In more ways than one (more ways than 5, in fact), these last couple of weeks have been a bit stressful around here. I wrote very little as I worked to fix the server problems, but at the end of last week, things started getting back on track.
This weekend, I decided to shut down my computer for the full two days and put everything out of my mind. Well, at least I tried - as an entrepreneur, it’s really hard to make your mind stop thinking about your business, but for the most part, it worked. We went out on the boat on Saturday and if you can believe it, I thought a lot about you, my readers.
As we went from the Morris boat launch down to Starved Rock, I found that I wanted to share…
- That the 17-year locusts were so loud that you could hear them over the boat motor even when we were going top speed.
- As we passed this beautiful campground on the river, I wished we could all sit around a big campfire and just hang out with each other.
- I’m excited to be working with new advertising client Amazon Grocery
- That Liz Strauss and I are going to hang out tomorrow night at Jeff Pulver’s Summer Party at the Chicago House of Blues
- That my kids are growing like weeds - my oldest daughter grew two full inches in the last nine months and my 4 year old is bigger than some of the kids in the first grade
- And I’m really excited to be working outside right now because I finally cleaned off my porch this last weekend.
As I sit here on our porch and write, I want to know what’s going on with you. I wish you were here and we were sitting over coffee (or tea, or whatever) and we could chat about your blogs, your new projects, and what’s going on in your lives - friend to friend.
So I’m hoping you will drop by sometime soon to catch up, because I definitely missed you. 
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I’m glad the craziness of last week is over for you Wendy. It so frustrating when things aren’t working right, and I’m glad you had a nice time over the weekend to get refreshed and rejuvenated!
Nothing like the true meaning of mobile computing - taking your laptop out to the porch!
I’m so glad you took some time away to recharge - it is so needed!
It sounds like a great weekend, Wendy. And it’s REALLY great to have you back!
I was hoping to do some patio blogging today, but it’s been raining non-stop. Also, I’m catching up on medical stuff today. So, I haven’t actually been blogging at all….
Wednesday, I’m going to help my daughter set up a blog. We’ll pick out a template and I’ll show her how to use the WordPress admin panel.
And THEN we’ll go to lunch and spend the afternoon at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.
(and I’ll be updating my list from the previous post on the progress toward those goals.)
xxoo
katiebird
Wendy, I am very glad to see your site behaving again and reading new posts.
You were out in my neck of the woods, not too far down Rt. 47 from where we are. It sounds like you had a great time.
I had a good time being disconnected as well as we took our kids to see Blue Man Group. Although our youngest son experienced his first brush with a “crime” as a very bizarre woman stole his drink when we were not looking.
@ Randa and Char - it’s always great to see the two of you here - thanks for stopping by!
@ KB - I think the rain you’re getting is about to hit here. The sky is getting darker and I hear the thunder coming!
Derek - I actually thought about you while we were down there - the Illinois River is my husband’s favorite place to go boating - perhaps you and your family could join us sometime!
Wendy - that would be really nice but might take some convincing the kids. The last time we were up in Wisconsin, they were really nervous out on a pontoon boat and don’t seem to be very comfortable out on the water yet.
I should be at Pulver’s party too. See ya there.
Wendy, glad you got to take a little break even if you did think about your blogging friends here and there!
We had a great weekend here in Iowa - we took a nice motorcycle ride down to a “bike night” event in a small town about 30 miles south of here, walked around the sqaure oggling hundreds of other bikes and hanging out with friends… our daughter and I had a great time on Saturday shopping for Father’s Day and hubby’s birthday… and my husband heard from both his older daughters on Sunday, including the one who hardly EVER calls… the one who lives here locally brought her family over and brought steaks, which we grilled. And today’s his birthday, and he took our daughter to the local theme-park where he promptly got queasy on something called the “Sidewinder.”
Other’n that, I’m working on a new blog project and got to host the Carnival of Entrepreneurs while Steve’s on vacation, so it’s all good! (Aren’t you glad you asked? LOL)
Take care, girl, you deserved the break! ~ Janet
I just realized yesterday that I only have about a half an inch on my daughter!!! And she is only nine!! EEK!! I’m doomed! Glad to see you are back up.. enjoy your tea and relax!!!
