Hello world! I’m back!

I feel like the ground hog on Ground Hog Day. Peeking my furry little head out to see if I want to join the world again or scurry back into my hole where it’s warm and cozy and devoid of irritating shadows.

I wanted to take a few months of absolutely NO expectations. No waking up at a decent hour, no making sure I had plans to keep me busy, no feeling bad about not writing in my blog, – absolutely nothing! And it was wonderful. Kind of like wiping the slate clean or rebooting my system.

So what did I “do” for the past two months? Short answer, not much. I read a lot. We got cable for the first time in three years, so I spent a lot of time re-familiarizing myself with the world of TV (more on that later!). I did a lot of cooking, a little entertaining, and shocked myself by actually exercising a decent amount. Some days I wouldn’t get out of my PJs and other times I’d be going non-stop all week with errands. Some times I wouldn’t leave the house for days at a time; I think my record was four days. I intentionally wanted to make myself get bored, and eventually it worked. Not to the degree I thought it would, I never got to the point where I hated it, but it worked in that I eventually said “enough!” and saying it on my terms was key, instead of running out of time and having to go back to work after a vacation.

Like many things in life I can equate this experience to Cheetos. I looooove Cheetos. Given the opportunity I would eat Cheetos for every meal, savoring that orange powdery goodness and processed-corn crunch. They were such a staple in my junior high lunch that I developed my patented Fork Method. Created as a response to my vanity over perfectly manicured nails, I refined a technique of using a plastic fork to eat my Cheetos, thus avoiding the tell-tale sign of Cheetos addiction – the orange fingernails. My Fork Method earned me a reputation for being somewhat eccentric, and standing out at that age is not necessarily a good thing, but I honestly didn’t care. Nothing was going to come between me and my Cheetos.

But as much as I never thought I’d say this, you can have too many Cheetos. As an adult living on my own, I was able to experiment with this theory. Allowing myself unregulated access to my cheesy fixation. Even going so far as to pour extra cheese powder into the bag, thus coating every nubby piece with maximum flavor (a guilty pleasure I’m still known to indulge in). At first, it was everything I thought it would be, a whirlwind of decadence and satisfaction. And then of course it lost it’s luster. Its just another example of that age old adage, you can have too much of a good thing, or what I like to call, The Cheetos Conjecture.

With that said, I truly believe that my threshold for good things is probably higher than average. And while I could take full responsibility, I blame genetics. For anyone who knows my mother, you understand what I’m talking about! And for those who don’t know my mother, I’m sure she’ll inspire many more future blog posts, so stay tuned!

(Love you Mom!)

Read the next post, Books, Books, Books.