Back Home (for a Little While, Anyway) and Back to Blogging

Sorry about the dearth of blog posts lately!  I lugged my very heavy laptop along on my recent trip (from Boston to Tampa, Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Lauderdale to Tampa, and Tampa back to Boston), but for most of the seven days I was away from home, I was unable to get any Internet access.  Forget blogging; I couldn't even check my e-mails on it.  I don't know why I keep bringing it along with me, making my life on the road (particularly at airport security check points) so much more difficult.  But now that I'm a blogger, this laptop and I are pretty much joined at the hip.

Before I go any further, please forget the blog post I wrote at the hotel in Ft. Lauderdale on January 6.  You know, the one predicting--very boldly and confidently--that Notre Dame would beat Alabama for the national championship title the next day.  Erase it from your memory bank.  I was wrong, and that's all I'm going to say about the game...except that after the first quarter, when ND was trailing 21-0 already, my husband and I were sort of glad we hadn't been able to find any available tickets to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on, and instead had to watch the game on a mid-size flat-screen TV set up at a tailgater next to ours in the stadium parking lot.  The game was a disaster.  But hey, the Irish gave us a lot to be happy about all season--and for that alone, we should be grateful.  And ND making it to the BCS bowl game at Sun Life Stadium gave my husband and his seven siblings a perfect excuse to get together for a fantastic family reunion in sunny Florida.  And we had the most amazing tailgater you've ever seen, located right next to the stadium--I mean, we literally were parked as close as you could be.  As one of my brothers-in-law put it, January 7 "was a perfect day...until kick-off."  So the bottom line is that a good time was had by all (except during the game itself)--and my husband and I are really glad we made the trip down there with our youngest son.

In two or three days, our baby boy will go back to ND for the spring semester and my husband and I will board a plane again--this time headed out to CO to stay for a week or so with our daughter-in-law and the twins while our oldest son has to be away doing Army things.  So in two or three days, I'll be packing up the old laptop once again, and hopefully I won't be too busy doing Grammy things out west to get a few blog posts up.  Since I'm home for such a short time, and most of my time in the next couple of days will be spent preparing for my next trip (unpacking, doing laundry, repacking, etc.), I may not be the best blogger.  But there are so many good ones out there to follow, and today I'm going to "introduce" you to a Catholic blogger I've "met" in my cyber-travels recently.  Her name is M.R. Zapp and she did a review of Finding Grace today on her "Regency Catholic" blog, if you're interested in checking it out.  It is a no-holds-barred, very honest critique, and ultimately a sweet endorsement for my book (warts and all).

Hey, I missed you guys.  Did you miss me?  It's good to be back in the blogosphere!