

(where was I going with this? Oh yes) so all that happened and STILL NO WORDS.

Honestly, for awhile there I wasn't sure I was going to have the words, ever again (spoiler alert: you're reading this). I even went so far as to think about deleting this blog, because I just thought it was sort of sad that it just kind of tapered off....into....nothingness....

And then. AND THEN.

I was baking yesterday, because in my spare time I'm a housewife, and I was thinking to myself that I wanted it to be the last time I was baking these items using boxed mixes, because of course this whole "we are eating food that's been genetically modified and packed with riboflavin, and who the hell knows what that actually is" thing has been really hitting home for me lately, and I've been trying to figure out how to cook more, and it occurred to me, "I should totally blog about this," which seems completely normal except that it's a sentence that hasn't entered my brain in 8 months and HOLY COW, THERE WERE THE WORDS, and there were LOTS OF THEM, and there was a WHOLE POST before I knew what was happening and then my rational brain took over and was like, "Whoa. You haven't blogged in like ten months, you can't start out with life lessons in blueberry muffins, chill out."

And then I got my first CSA box today and, people, I have been so freakin' excited for this since we signed up, but also a little bit nervous, because I'm new to this cooking thing and I knew there would be things I didn't know how to use and MAN, did I jump the gun, because when I opened that box today there are things I don't even RECOGNIZE, and I'm in for it now, because I'm going to have to Google Image search my food.

And then HOLY COW, THERE WERE THE WORDS, and there were LOTS OF THEM, and there was a WHOLE POST before I knew what was happening and then my rational brain took over and was like, "Whoa. Ok. You might be on to something here, but you need to go warn these people first."

So, there you have it. I lost the words. I planned a wedding. I turned 30. I pierced my nose. I'm still happily married. I'm still happily self-employed. I'm learning to cook. I found the words.

And I'm not sure what this blog will be about going forward, to be honest. Maybe it's part of the whole thirty-thing but I don't feel the pressure to be always funny, or always have some major story, or always....anything. It will probably mostly be happy, because I think there's such a thing as oversharing, especially when it comes to problems and/or marriages and/or struggles, and that works for some people, but I really don't feel like I need to document that all for the internet (see: awkward blogs about marriage problems that turn into awkward blogs about divorces and DUDE, YOUR KID READS THAT). Everyone's life has unfunny parts from time to time, but to be perfectly honest, this blog is probably going to read more like the highlight reel of my person, lest my potential future children ever stumble upon it. I feel like I should warn you that a good portion may be about cooking, so if you're like "oh god, is she going to turn into one of those people raving about how Monsanto is ruining our lives or how awesome her bread pudding turned out," I mean, I don't know. Probably. They pretty much suck***, so you're not going to find any sympathy for them here, that's for sure. I may write about work. I  may write about music. I may write about awesome things.

All I know is that the words have returned, and I'm hopping on board. Join me for the ride, won't you??


*I'm fairly certain more than three people read this. Maybe like 8.
**I can totally make fun of it 'cause I wear it. BAM.
***"They" being Monsanto, of course, because nothing about bread pudding sucks, except people who do it wrong.