how to unintentionally fall off the face of the blog world

As you may or may not have noticed, we've been experiencing somewhat of a blogging famine. All sorts of things have been missed. The holidays (starting with the 4th of July...), birthdays (mine and Van's), small trips, haircuts, projects, and a baby who suddenly carries the title of toddler and all that comes with it––walking and running, signing with his little chubby hands, talking his heart out in his best alien language, throwing killer tantrums, and giving the greatest hugs. And I don't even have some rockin' side hobby like sewing or crafting to use as an excuse for not having documented it all nice and orderly here.

It makes me feel a lot better when I see other blogs that have also not updated for months, leading me to believe we're not the only ones that have got tied up in living life and unfortunately bailed (hopefully a temporary state) on recording it.

But my feeling of being behind in life doesn't begin and end here at the blog.

The usuals:

• blogging to catch up since July :(
• cards to send out (July-August birthdays) and cards to make & send (every birthday after that)
• emails to respond to
• phone calls to make to catch up with friends
• thank you notes to write
• things to do for our calling at church
• laundry (I'll let it pile up for much longer than I should, then when I finally get it washed and dried, I'll let it sit in baskets for a week until I sit down to fold it . You should have SEEN the pile on our bed just days ago that took over an hour to tackle)
• dishes (for some reason when I get behind in the whole loading/unloading the dishwasher process it makes me feel eerily like a college student all over again)
• books we're both dying to read that are getting covered at the rate of one chapter a week
• design jobs for friends and family that have been on the FRONT burner for months, and still haven't fully made it out the door
• we haven't had anyone over in much too long...and we miss it
• there are always more photos to upload, more tiny edits to make, more CD's to burn and get off to their rightful owners, and more life goals to dream up and someday fulfill

Really, I'm just looking for a little reinforcement from anyone to let me know it isn't just me that sometimes feels 100% behind in almost every aspect of life.

Not to say we're dismal or covered by a black cloud here in the Smith home, because we LOVE life! We are loving where we're at and exciting thoughts of where we could be in the future, we're loving being married now as much as we did the day we sealed the deal, and more than anything, we're bursting at the seams with the happiness our little man brings us. We know we're blessed, and we're so grateful for that. I just wish we had more time to share all that with others, and do so in a more timely manner. It would be nice to feel "on top of things"––even the thought of it hints at a huge release of weight from the back of my mind.

I recently spoke separately with my mom and my mother-in-law about this always-behind-phenomena, and they seemed to both be able to relate, giving me the feeling that this might be a recurring theme for life. As long as we're not the only two crazies out there, then I can probably handle that. But please let me know if you've found any miracle working techniques that have potential to help one be on top of things.

So.

Know that we have the largest backlog of photos you've probably ever seen in your life, all waiting to come front and center to our little blog. And please know that I really do want to call you, email you, send you that thank you note, and come visit you. And we really do want to invite you over. And just so our parents know, we really do DREAM about going to bed on time and we would feel as though we had arrived at heaven itself were we to ever make a habit of it.

But we haven't become resigned to the backlogging life, after all, this is a new decade, which means big things could happen. We've opted for simplifying our goals for this beautiful new year of 2010, and if simplifying goals has the unintended result of simplifying life, then that would be big indeed.

Just ask Van. He would totally agree.