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Clearly I've been taking a little time off from blogging lately, and somehow I feel compelled to explain my absence before returning to regular posts. I guess my hiatus started the day before Easter when I got hit by the bug that's been going around town (and no, it wasn't the swine flu), which plopped me in bed for 3 straight days. Normally, I think I would have taken advantage of the days off work with no responsibilities around the house to blog my little heart out, but I felt so awful, even typing while in bed was laborious. Plus, missing Easter completely was a huge bummer, which contributed to a general mood of BLAH. To top it off, I'd been feeling slightly depressed about my lack of readership in general (note to self: don't post polls that will point out how few of your friends actually read your blog), so when I was gone for three days and no one really seemed to notice, I started feeling like maybe this whole blogging thing was just a colossal waste of time.

So for the next couple of weeks, I took a breather from blogging while pondering some "serious" questions. Is my blog worth writing at all if half the time it seems like I'm writing for myself? Should I continue to blog even if very few of my friends and family members actually check my blog regularly? Do I spend entirely too much time worrying about whether my posts are entertaining and informative? Does anyone actually care?

It took me a while to answer these questions and the many others I was asking myself, but ultimately, I answered yes, yes, yes, and yes. Yes, I think it's worth writing even if it's just for me, which means that yes, I should still do it even if no one ever checks it regularly! I love being able to go back and read about the important and not-so-important milestones of our mundane lives, even if it just means being able to definitively know when we resided our house or when we last visited my dad in Athens or when Celtic had his last surgery or when we actually adopted Fresco officially or when we rescued the stray dog in our neighborhood who now lives down the street from us. If I didn't write all this stuff down, I would seriously never remember when it actually happened! If for no other reason, I love keeping the blog just as a memory-jogger!

In my quest for answers I was also able to admit that yes, I do spend entirely too much time worrying about my writing skills and trying to be entertaining and worrying about posting regularly when that really shouldn't be the point. It's not like I'm ever going to make a living blogging like Dooce and Pioneer Woman, so why should it matter if every post is perfect and timely? I should just blog when I feel like blabbing and not worry about it if I don't. The perfectionist in me puts entirely to much pressure on the rest of me when it comes to blogging!

Finally, I also realized that yes, there are a few people who actually do care. After a few weeks off from posting I started getting messages from my friends about my absence, and let me just say that it was really nice to actually be missed. Thanks to all of you who continued to visit the Chatter faithfully even when I wasn't posting faithfully. Thanks to those of you who let me know you missed reading. Thanks to those of you who checked in to make sure I was okay. I appreciate you all so much!

So now that I've explained why I was gone for a few weeks, you might wonder what my excuse is for failing to blog for 38 days--yikes...has it really been that long? Let me just say that a few crazy life events have conspired against us, thereby taking up any free time previously allotted for blogging. Hopefully in the next few days I'll find the time to detail everything that's been going on!