13 Reasons I Dropped Off the Blog-Wagon this Winter

So I fell off the blogging bandwagon this winter and spring, but I have 13 good reasons. Scout’s honor.

1. I had a baby in January. (I offer photographic proof below. Need I post 12 more? Nevertheless . . . )

Sawyer Kate, the sweetest-ever blogging distraction

2. It is not a wise idea to post things online when massively sleep-deprived.
3. Did you know that the average newborn goes through 10 to 14 diapers a day in the first few weeks? Yeah. Mine definitely fell in the “to 14” end of the diapering spectrum.
3. I’ve been using what remains of my beleaguered brain cells to finish up my latest manuscript, Wishing Well. It’s done and submission ready! (Clouds part, angels sing, my husband faints with joy. Or perhaps relief, or horror—or then again, maybe that’s just the sleep deprivation, creating a narcoleptic attack.)
4. When you try to find a babysitter for four young children so you can write, people either laugh hysterically in your face, or run away screaming. Sometimes both.
5. This baby only weighs about 12 pounds right now, but she somehow creates more dirty laundry than the rest of the family members combined. I suspect she is secretly proud of this accomplishment.
6. And while we’re discussing mind-boggling levels of laundry, my dryer has some sort of rust issue, so that it’s putting lovely brown streaks on all our clothing…meaning I have been forced to hang most of our clothes to dry like someone straight out of the 1950s…LAUNDRY HAS TAKEN OVER MY LIFE.
7. I feel compelled to add here that while all this talk of having four children and drowning in laundry may make me sound like an old, boring person, I am no such thing. Exhausted, yes; old, no; boring, definitely not. Or so I tell myself. This is not a reason I have not blogged, it’s simply a fact that deserved a few lines.
8. In February, in the post-baby haze when I was too tired to write, I got a serious case of HGTV addiction. I spent any free moments (and there weren’t many) obsessing over that captivating question: Will they love it or list it?
9. In March, it was still cold, when it was supposed to be warm. And who can blog with cold toes?
10. In April, I decided to reread The Clockwork Prince in order to prepare for The Clockwork Princess. I have been consumed.
11. Did I mention I had a baby?
12. Did I mention sleep loss?
13. All this to say…I’m gradually digging out of the baby burrow I’ve been snuggled in all winter and spring. I haven’t stopped writing—I never stop writing; that would be like ceasing to breathe!—but the blog had to go into hibernation for a few months. Up next is a list I’ve been pondering for some time now: 13 Things I Wish I Could Teach My Dog.