What's Happening?

We've got some catching up to do. There are a few things I'd like to talk about, and I will, but first I'll have to give you a little background on some stuff that was pending and is now official, or was tentative and now definite, or for whatever reason just didn't get brought up but should have.

(For instance, did you know I'm a vegetarian now? Have been since, oh, last September. I've wanted to write about it in various aspects several times since making the decision, because I think it could be interesting or surprising or funny what I've discovered, but at the beginning I didn't want to discuss it until it felt like a more permanent change, and even after the decision stuck I didn't want to seem preachy. Lord knows we don't need any more preachin'. Not from me, anyway.)

Let's see, you know I left my job, and have been working from home, and loving it, but did I mention we sold our house and are moving to Indiana?

Because that's happening too. South Carolina's wonderful and all, and Penny and I didn't mind missing a couple of long Midwestern winters, but we *do* mind missing out on so much family stuff.

Like what, you say? Well, Penny's sister had a baby, her other sister graduated high school, my sister bought a house, my mom's house flooded in the storms (while I watched helplessly from 600 miles away and my invaluable friend Brad waded over to help), our friend Aaron was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, our friend Valarie moved to Mexico with her newborn daughter, who we still haven't gotten to meet, our friends James and Jessica got a new place we've still never seen, our friend Jamie up and started her own photography business, our friends Brad and Jenny (and Dave and Val and Jim and Shauta and Pam and Jim and Aaron and Kristin and so on and so forth) all have young kids who are, sure enough, "growing up so fast" and we just got tired of reading about it on the internet.

My friend Gerald, whom I've known since seventh grade, has moved away from and back to Indy probably three times in the last couple years, and the only place I've seen him in person to hear about his adventures is right here in this house, when he visited once for the weekend. About the only one who doesn't seem to have changed too much in our absence is good ol' Evan, and I can't *tell* you how much we appreciate that. Though maybe we'll come back and find out he's joined a cult or something and just neglected to mention it.

No, on second thought, what kind of a jerk friend would make such a massive life change and not tell us about it?

This kind. No, instead I've been devoting my precious time when I'm not writing like a banshee for my new clients to writing entries about... breakfast cereal. It's a pattern with me, too -- when we first decided to come to SC I forgot to tell my friend Bob until I'd signed the new job contract and booked the movers.

So let me apologize, hypothetical reader of this page who doesn't read Penny's or Tom's or Alison's first (a category of zero, perhaps), for not filling you in sooner. I wanted to, and you should know that I lose out too by not having any recollection now of my initial thoughts upon making these decisions, but I suppose it's never too late to spill it.

I'll get you all caught up again, and then we can go back to gabbing about the inconsequential, which, I think we can all agree, is really what I do best.