Falling off the face of the Earth

This past winter in Portland was rainy – really rainy.  The rainiest winter since records started being kept in 1940.  The upside to all of the rain was plenty of incentive to stay inside and focus on work.  Over the fall and winter months I spent my days working on writing or video editing and even got an extra hour of work time in the afternoon while the boys were doing their indoor sports.  But the downside to all of the rain was pushing off a large swath of life “until the weather gets better.”  Home projects, task list items, workouts, and spending time with friends could all wait until the dreary weather improved.  Weeks of delay turned into months and my to do list steadily grew longer with the rainfall record.  Then came spring break.  Heading down for a week of sunshine in California, I took a break from work and purposed myself to get organized and ready for the impending summer.  Then the panic hit.  I had a long list of things to do that needed to be completed before the boys were out of school, and a whole other list of fun adventures and not so fun chores that needed to get completed during the summer months.  I wrestled with how I was going to get everything done that I needed to and still meet my work goals.   I figured I would be super efficient with my time and try alternating my to do list items with work, but it didn’t seem to work out that way.  The main problem was that we purchased a new house last spring and had decided to complete only essential repairs that first year.  So this spring, repairing the long list of problems we had noticed in our new house were coming due.  Finding a painting contractor and sampling colors to replace the well faded exterior paint.  Pressure washing ten years of grime and moss of the patio, driveway and sidewalks.  Digging out and replacing the silt clogged French drain in the back yard.  From the subfloor to the roof shingles, there were dozens of major and minor repairs or improvements to be done.  As with any project, once I got started fixing one issue, I found two more hidden behind.  Projects that were supposed to take several hours or days bloomed into taking several days or weeks.  In addition to working on projects, I started working out, meeting up with friends, and ferrying to boys to their now outdoor sports.  At the end of the day I would look back on a long and productive day, but guilty I hadn’t gotten any of my writing or video editing done.  I consistently told myself to give it another few days until the workload decreased, but it never worked out that way.  I wanted to provide an update to my predicament, but without a firm commitment of when my posts would recommence, I didn’t know what to say.  With summer break only a week away, it is finally time to face the facts.

I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth, or given up on either of my writing or travel videos.  I still have years of stories to write and dozens of videos to edit. Life just got busy for a season.  And with the boys being out of school for the summer, I will be busy for a while.  So here are my goals: to stay connected on Facebook, Instagram and continue my Weekly Writing posts.  If I should happen to have time to work on my writing or videos, I hope to get some of those posts up too.  If all else fails, I will return with more writing and videos this fall, with the benefit of having completed my projects and summer adventures.

I wanted to say thank you for following along and hope you all have a great and safe summer!

~joel