@ Frank - make sure we connect tomorrow! Looking forward to meeting you!
@ Janet - that sounds like a GREAT weekend! I missed that carnival - send me a link, will you? I’d love to check it out.
@ Denise - I’m tall and my 12 year old is almost caught up to me - I hear ya! I hear ya!
Hi Wendy,
I’m glad you have your site back up and running smoothly now. I’m sure that you’re super happy about it, sounds like you needed the time out over the weekend!
It’s great you’re back up and blogging again. You’re server problems played a bit with the rss feed.
How are things with me? Thanks for asking. I just completed my uni exam yesturday. It’s been hard to study for as bubs is only 3 ths old and needs me all the time. Now I’m looking forward to a months break before it’s back to the books again.
I spent all weekend working on my Avon business getting it set up and ready to launch my grand opening. I finally put the finishing touches on my web site so I can spread the word I am now open for business.
I got a mention for a fabulous find over at My Life is Murphy’s Law on how I use Statcounter.com to find out where my visitors are coming from and how well I am doing in getting some good quality traffic on my two blogs. You can find My Life is Murphy’s Law over at MyBlogLog.
I have gotten a lot of encouragement to start my own graphic design site. I need some help in figuring out what to charge and what is the best shopping cart service to go with and alot of other things to consider right now.
I am going to be doing my first nutritional analysis outside of a structured class setting next month as well.
Wendy you have to check out my homepage on my main site. It is a true testimonial of how well good networking works. For that matter I want all of your readers to check my main site out. This is a great accomplishment for me and due to this I have landed an internship with the Kansas Public Health Department.
We had a crzy Father’s Day.
We learned that my father-in-law feels he can no longer safely drive and were struck in the face by the large amount of weight that he’s lost due to the fact that he’s just not interested in food. Scary stuff.
More scary stuff - we gave our five month old formula for the ifrst time since we were on the run trying to see both our dads and she had an alergic reaction. Yikes! I did nto cry during the cirsis - just a little bit later.
Great stuff - we spent the day getting my father-in-law out of the hosue to watch his grandson play in the water on such a beautiful day it made your heart hurt. It is so crazy how doing something new and different can seem to make a toddler grow a week’s worth in one day! I love these summer days when my kids are outside so much that they are exhuasted. There’s nothing better than a crashed out kid who smells like sunshine!
Glad to hear about your great weekend. Father’s day was good here for sure.
Good gifts - book and a remote for the Canon XTi. I’ll have to blog about that for sure.
Movie mayhem - Fantastic Four at the theater and American Psycho on DVD. Yes I’m eclectic.
Not enough blogging, but lots of inspiration! Your blog posts and the ones you’ve link too just recently have been very motivating. Now just to get started; that’s the hardest part.
Thanks for sharing.
@ JoLynn - Thanks for dropping by -
@ Joe - congrats on all of your recent successes - including the photo with the governor!! Way to go!!!
@ Sue - don’t let the allergies freak you out too much when they are little - my son had a ton of them and it’s really not that big of a deal to make meal adjustments for them.
@ Todd - how was the Fantastic 4??? My hubby and son are dying to see that one!!
Ah, I took a break too but like you, I found my thoughts going back to blogging. We went down to St. Louis for a baseball tournament. My son hit a 315 ft. home run on Father’s Day so the hubby received a great memory to look back on.
A 315 ft home run? That’s two presents for your hubby in one - the ego-gushing moment AND the great memory!!
I am glad to hear you had an excellent weekend. I am sure the time off was nice.
I look forward to seeing new posts from you.
I have been extremely busy, moving from one project to the next. I am starting to get some focus, but it actually means taking some of the time I normally devote to blogging and using it on this new project. I expect it to be worth it in the long run, but it’s hard to convince myself to reduce my blogging output (as you well know)…
OMG, do I ever, George! I’ve found that I’ve locked myself into a very time-consuming position with three blogs and it makes it extremely difficult to free up time to work on anything else! So when you come up with a solution, you just let me know, will ya?
