coming home

It was a crazy week between recovering from BlogHer and getting ready for our Colorado Road Trip and squeezing in everything that needed to happen in between.

But we finally made it out the door. I thought I might be able to blog from the road, but time and wifi access turned out to be too scarce.

I did manage to journal about each day on my paper bag scrapbook, which I’m excited to tell you more about. In fact, I have lots to tell you about, so I’ll be mixing it up and sprinkling posts from our Colorado Road Trip (which I’ll tag Colorado Road Trip 2013) in with other ones that have been rolling around in my head.

For now, here’s the overview of our trip: We drove from Phoenix to Santa Fe the first day. The next morning, we did a little sightseeing before heading north to the Denver area. We stayed with my aunt and uncle in the Rockies for a few days, taking in mountain views, and catching up with family. On the other side of Denver, we spent a couple days visiting friends in Aurora and saw downtown Denver and the Botanic Gardens. Our route home took us through the mountains, detouring through Crested Butte, where Phillip had spent a summer in college, and stopping over near Ouray.

I wish I could have spent more time with everyone we saw. But I’m glad we went, even for a short time. And it was good to come home. (Wish I could’ve brought the people and weather back with me though.)

This time, I had my suitcase unpacked within 24 hours. Are you impressed? If not, you should probably go read my Unpacking post. That’s a new record for me!

And when I stood in my kitchen pouring hot water for morning tea into our new souvenir mug, I felt like everything had come around.

I am back home and back to some sort of routine. I am listening to the news and heating water on the stove for morning cups of herbal tea while I pour cereal into a bowl. There is still a suitcase in the corner of my bedroom that clothing and swag and all these ziploc bags I used for packing are slowly seeping out of.

I have a bad habit of taking a long time to unpack. Sometimes a really long time. I promised Phillip I wouldn’t take so long this time, and then I remembered I couldn’t. I’ll be repacking that suitcase soon for our Colorado trip.

But it is taking longer than I thought for everything I brought back from the conference to find its place here at home. It will. For now, I’m still figuring out where it all goes. I’ll find a way to make it work and get ready for my next trip.

Even though it’s causing a bit of a time crunch, I’m so glad I went to the conference. It gave me exactly the answers I was looking for.

The night before I bought my last-minute ticket from my friend Mona, when I was still considering whether to say yes, I wrote a note for Phillip. He was already asleep, and I wanted to talk it all over with him. I knew I couldn’t count on my night-owl self to have a single coherent thought in the morning, so I wrote it all down.

Maybe instead of waiting to figure out what I’m doing, I should see if this blog to book thing could work for me.

So I went. I took a lot of notes (and a few photos), met a lot of wonderful people, listened.

I came back with answers, including another big yes.

Instead of thinking that I maybe want to write a book, I now plan to write a book. Maybe a series. (Yikes.) I have other ideas for this blog and for writing and traveling and crafting too.

I’m still trying to figure out where exactly this fits with the rest of my life. I know I’ll find a place for it all. I’ll find a way to make it work and get ready for what’s next.

Tag: coming home

Colorado and back again

Unpacking from BlogHer