I know I haven’t posted in forever.  I’m sorry.  I miss you.  Have you missed me?  (It’s rhetorical.  Really, don’t answer.  I can’t take the indifference.)

I haven’t posted because lately all I do is entertain a seriously hyperactive, always bored, always wanting-a-friend-over-and-getting-in-my-face-if-he-can’t-six-year old, run a nine and twelve year old around to seven different activities a week, try to keep up with my husband’s crazy schedule (i.e., phone call at 5 pm:  “Jen?  Um, did I ever mention to you that I signed us up to bring (insert name of person I’ve never met) dinner tonight?  Please don’t be mad at me…”)

I then do lots of laundry, cook lots of food, do lots of dishes, yell at the kids, “Why am I doing the dishes?”, run lots of errands, do more laundry, cook more food (I am going to move my bed into the kitchen), pick up the house, yell at the kids for not picking up the house, yell at the kids to do their homework, yell at the kids to practice their music, yell at the kids to stop fighting and stop yelling! (“We aren’t trash!” I yell at them.)  By the time I sit down to the computer, it’s 10 pm and I’m beat.  I check my email and flop off to bed.  I don’t even check facebook anymore.  Yes, my friends, it’s gotten that bad.

I don’t know what’s happening.  My life is unraveling just when it was supposed to slow down.  My two older kids are in school and my youngest goes to kindergarten in the afternoon.  This leaves me with a solid two hours of “free” time every day, during which I’d planned to blog, write, keep my house spotless, practice the piano and dang it, finally get those digital scrapbooks caught up (okay, started.)  Instead, I do a little housework, run a quick errand or do church stuff and poof! time’s up and the troops come spilling through the door, with forms to sign and projects to do and things to buy at Michaels and braces needing tightened and clothes needing bought and drama needing dramatized and snacks needing made and driving here, there and everywhere needing driven.  (Please don’t ask me to diagram that sentence.)

The part I feel most sheepish about is that I only have three kids.  I know many of you reading this have many, many more than that, and of course you are managing it all beautifully.  I’ve decided that, ultimately, I just function under a severely limited capacity.  That’s the only explanation I can produce for why, despite the simplicity of my life, I am just barely hanging on.

And that, in my signature long-winded manner, is why I haven’t posted lately.  But big things are coming, my friends.  I’m hitting the booming metropolis of Boise this weekend to see Wicked, and I’m excited.  I’ll treat (bore) you with photos upon my return.  I’ve also lately uncovered some old, gnarly wounds concerning scrapbooking that we need to work out.  (Why do I hate it so much?)  And, of course, I need to tell you about Ethan’s latest cuteness. (“When I love someone so much, my heart thumps really fast.”)

It will be a blessed reunion, my friends.  And exciting.  And long overdue.

And I really am sorry for neglecting our relationship.  Please don’t be mad at me.

…that all I really want to do is read.

Do you have this problem?

I feign a mild interest in exercise, current events, facebook and my children,  but what I’m really thinking is:

When can I get back to my book?

I know I need to catch up on (start) my digital scrapbooks.  I know I need to catch up on (start) my food storage.  I know I need to clean my house, wash my car, catch up on (start) my family history, read to my kindergartener and start eating carb-free.  But when I face each of these worthy pursuits with honesty, all I can think is:

When can I get back to my book?

Do you have this problem?

Every day I confront my To-Do List.  It’s long and hairy and ugly as, I’m certain, is your own.  Rather than taking satisfaction in my daily accomplishments, however, I simply see each tedious, time-consuming task on it as the archenemy of my One True Love.

Do you have this problem?

I’ll bet you do.  Bloggers are Readers.  We travel in packs.

I’d like to pretend that my obsession with reading comes from an intellectually curious place deep within me, but that is not true.  It actually comes from sheer laziness.  Reading requires no moving.  Zero.  How many things can you say that about?  I can sit on my bed as slovenly and sloppy and beached-whaley as I want to, a cup of cocoa warming on the nightstand, and with no physical effort or illegal substances, I’m off to La-La Land within minutes.  Think of it.

Reading also requires no cleaning, cooking, driving, or getting off one’s tush in general.  Reading requires no learned skill (unless you count literacy as a learned skill, but I hope we’re past that by now.)  It requires no hand-eye coordination, no  great taste or sense of style, no social skills, no money, and no inherent talents.  Nothing about reading is about impressing others, unless you’re one of those pretentious sorries who crams your bookshelf with haughty, half-read literature to help you look like an intellectual.  (If such is the case, you’re surely not wasting time on this blog.)  In fact, the best thing about reading is that you get to pick whatever you want to read.  Every time.  No one can make you read anything you don’t want to.  You are in complete control.  How many things can you say that about?  I can say it about exactly one.

I do love to read.  But as long as we’re being honest, I have to confess that I don’t do it as much or as often as this swoony post may suggest.  I am a busy wife and mother, and I make way too much love to my To-Do list every day.  I am also a rather slow reader, and don’t fly through books like some of my friends do.  But I’m always reading something, and I’m usually just in love with whatever I’m reading.  (I have no problem quitting a book if I don’t love it.)  And I do think that one of the reasons I’m slow, besides just not being terribly bright, is that I make friends with the characters in the book and settle in as I get to know them.  I savor my time with each one and remember our conversations long after they’re gone.  Painfully nerdy, I know.  But true.

The problem is:  Life keeps finding other things for me to do besides read.

Do you have this problem?

When do you read?  What do you read?  What are you reading right now?  I’m almost done with a book called These Is My Words, and it is fabfabfabulous.  It’s fabulousness inspired this post.

What book has inspired you?

Tell me.  And I want to know if your life is full of the same hardships that mine is.  Why aren’t we entitled to sit in bed all day and read?  Who came up with any alternative plan to that?  I need to break my leg or something. Laid-up for six weeks with the Relief Society watching my kids and bringing me dinner?  Sounds like a great way to finally, finally get back to my book.

I was snuggling with Megan tonight as I tucked her in. I’d brought her a quilt fresh from the dryer and she was giddy. “Ooh, I wish I lived in a dryer!” she squealed. I lied down cheek-to-cheek with her and she started waxing philosophical, as Megan often does.

“Mom, why are there so many things in the world? Like violins, and the sky, and why does the earth have to spin–well, I know why, because everywhere needs at least a little bit of sunlight–but, like, why are beds soft, and why aren’t we animals instead of people? I mean, nobody could know everything there is to know.”

I smiled at her with the tender magnanimity that only a mother on the cusp of a Great Teaching Moment can summon.

“Well, there is one person who knows everything. And do you know who that is?”

“Heavenly Father.”

“That’s right. And I think that’s why it took Him so long to create the earth, because there is so, so much to know.”

Megan thought about this for a quiet moment, then let out a soft sigh.

“Well, I’m just glad he didn’t make our underwear metal. Or wood. Wood would be terrible.”