What? Where? Aaaa.... Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!

So today is my blogoversary. Again. Where did my online year go? Anyone seen it?

Actually, I have a pretty good idea what happened. As I think back on where it all went kaboom, I have to go back to the one insane project that ate my March of 09, and then joyfully munched on April for good measure.

See, as part of the Judaic studies curriculum, in the second half of first grade, Monkey's school presents each student with their own prayer book, to be used for prayer and study. And as part of the community/continuity/uniqueness thing, the school asks each family to design and make a cover for the book, personalized to each child.

I bitched about this before, and even posted a picture of the work in progress, while I bitched some more. You may ask why the hell was the work in progress weeks after the ceremony where the books and the covers were handed out. Excellent question. And I will even tell you.

See, I spent a lot of time last March making drawings and looking for fabric. Predictably resulting in needing to more than less make the actual cover in laughably short time, like less than two days and two nights. Also predictably, I ended up pulling an allnighter the night before the thing was due.

I took pictures as the assembly process rolled on. Here's the nearly finished front and the back the way I was going to let it be for a time. The table under the stars thing is the back cover (books in Hebrew open from what we are used to being the back). See the monkey in the tree?

Finished front cover, already on the book. Quick tour through the significance. Behold the Tree of Life. The top of the trunk recalls the schools logo, and the each root hides the first letter of Monkey's name in the three languages of her life-- Old Country, English and Hebrew. Point being that she integrates all the parts of her identity at the school. And monkey in the tree is because she is, you know, Monkey.

The back cover, when it was finally finished. By which I mean that when it went to school on the day of the ceremony, the back was just that table at the top of the world. Over the next couple of weeks I kept taking the book home on the weekends until finally the table was set for Shabbat and the travelers were on their way.

Closer view of the travelers. Monkey's actual middle name makes her a lioness, so there she is, carrying a cub that represents (DUH!) the Cub. And the puppy... The puppy is for A, hopefully looking at least a bit like our stuffed A puppy.


Before this thing happened, I was almost down to zero in my reader again. But then the cover came over, made itself comfortable, and decided to stay a while. And I fell behind on my internetting. And never caught up. Oh, I made several rather valiant attempts at it, but I always, always lost. Giant FAIL. So now it is over a year later, and I have to admit defeat.

Which I am doing, now. I have been a crappy internet friend and supporter over the last year. I know I missed important events, both good and bad, in the lives of many of the bloggers I read, and I never got around to adding everyone who was so lovely in coming out of the bloggity closet for me a year ago.

I need to write. But I also need to read. Not being able to do either (I have to admit to feeling bad about writing without reading) because of the backlog and because of all the continuously accumulating life crap has not been good for me. Not even a little, as my sister is fond of saying.

So here's what I am going to do, as an anniversary present to myself and a serious mental health measure. I am going to take a blog break for the next two to three weeks. By which I don't just mean that I won't be writing here during that time-- I've gone longer stretches in this past year, every one unintentionally. What I mean is that this time I am going to close the tab with my reader, and am not even going to attempt to skim. (Though I will read comments, since they come by email and since I am way too weak-willed not to.) I am going to use the time to clear the hell out of my to do list-- items large and small, you're all on notice. And when I come back, I am going to hit that awful mark all as read button, add all the blogs I have been meaning to add, and will start again with a clean slate. Clean slate sounds nice.

I've missed you all. I miss you all. I will be back. Soon.