I’m in a real dilemma. I’m currently a co-writer on a blog. The owner has suggested that I focus on writing for him and slows down on my own blog.
I haven’t made anything worth mentioning on my current blog and he is offering me a bit more to write for him.
I’m not sure what to do. The traffic on my blog isn’t very impressive and I know I can get in touch with a lot more people through his site.
I tried to do the same thing and not work this weekend, but I snuck a little internet time in after the kids went to bed. lol
Wendy,
I will be sure to let you know if I come up with a good solution. Right now, I have decided to open my favorite blog to guest posts. So far, I have 7 takers. Time will tell how that works out. I know you already have guest posters, so I am not sure how much this helps you.
As far as my other projects and blogs… I am just having to put them on the back burner. I don’t like doing putting them on the back burner, but I kind of have to in order to focus on this new project that I think has great potential.
If I come up with a better idea or figure out how to clone myself :-), I will let you know…
Wendy, we missed you too!! No doubt about it, but those two days must have been really nice once you finally started relaxing and not thinking about work
Wow Karen that is impressive. LOL I can’t even throw a ball but maybe 3 feet much less hit it 315 ft congrats to your son.
Congratulations on everything good to see you’re up and running again!
We missed you too! I also took an unavoidable blogging break - my family obligations were too great - and I didn’t even have a good excuse like server headaches.
Wendy thanks these things have been about three years in the making. I have come a very long way. I still have further to go and I am ready for anything that comes my way in the future.
If I can do it with all of the struggles I have been going through anyone can do it and don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t succeed.
Don’t let anyone undermine your attempts to make your dreams come true.
I came back from vacation to catch up on all the posts I missed over here…. Sorry about your server crash though. Bummer.
I’ve been experiencing my own technical difficulties over the last couple of weeks, as the computer from which I do most of my work has died. Oh, and there’s the morning sickness to contend with, as well (nine weeks pregnant with my first). So, I’ve not been around much but have tried to drop in. I really, really need to get myself back on some sort of schedule, though, so I can get both jobs and my blog done in between bouts of nausea and the intense need for a nap at around 2:30 every afternoon! The jobs and the blog have been sorely neglected as of late, and I’m weeks behind in the online course I’m supposed to be taking. Ugh.
Glad to see you’re back on track, though. It sounds like you had a great weekend, although there’s no way you’d convince me to go outdoors with the locust. Ewww.
lornadoone, funny you mention the locust/cicada as I just walked in my office from outside and must have had one on my back. As I was sitting here at my desk I felt something on my neck and reached back and had a cicada just about to crawl down the back of my shirt.
Dennis - your question gave me a brilliant idea for a new post series. How about we do a weekly group brainstorm to help each other with our bloggy dilemmas? I can post your question to everyone, weigh in with my 2 cents, and then let everyone else join in with their advice.
Would you like to be my ‘test subject’ for this one??
Thanks to all the others who said you missed me too. *sniff* I love you guys!
Lorna Doone - CONGRATULATIONS! I didn’t know you were expecting - that’s HUGE! I’m so happy for you!!!
(Plus, the locusts are disappointingly not that proliferous around here - they are certainly loud, but it’s not like you can’t get them off of you - unless, of course, you live by Derek.
Derek -
Oh. My. God. Derek. I would have just died. I’m freaking out a little just from reading that.
Wendy -
Thanks! How could you have known? (Well, I did mention it in my blog, but my content is pretty far removed from the kinds of blogs I imagine you read daily.) Anyway, we’re just still at the very beginning of this whole adventure.
Ahh, just hearing about your boat trip makes me relax.
(congrats, Lorna!)
As for me/us… the fam went to see ‘Surf’s Up’ on father’s day, which was fun. The 7-year-old liked it, but the documentary-style lost our 2-year-old a bit. (she needed a nap anyway, so…) We never go to the movies as a family, so that was fun (and trying).
Otherwise, it’s business as usual at the Kayce family household; I’m working in my office, my wife is about to teach her first workshop in years (kicking the sugar auto-pilot), and the kids are homeschooling/playing/going wild as only kids can.
Life’s great.