Never give up

 

Thank you all for your patience while I took a week to sort life out and climb back into the saddle.  You have no idea how much your encouraging emails helped during a difficult week.  I can't say that anything got "solved" in a week, and some things actually got worse (!), so it's a good thing I don't have a crystal ball.  But I thought a week off was a good idea--while I love to write this blog I sometimes thought of it as an additional "stress" I place on myself on top of my demanding full time job and family obligations and I just needed to take time to clear my mind.  But the one thing I know for sure after my week off is that what I thought was a stressor is really my release valve.  I missed writing, I missed searching to find just the right poem or picture to make my post cohesive, and most of all, I missed my daily interactions with all of you.  So in the future, I'll resort to yoga or meditation or taking a long walk if I need some "me" time, but I think my blog posts have become non-negotiable.  Not because you need to read them, but because I need to write them.

Okay...enough said on that topic!  I found the great quote above yesterday on one of my favorite blogs, Celebrating Everyday Life (link here).  I thought it seemed to sum up exactly what I was thinking all week about my blog, because even though I wasn't sitting at my computer I was still writing posts in my head.  And if I can't go a day without thinking about my blog, well then, I guess I had better follow Mr. Churchill's advice.  I have always been inspired by Churchill, a man who preached encouragement no matter how dark the times.

So I lift my cup of tea in salute to Churchill and Longfellow, whose admonition to Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate, spurs me on.  Here's the first verse of an anonymous poem I ran across recently that seemed apropos.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Tomorrow's topic... MOOCs!  I may live in the dairy state, where MOO is common...

 

but MOOCs are a horse of a different color!  

Until tomorrow, have a day filled with love.  And a little bit of Winston.