When life gives you lemons...

                                   

 
...stop blogging.

That seems to be my approach, anyhow... looking at my very infrequent posting schedule this past year.  

Well, "life" [2012] has given us [Ryan] a few lemons ~ literally and figuratively.

It's been a rough year for my husband, and in turn, a rough year for all of us.

...first, a major health scare back in spring, then a whirlwind of stress in the form of difficult and extremely time-consuming assignments, on top of an extra heavy workload at 'the office'- all the while filling out cover letters and resumes, submitting profiles, and of course, interviewing (all of which, after being with the same company for over 15 years, is an emotionally-and-physically-grueling-labor-intensive challenge in and of itself) ... months of being buried, overwhelmed, stressed, and longing for brighter days... for the days he can get back into the garden, back into his kid's daily lives (he really has done his best in this regard), back into the kitchen (with yours truly)............. He wants his life back.

I initially tried to keep up with posting, [...sharing, gramming,...] but unavoidably, each post- each status update- had an underlying message [complaint] of "WE'RE DROWNING OVER HERE!!" and I realized [for your sake & mine] that it was time to step away... to take the necessary steps to pull ourselves "to shore"...  

[many, many steps later...] 

...an official letter of resignation, a very-close-graduation date of JULY 1st(!!), and for the first time in far too long~ a sparkly clean house,...  

getting there.
                                               

{On a side-note, we've done a few other magical things with those lemons [literally and figuratively :)]... 

We made lemonade of course, but better yet~ we made Melissa's lemon scones (my first time baking with spelt flour- in her words~ easy, healthy, and delicious).............. Turns out, lemons are not so sour afterall.}