Where's ShadowAngel?

I am here to assure you, dear readers, that I was not struck down by a falling tree limb (which sadly did happen to an area gentleman post-storm), nor was I huddling in a dark, cold house for 3 weeks. In fact, the power came back on at hour 170, that is, 7 days 2 hours after the lights went out.

So (once again) I feel I owe an apology for my reticence, lack of communication, whatever. About half my readers are local friends, so they haven't needed to worry, but I fear that some of the rest of you may have been worrying about me and my family. (Or maybe you didn't worry, that's ok too.)

I figure you could use an explanation of why I haven't been blogging (for that matter, I haven't even turned on the computer - you should see the number of backed-up emails ugh!). So, without further ado...(drum roll) Jen's Excuses!

1. You know, once the power came back on, I didn't feel the desperate need to communicate with someone anymore. In fact, all I wanted to do was to be cuddled up under a (preferably electric) blanket and bask in the warm glow of artificial light. Even so, I owed you at least a quick message letting you know that things were ok.

2. Much of last week was consumed preparing for my annual Halloween party. I put way too much time and effort into it. Also you should hear about the parties, etc. that I took my kids to in the last week. More in an upcoming Halloween post.

3. It's been terribly difficult to get back into the swing of things. I suppose it probably wasn't so bad for all those folks that had to trudge off to work every day, because their routines reached a semblance of normality pretty quickly, but I was home with the kids for seven school days, and Ironwolf was out of town for several of those. I still don't quite have the sense of reality back, and it's been three weeks since the storm.

4. I'm just plain ol' depressed again. Oh, it's not that bad, really, I'm a lot better at coping than I used to be. It also helps, btw, that I can't really isolate myself like I used to do back in the day - after all, the dh and kiddos still need me! So brush that aside, but if you see a lot of "Everything in the World Sucks" posts in the next couple weeks, that's just my diseased mind talking.

5. My husband is horrified by this - I've started several craft projects at once. Why the horror? Because all too often I leave projects unfinished, and I definitely leave my crafting crap all over the place when I'm working on these projects. Yes, I have a place for all my stuff, but it's in the basement, where it's cold and dank and not much fun. Most of the projects are XMas gift-related because I'm trying to keep costs down a bit this year. Somehow I suspect that I'm going to fail in that.

6. I've been too drunk every night to see straight. No, no, no just kidding! :-) But I will admit that the three bottles of creme liquors now sitting open in my fridge (from the Halloween party) do pose quite a temptation in the evenings.

I'll try to pull a few posts together (in nice digestible bites) over the next couple days about what's been going on here. Thanks for your concern for me.