Astute viewers among you will have noticed that this site was reduced to a static page for a few months. Truth be told, I hadn't been inspired to write anything for quite some time and I'd been having second thoughts about whether I wanted to keep going with it at all. But now I've had second thoughts about my second thoughts so I'm opening the doors of my mind once again.

To quote Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."

I just got this notification on my phone:

Damn straight, Woot.  Damn straight.

Nope. I'm not dead. Not yet, anyway. When I posted my last entry back in January, I decided to just chill and take a break for a while so I could focus on some aspects of my life that I've been neglecting. This was intentional and in accordance with the discipline that I wrote about in that post. I needed to spend some time examining my life, my motivations, my desires for the future, and, more importantly, how all of those (and more) align with God's will.

It's amazing, though, how easily days turn into weeks which turn into months until [……]

Discipline teaches us to operate by principle rather than desire.
Saying no to our impulses (even the ones that are not inherently sinful)
puts us in control of our appetites rather than vice versa. It deposes
our lust and permits truth, virtue, and integrity to rule our minds instead.
John F. MacArthur Jr.

Since I first heard about it, I've always liked the idea of choosing a specific word to help define and focus your thoughts and actions for the year. I've not, however, actually done so. Until now. For so long, my focus — my purpose — was my family. [……]

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
Woody Allen

I haven't felt like writing anything for a while. This is mainly because I haven't felt like myself lately. For about a month now I've just been going through the motions in my daily life mostly because I simply haven't had any energy at all. There have been days where I've actually fallen asleep at my desk for a few moments and have to get up and walk around for a bit to clear my head. This has affected others to a small degree since, after surviving [……]

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.
— John Stuart Mill

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.
— Edith Wharton

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
— Blaise Pascal

Sometimes you have to give up what you want in order to get what you need. [Ed. note — Gee, I guess I could have used a Rolling Stones quote for this one, huh? But that would have been pretty low hanging fruit and lately, I've been expecting a little better of myself. ;-) ] Anyhoo, what [……]

The only source of knowledge is experience.
Albert Einstein

La La, How the life goes on
John Lennon & Paul McCartney

You know, I'm gonna stop apologizing for taking so long between posts. Apparently, I'm immune to my own shaming so it's kinda pointless. Suffice it to say, however, that this time it was due to some technical difficulties and leave it at that. (That said, I really do want to post more frequently.)

This one's just going to be a quick life update but, during the aforementioned delay, I've been formulating my thoughts for a meatier (meteor?) post which will happen soon. [……]

I might as well go up and talk to a wall
'cause all the words are having no effect at all.
It's a funny thing. Am I all alone?
What are words for when no one listens anymore?
Missing Persons — "Words"

I was never a big Missing Persons fan back in the day but I didn't dislike them either. Their videos would show up on MTV now and then and they were generally part of the background din that was so much a part of the early 80s. (For any younger people who read this, MTV used to stand for [……]

In 1998, I started a blog, something I could control very easily and update at my own whim.
Jami Attenberg

Hello, gentle readers. I know, I know. It's been too long. I've actually had a post brewing in my brain for a few weeks now and I've started writing it three times but I always seem to get distracted or veer off track of where I wanted to go with it. I'll get it done soon but, in the meantime, here are some general life updates.

• The health is pretty good. My only issues right now have nothing to do with the

Clutter is not just physical stuff. It's old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits.
Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.
Eleanor Brown

People lose their way when they lose their why.
Michael Hyatt — "Living Forward"

True confessions time. I'm an inherently disorganized person. Along with my tendency toward procrastination, it's one of the main things I don't like that about myself. Add that to being a bit of a pack-rat and, well, stuff starts to build up and quickly becomes that horrid thing that is the bane of all you organized types out there — clutter.

And since [……]