It’s more than a few days since my last real posts (beyond travel pix). Understandably, I had very mixed feelings about the trip. But as the Southern California sojourn progressed I gained more and more a sense of closure and purpose, such that I was ready to get back to Florida by trip’s end. A couple trip “highlights”:

• Reconnecting with so many relatives & friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in decades,
• In honor of my late sister, watching a movie with family followed by a couple pitchers of beer and conversation like we used to,
• SoCal specific foods: Don Ruben’s breakfast burrito, Jamba Juice & many trips to In-n-Out Burger (yum),
• Getting a chance to spend time with several very close friends who have stood by me through many a travail,
• Spending several days with mum and getting a chance to record a video with her talking about family photos and stories.

Part of the “coming back” process has been working through prioritizing the things that are important to me. Writing, photography, music, teaching, work, getting healthy, oh yeah and the social life… Where does one begin? My previous MO was to try to do it all, all at once. Thinking about it now, I have to admit that going at things that way always led to me eventually doing the opposite of doing it all, all at once: doing only one or two things with no consistency and definitely no sense of satisfaction. So I guess I’m going to be more realistic pacing myself so that I can actually enjoy myself instead of running to exhaustion. I don’t know how this will directly effect my blog, but I do know that I want to write much more substantial articles instead of posting “something” because I haven’t posted over the past five-days. This is obviously a work in progress… Onward and upward.