Photo of the week: the where have you been? edition

Hi, gang.

It's been a minute.

It's been a hell of a spring on the homestead. I started a new business which is eating me alive. I have people that actually rely on me to make their businesses work. Can I describe how terrifying that is, as a concept? My bees died in the last cold snap, about six weeks ago, and the bee box now sits silent and empty. My incipient trip to Brazil was canceled, smothered in the cradle by lack of funds (see starting a new business, above). And in a rank miscarriage of justice, the county code inspector came and gave us a citation for having chickens, and we had to give them away. No more fresh eggs, but more importantly no self-important chickies amusing me as they strut and fluster through the garden, scratching and pouncing.

It's enough to make a girl tired.

But! things are looking up. The wintry spring we've been having has finally turned into a gentle early summer, with lots of rain for the garden, which I got in by fits and starts in April. My tomatoes are growing like weeds. My boyfriend got me a library card, so I can stop draining my bank account at Amazon. And best of all, I found a beekeeper who will sell me new bees (it's late in the season, hence the difficulty) so I will have a functioning beehive once again. Oh, and Delta gave me my frequent flyer miles back. For a small fee.

I was sitting with one of my clients for the new business the other day, and showing him the list of tasks I had assigned myself to do weekly for him. "I won't get to everything every week" I said, "but if we use this as a guideline, then we continue to lurch forward. It's all about progress."

And this morning I thought, while I was searching for a theme to this post, if that's not a metaphor for life, I don't know what is. Whether you are reinventing yourself, or writing a novel, or planting a garden, or raising a child, or, I don't know, carving the Mona Lisa out of yak butter, it's all about progress. Keep on keepin' on, as they say. And somehow, in fits and starts, you make progress. Stumble some, run some, but stretch towards the light.

Reeeeeeach......