Taking a Blogging Break

There are only so many hours in the day . . .

So goes the cliché, but it’s true, oh, so painfully true. As much as I’d like to think that I can get everything done on time – from meeting my column deadlines, blogging deadlines, attending to editing duties, remembering to pick up my kids/drive ‘em places, realizing that it’s time to make dinner or refill the fridge, continuing to do my volunteer work in a timely fashion – it’s been an exceedingly difficult task as of late.

And something’s gotta give ‘cause one person can only do so much at once.

For the next few weeks, I will TEMPORARILY stop blogging here and at my other blog. (I WILL, to quote Arnold, be back, so don’t give up on checking here.) Why the break? I need to finish editing a manuscript for a novel -- about blogging, ironically -- that I’ve been working on for two years but have not had the chance to complete. The plan is to finally get it edited and then, hopefully, find an agent then a publisher for it. (*fingers and toes crossed*)

But you can still get your fill of my writing in the meantime: I’m still going to be writing weekly columns on pop culture and politics for Mommy Tracked, so come on by to read my new pieces, posted on Tuesdays. I’ll be writing about TV at CliqueClack TV, where I’m covering some TV shows for them. And I’ll be tweeting on Twitter -- @MeredithOBrien. I just won’t be regularly blogging on my two blogs until the book is done.

I look forward to coming back to this space with renewed creative vigor and hopefully good news about my project to announce.

Waving the White Flag to Mother Nature

I wholeheartedly concur with the sentiment expressed on page one of today's Boston Herald:

Look at my front yard, it's like a sea of snow. There's actually a front walk that's been shoveled repeatedly, though you can't tell. There's part of a driveway there that's also been plowed but it doesn't look like it's been plowed:

If you look out the window of our family room, the snow piled on our deck is now higher than the window sill:

Plus, I've been, personally, under the weather and getting better incrementally, which is much too slow for my overanxious, normally highly caffeinated self. As I'm impatiently waiting to feel like myself -- I couldn't muster the energy or enthusiasm to watch last week's "State of the Union" speech, unheard of for me -- it has literally felt like Groundhog Day over the past week+ as the snow has kept on coming, and coming, and coming, and school has wound up being canceled, and the kids complain that they're bored. (Seriously kid, I have a blanket over my head, dark circles under my eyes, am as pale as a sheet of paper and you're telling me you're biggest complaint is that you're bored? You should be feeling lucky you're not in downtown Cairo right around now.)

This is my long-winded way of explaining why I haven't been blogging in this space in several days. The family melodrama around the Picket Fence Post household has pretty much gone like this: Mom's not feeling especially perky but still does some stuff around the house (cooking, dishes, tidying up, ordering groceries online) and assisting with homework. Dad's trucking the kids all over the place to all their activities, doing all the laundry, shoveling paths in the snow for Max the dog, driving through wretched weather to work and slaving over the ice rink to keep it smooth for the Picket Fence Post kids who have been enthusiastically using it.

In fact, The Youngest Boy, all dressed in his hockey gear, just burst into the house in tears this afternoon because he and his brother were having difficulties clearing the latest round of rain-soaked, extremely heavy snow from the rink and had given up. "It's just too heavy!" he cried. The Spouse, he of the bum ankle, will have that back-breaking goodness awaiting him when he drives home in what forecasters are saying with be treacherously icy conditions.

Mother Nature, if you're out there, if you're listening: This winter sucks. I hate it. I, like the Herald, cry Uncle. No mas.