Vacation's End

I return tentatively.

I think I'm afraid that if I start blogging again, I'll quit again, and then I'll just be a Quitter. (Not good if you're NOT a smoker.)

To recap:
Since May 27, I left Romania where my husband and I had been serving in the Peace Corps. We completed our service -- happily! We toured Europe: Brussels, Amsterdam, Bath, Luxembourg. We left our Romanian kitty at a kennel outside Brussels where the keepers did not speak English and at one point wanted to send her to a shelter because they thought we'd abandoned her. With the help of our Romanian friend living in Luxembourg, the cat's reservation was confirmed and we picked her up our last day in Europe. We flew across the Atlantic, gaining back the day we had lost 2 1/2 years before. We landed in Chicago, took the screaming Romanian kitty through customs, and managed to get all of us safely to Minneapolis and into the arms of our daughter, Brianna. Whew! Back in America!

We visited with Brianna and met her boyfriend Cameron. The Romanian kitty was very rude and unfriendly to the two American kitties who were her hosts. We repossessed our car, which Brianna had been caring for, and headed west to Colorado, the Romanian kitty screaming every single minute of the way. We stayed a night at a small town in Nebraska where a tornado came visiting. Whew!

In Colorado we visited our good friend in Denver, and the Romanian kitty stayed in a small apartment room by herself -- no mixing this time with native American kitties. Then on to our home town of Alamosa in southern Colorado. The first day there we hugged my Mom, ate at a favorite Mexican food restaurant, and bought a new mattress. Oh, and we left the Romanian kitty in an empty room (well, all the rooms were empty) at our house. The next day we had our mattress so we began to move back in. Our son, Prester John, appeared and took charge of our furniture and all the boxes. We remember this as a time of naps and oxygen deprivation. The Romanian kitty, meanwhile, learned about the stairs and enjoyed running up and down them with gleeful speed and thumping.

We arrived around July 4, so we went to all the Independence Day festivities we could find. We were so glad to be back home in America!

Through July and August I applied for "day" jobs. I worked for a month as a business manager helping a man create a local business of making high-end fashion boots. It was a learning experience for both of us. Then I was offered and accepted the job of General Manager at our local public radio station, KRZA 88.7 FM.

So what happened to my passion, my writing, during all this?

Amazingly, I wrote fairly consistently; especially when we first returned and I had more time. I even attended a conference for writers of children's books. And, of course, I rejoined my writers group, the Sophia Circle.

I feel like I am finally, and once again, breathing.

I am re-acquainting myself with writers, writing topics, and writing goals. I am remembering how much I love this work. I am remembering that it has always been with me, and still is.

Though tentative, I am reaching once again for the passion.