NaBloPoMo, Coffee, and Hello!

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” ~ Jane Yolen

Hi! I don’t know if any of you remember me. I haven’t posted in a long time, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get back into it. Should I reintroduce myself? Talk about how amazing and overwhelming being Freshly Pressed was? Just start up again as if nothing ever happened? I didn’t know.

But since November is NaBloPoMo — National Blog Posting Month — I thought I’d just dive back into blogging in the biggest way possible and participate.

This means that I’ll be posting something every day this month. It may not be a masterwork — hell, it might not even be well-written — but it will be something. Think of it as a lapsed blogger working out her atrophied writing muscles.

Muscles! (Photo via sxc.hu by Santor1973.)

To make it a bit easier to find things to write about, I’m also giving myself a theme. Every day, I’ll be posting about something for which I’m thankful. Because, you know. Turkey Month.

So this isn’t just about getting back into writing, it’s also about acknowledging the wonderful things in my life. There are lots of them, and I’ve got thirty days to enumerate them — whether they be trivial or substantial, I’ll try to hit the whole range.

And now, without further ado, the thing I’d like to talk about today is (drum roll, please):

Coffee.

See, without coffee I wouldn’t be writing right now. I’d be struggling to keep my eyes open, and possibly weeping over the fact that my son is refusing to nap this afternoon.

But this morning? Oh, this morning something wonderful happened.

The mailman brought me a package, and in that package was an espresso machine.

(Photo via sxc.hu, by omdur.)

For the past two weeks, I’ve been suffering under the torment of having a non-functional coffee maker on my counter. My much-loved drip coffee maker, which was a wedding gift and had seen me through many tough times, finally broke.

So I UPGRADED.

It involved a couple of weeks of surviving on tea and instant coffee while I researched coffee machines, compared prices and shipping rates, and finally made up my mind. The combination of less-than-ideal sources of caffeine and indecision pretty much added up to coffee purgatory.

But finally the decision was made, the order placed, and the delivery received.

And when that first double-shot latte hit my bloodstream, I was inspired. The world was brighter and everything seemed possible. Okay, so my hands were shaking a little, but what’s some minor palsy in the face of limitless possibility? A small price to pay!

So the first thing that I’m thankful for this November, this Month Of Being Thankful For Stuff, is coffee. Specifically, imported espresso made with 15 bars of pressure and mixed with steamed milk and just the right amount of froth.

Ahhh, how very sweet it is! (Because I added agave nectar. Yum.)

I’m so grateful, I think I’ll have another.

Like what you see? I’m on Facebook. Just click on the little button over there in the right hand column. Then you’ll hear about all my posts, plus whatever other stuff seems relevant/funny in the moment. One-liners! Memes! I’ve got it all.

The Return Of The Blogger

Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence. ~ Jeanette Winterson

I haven’t written in a long time, have I? It feels like an eternity.

My depression is lifting. Little by little, ever so slowly. I’m doing much better.

And I want to write again. I think writing will help speed the process of healing — and if it doesn’t, well, it certainly won’t hurt.

I don’t want this to turn into a mental health blog. I want it to stay funny. But I can’t always find the funny right now, so sometimes you might have some more somber musings here. I hope you’ll all bear with me.

There’s been a lot going on here, with Loving Husband and Sausage and me. We bought a house, and moved into it. I was in a play. I won a gloriously strange mug. Sausage has learned new words, and how to manipulate me into giving him M&M’s. Loving Husband has gone back into the Navy for the next year. Lots of living has happened, with all sorts of things to write about. I’ll try to get to it all.

Thank you so much to those of you who sent me words of encouragement and love, through comments and through email. You have no idea how very much that all meant to me. You know who you are.

This is the blogging horse. I’m going to try to get back up on it — large, terrifying beastie that it is. (Photo courtesy of Stock Exchange)