doldrums

The dog days of summer are a strange time to get inspired to blog again.

“Many people fear they might be crazy at some point in their lives, but it requires a healthy dose of sanity to think there’s a chance you might be crazy. It’s only when you think there is no chance whatsoever that you should be worried. Only you won’t be worried because you’ll be crazy.”

Nicholas Gannon, The Doldrums

I was bored to death with my lackluster blogging since the middle of Spring. The negativity in the world all but collapsed it, and me along with it. While the dogs have enjoyed people home with them more times in the last six months than in all the years my wife and I were working twelve hour days, being home, and sitting at the keyboard made me a little guilty when nothing good was coming from it. So I thought I would write when the urge came. To those who know that I also have a blog, Truths, Half-Truths, and Sea Stories, I have been procrastinating on that blog as well. I have not made time to write. But it may be more a case of prioritizing all the tasks I had on my list, or limiting the unproductive time.

My wife and I dote on our two-year old grandson each week (sometimes twice), and anyone with a two-year old knows that the child is a perpetual motion machine. In the evenings we were intent on becoming bakers – once the store shelves were restocked from all the other baking that is going on. We have watched almost every episode of ten seasons of The British Baking Show on Netflix a couple times, and now that we have some additional appliances, I may bake at least twice a week. When it cools down a little. I have been guilted by Comet and Dexter, when I sit at the computer to write, to delay that until I have walked them twice that day. My neighbor who helps me tend my roses – he is the expert gardener – is why I feel guilty until I remove all the diseased leaves and dead-head blooms, and water thoroughly each night. At the same time, I feel guilty about my fruit trees needing water (daily in the heat of summer) until not once but twice – I left a hose running 4 hours unattended. (The trees flourished in the hottest weeks of August). At some point I will get back to the landscaping I started in the front until it got way too hot.

And now I have the new interior doors I ordered earlier in the summer, delivered (today) and needing installation. So I made a couple baked treats. I ordered a couple new appliances for the baking. And all the while – probably for September as well, we will be working up to six days a week on our business catching up with the demand. Would insanity be an acceptable reason for procrastinating on the blogs? I can hear blogger Cristian Mihai scolding me now!