Like a billboard of old, I promise “watch this space” for something good

I’ve spent the past month with family and clients, none of whom I could turn down when they asked for my help and time, but I will blog tomorrow. I promise!

I owe everyone who comes here an apology for my minimalist posting of late. The fact is that family matters swamped me in November and lately, by the end of each day, I’ve had the choice of posting or sleeping — and I chose sleeping every time.

Beginning in early November, I spent eight days helping out a relative who unexpectedly found herself entirely alone after a major surgery when her original caregiver bailed. I was very glad to help, but it was tiring. I am not, by nature, a caregiver, so it seems to take a little more out of me than for those people who so effortlessly manage to fulfill other’s needs.

Also, the trips there and back were exhausting. On my outgoing trip, after traveling by air for 13 hours (including two layovers that, because of delays, saw me twice racing from the far end of one terminal to the far end of another to catch connecting flights), I had another four hours of driving to do that same day . . . in a strange car that I’d never driven before.

The homeward bound trip was less tiring — only 13 hours of air travel without the 4 hour drive — but I was reminded that my spring chicken days are long behind me. I was exhausted when I got home and simply couldn’t get back on my feet again.

Still, I thought, if I just rest for a couple of days, I can start blogging again before my little Bookworm comes for a week to spend Thanksgiving with me. Except that my little Bookworm called me and said, “Please, please can I come sooner?” Well, of course I said yes. First of all, she’s my daughter. Second of all, how many mothers of college-age kids have one who desperately wants to spend quality time with mom? I would have been out of my head to say no.

The visit with my daughter, which was to have been seven days and turned into ten, was delightful. She’s gone from being a difficult child to being a young woman of tremendous charm and enjoyable vitality — but she wasn’t kidding when she said she wanted to spend time with me. We went shopping, we went for walks, we saw movies, we cooked Thanksgiving dinner, and we took a driving trip for a four day stay in Charleston. I felt truly blessed to have this kind of friendship with my child.

Still, blogging wasn’t a happening thing.

Today, I was going to blog . . . after I got through the 600 emails that piled while I was doing the family stuff.

Except that two of my law practice clients, from whom I haven’t heard in months, both called today with fairly small, but also fairly urgent, projects. In addition to being clients, they’re good friends and I couldn’t say no so, as with my sick relative and my daughter, I again said yes.

But here’s hope: I’ve managed to collect several articles, as well as chewing over several ideas, that I want to post/podcast about. I’d truly planned to do that work tonight after the emails were done, but those legal projects have to come first. Once I said yes, I owed (and owe) my clients/friends a fiduciary duty to help them out.

I promise, though, on the fur of my dog and the pile of chocolate that I’ve got hidden in the freezer, that you will get substantive blogging from me tomorrow. Absolutely promise.

Today, however, it’s one more day of Wolf Howling’s amazing “today in history” posts, which have been a lifesaver. Without them, for the past week my blog would have been like those old billboards that, when empty of paid content, said something like “Watch This Space.”

P.S. For those worried that podcasts are taking time away from blogging, they’re not. I use the same outline for both. They’re just different media for the same ideas.