*tap tap* "Is this thing on?"

It's musty in here, I'm going to open up some windows. Did I leave the oven on?!? THAT'S going to be expensive!... Oh...Hello! Come on in. Have a seat. Can I get you a drink? Looks like all I have is month old milk... What's that? 'What's new' you ask? We'll first off I would like to give a sincere thanks to everyone who emailed, called, texted, commented, came by for an extended sleep-over or otherwise sent well wishes during my sabbatical. There were lots of you! I became another year older in my absence and Kalani and Tish each gave me super-cool-I'll-cherish-them-till-I-perish birthday gifts. Thanks you two! I was all smiles on that day because of you guys! Some of you cared enough to ask how I was doing and sought speculative updates as to my return status. Some (yes, not just one!) even tried to entice my early return by sending daring pics (see tomorrow's post!!). However, I was dedicated to the whole month as you can see and for good reason. No more than 15 minutes after I had made the post about taking a month off I got in the shower and noticed what a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I had not been aware just how much of a burden I had allowed The Nut to become. The sense of obligation to it and my blog friends had become overwhelming and I was oblivious to it. Even though I knew something was wrong, I didn't know quite what. But after much debate and meditation I am hoping that I have found a way to balance this very positive hobby with the rest of my life so that sense of obligation and burden is kept at bay. Therefore you may notice a few changes around here. I had to set down some firm rules for myself and these are they: I will no longer play on the computer while I should be interacting with Aspen, period. This means I will only be on late at night after she is asleep or occasionally at work. My posts will be for me alone. (This sounds like a given right? I was surprised how many of you that I talked to actually felt at times that they had begun to placate to their perceived audience as well) My posts will be a bit more personally revealing and self challenging than before. Hopefully just as humorous though. I wont enter into the blogworld until all other chores and what-have-yous are tended to. As a result of all this I will not have the opportunity to comment on everyone else's blogs as frequently as I had tried to in the past. That is a fact that has been hard for me to come to terms with. I am always truly touched every time a fellow blogger deems a post worth commenting on and I have that drive to want to reciprocate. I feel like a less than good friend if I don't. So please do not take it personally if I haven't commented on your site in a while. If I could add four more hours to the day I would. All this means basically that I will not be posting daily as I did before. How frequently? I'm not sure yet. We'll have to see. There were points during the last month where I was sure that I was going to call it quits. That a sense of balance would be too hard for me to maintain. And while I still wonder if that may be true, the reason I felt it was worthwhile to give it a second effort was a lot of you all. As a single father I don't get the opportunity to socialize as much as I would like so the interactions I have with fellow bloggers makes me feel like not quite such a shut in. Audra, Kalani, Tish, Katehopeeden, Sasha, Lance, Rabbit, Mara, Addict, Wendy, Duff, Jackie, Dale, Femi... thankyou! Each of you know why. And for the rest of you out there: Thanks for being patient! I dig you! So, lets try this again...