What's Up.

I know. 
I've been noticeably absent from my bloggy world.
And I miss it.
I miss YOU!
(Yes, you, reading this right now.)

I've been backed up on replying to comments.
I love replying to everyone's comments.
I will get to them, soon, I promise.

More than that,
though,
I miss my friends in this blog-o-sphere.
Yeah, I've been reading your blogs.
You've shared some great insights and posts.
And I want to thank you,
and encourage you to continue writing.
Cause I love reading your words.
And I'm sorry I haven't shared that lately.

I miss blogging.
I miss writing.
I miss you.

I'll be back.
Lots of posts are brewing in my head.
Next stop - my journal.
And
Eventually
The blog.

Thanks for sticking with me.
Means a lot.
More than you'll probably know.

The Cupcake Queen Bites Back!

Now that summer is here, I've finally found that I have time to read!  And the first book of summer is one that I have to share.  It's called The Cupcake Queen Bites Back and it's written by my bloggy buddy Jackie Tanner who authors the blog Confessions of a Cupcake Queen.

Jackie sent me a copy of her book a few months back, and it's been sitting on my nightstand ever since, calling my name on a fairly regular basis, so I was eager to dive in and finally read it!  It was worth the wait!  A very quick read, Jackie keeps the reader engaged with short chapters sprinkled with poems of all sorts, as she shares her journey through an eating disorder and into recovery.

One of the poems that grabbed me is called You still here?  In it, Jackie speaks of being pulled down, sucked under, yet, reaching out with the hope that help will be there.  I like the simplicity and clarity of the hope that speaks from these words.  Pay particular attention to the passage called Life Is For Embracing.  It starts with a very true quote "you're here for a good time, not a long time," which kinda made me think.  A lot.

I leave you with one last gem from the book - Inner Beauty.  You are, inside and out, far more beautiful than you think.  And you very well may want to go and read this book!

Inspired By...

This is a little complicated to explain, so please, gather your bag of breadcrumbs and try to follow the trail....

Sundays.  Tayla over at She'll Be Free has this great feature called Sunday Link Love.  She finds all sorts of goodies, and shares them in one easy-to-access post to start off the week.  In reading through the links this week, I stumbled across an article that made a lot of sense to me!

The link was from another blog, called Roots of She.  The post?  This one.  All about fear.  Now, you may want to head over and read the whole post (it isn't that long, and it's an easy read) but for my purposes here, I've quoted the chord that struck me:

"I sat and looked underneath the fear – what were the needs sitting underneath its surface? What was it I really wanted?......  To feel safe, to feel cozy, to feel loved......  I could meet those needs in other ways, in healthier and more healing ways, than by staying at home.......  To feel cozy: I wanted the soft feeling of a blanket wrapped around me so I wore a long, soft sweater to work and super fuzzy knee socks...... When you’re able to break down the fear or stress or anxiety, you can begin to meet the needs that are underneath it."

This is a bit of a patched together excerpt, as I eliminated a few parts here and there, cause this is the part that spoke to me.  I've had those mornings, like she writes of at the start of her post, where I just want to curl up in bed with The Pup, a soft blanket, and shut the world out for a little longer.  Days where getting up and going to work is the last thing I want to do.

Today was one of those mornings.  And taking a little inspiration from that article, I managed to get myself cozied up, carry-out style.  I found a very comfy sweater that felt like a soft blanket wrapped around me.  I found the softest socks that I had.

You know what?  It worked.  Sounds a little silly, but that big, comfy sweater and those soft, comfy socks got me out of the house and to work.  Yeah, once I got to work, and got into the day, things were peachy.  But those little comforts, they're what got me to work so that I could get into my peachy-keen day.

Sometimes it seems a simple thing.... yet, it makes a incredible impact.

(P.S.  If you're not sure what the title of this post means..... well, it's still poetry month, 

and it's a bit of a hat tip to one of my favorite poetry books - Love That Dog by Sharon Creech.)