Yes, I’m still determined on the hiatus, but I just wanted to post a big THANK YOU for all the words of support and encouragement.

Also, I wanted to say a big thanks to reader Barbara!  I would answer your email directly but the email address didn’t come through.  But in case you happen to check the blog, thank you so much for your kind words on Blame It on Paris.

Merci à tout le monde, en fait!  Thank you and enjoy your spring and summer!

It is now that I say in this imitation of the totally ghastly French dubbing of Terminator I once had the misfortune to be forced to watch:  J’y retournerai.  (You’d have to hear the thread-thin whisper voice used for that French Terminator dubbing to appreciate why I’m over hear laughing my head off, really.)

So…I have been thinking about this for a while, and so the whole hack problem is the last straw rather than the cause. I think I am going to have to put this blog on hiatus for a while.

I am on a simplification kick. I am Decluttering. I am donating to Goodwill. I may even empty my attic of boxes of books I have been clinging to for 15 years. (I may. This is a very hard step, to give up books you once loved and don’t need anymore. It’s like giving up someone you once were and still like. I only did it once before–all my Trixie Belden books when I hit that “I’m an adult” teenage stage–and I always regretted it and wish like anything I had those Trixie Belden books back. So I tend to cling to books.)

But whether books stay in my attic or not, I would like to focus on a few things–writing, family, work, cooking, lazy fun times with friends–and so I am having to choose some things to stop.

Most tellingly, I did a journal exercise not too long ago using Kinder’s three questions, the second of which is: You go to the doctor, who discovers you have a rare illness. He says that you’re going to feel perfectly fine for the next five years, but then the illness will prove fatal. It will come suddenly, causing no suffering. The question is, Now that you know that your life will be over by then, how will you live it? What will you do?

And one of the things I wrote was: I would spend no time at my computer at all, except to write, and I might even start writing by hand. (Now this might not be realistic–how am I supposed to find out the WEATHER without a computer, for one thing? Watch TV? Look outside? That’s just crazy talking. Also, I wrote that I would grow a garden, so I decided to go start a garden right away, and OF COURSE where was I supposed to find out what to plant if I didn’t use the Internet?)

But…you know what I mean, I bet. There’s a line between resource and Computer=Life, and it’s not really a fine line, it’s just hard to stay on the right side of it. Internets are tempting creatures.

It may be that the hiatus doesn’t last very long and I get drawn back in very quickly, but right now my plan is to stick to it through August. This means I won’t be visiting your blogs much either! I will miss you, this is what I will miss the most.

But it is doing me a world of good to use that last little half hour of the evening to curl up in bed with (currently) Neruda’s Cien Sonetos de Amor (100 Love Sonnets–I highly, highly, highly recommend these, by the way, if you haven’t tried them. Tapscott’s translation is very good, too.) It’s hard to turn off the computer and make that shift, but I’m always glad I did. Simplifying experiences and deepening those, and maybe rediscovering a bit what it was like to live my life ten years ago when I didn’t have internet! That’s my track right now…we’ll see how it goes!

So this is au revoir (not adieu!)…THANK YOU for all your support the past year and a half, for giving me the chance to get to know you, and for humoring my obsessions. :)  And keep up the Chocolate War!!! Know that I will be fighting hard in the trenches, never surrendering, not even when faced with a dearth of Easter clearance candy.

Okay, what is the deal with the Easter candy?

Not having a child old enough to understand the whole Easter basket full of candy concept unless someone resolutely explains it to her, I chose to ignore the temptations of pre-Easter candy and directed her to such Easter events as dyeing her hand green as a Martian’s as she tried to dye eggs.

This started whole new familial traditions, such as the fit every time she sees eggs now and I don’t get batches of dye going.

Meanwhile, I promised myself a whole batch of post-Easter candy, once those sales hit.

You all know my principles: I am resolutely against anything but highest quality dark chocolate except after Christmas, Valentine’s, St. Patrick’s (Hershey’s crème de la menthe), Easter, Fourth of July, and Halloween, when all those trashy candies go on sale and I can buy them all up on the premise of making a good chocolate deal and eat my heart out.

You all noticed the problem with that list of holidays, right? THAT’S RIGHT. There’s a very big gap between Easter and Fourth of July, which really isn’t the best candy sale anyway.

So imagine my dismay!!!! Target, Easter Monday, 3:00 p.m. NO EASTER CHOCOLATE. No Easter chocolate in the entire store. The only thing left were some Easter bunny marshmallows, but even I can’t buy bunny marshmallows. I can’t conceive of a purpose for them, which must have been the case of every other person in that Easter candy aisle, because they were the only thing left.

So my question is: What DID it look like Monday morning as all that clearance candy disappeared? Was it a mob scene? Who showed up? Do people take off work for post-Easter candy or are SAHMs that organized? If so, HOW do they get that organized? I can’t even conceive of getting us out the door that fast, not even for chocolate.

THEN….I decided, well…KROGER always has candy much longer than Target. I’ll just stop by and hit their Easter sales.

And….two things…NO SALES, everything was at its full pre-Easter price. And NO CANDY anyway. Only Cadbury eggs were left and Peeps, but Peeps at full price after Easter??

So…I am without trashy candy. Now I have to get through Fourth of July.

But…I don’t understand. How did this happen? What is changing in the rules of post-holiday candy clearances?

Meanwhile, I have to apologize for my long absence. I just popped on to vent my Profound Despair about not having any trashy candy after 2 attempts, but I have a longer and more serious post I am working on. It involves the phrases “going on a hiatus”, so it’s taking more time and more thought.

Happy post-Easter to everyone! I hope your candy clearances were more rewarding than mine.