I am sitting in my kitchen writing this script by the glow of my Christmas tree. The last time you heard from me it was warm and sunny. And Christmas was the furthest thing from my mind.

The last episode of this show was in August when the power company unknowingly disconnected my power instead of my neighbour’s power.

And while I had every intention of resuming the show once my electricity resumed, that — obviously — didn’t happen.

#Because2020.

I live in a college town, and I work in a restaurant. You can probably imagine the chaos my life devolved into at the beginning of the autumn semester in August.

While this is a college town, there aren’t very many people who live here year round. And once the colleges kicked everybody out in the spring because of the pandemic, things were actually going quite well here.

In fact, until the beginning of August, we didn’t have any COVID cases here in town.

But the universities — in their infinite wisdom and against the many objections of us locals — brought the college kids back.

And, not surprisingly, COVID has gone wild.

Because, and this may come as a shock to you, most college kids don’t give a fuck about other people.

The local government here banned parties, and both the colleges said they would expel students for partying. And yet…the students partied anyway.

For these last several months, I have been overwhelmed, exhausted, and frankly pissed off. I’ve been working full-time in a restaurant dealing with these college kids (who are spreading COVID and not tipping), and when I’m done working, I’ve been coming home…and doing pretty much nothing.

I have been so energetically drained that it’s all I can do to keep the house moderately tidy. Not even really tidy…just moderately.

I went for almost four full months without turning on my computer even once.

Every now and then I would get a pang of guilt because I wasn’t doing something I needed to be doing; I wasn’t showing up for the people online who were expecting me to show up.

But in the great scheme of things, whether or not I am podcasting or writing is really of little consequence, and I know everybody else in the world has a lot of craziness going on, too. I’m sure most of you didn’t even really notice I was gone.

So, that’s where I’ve been. That’s why I haven’t been podcasting. But, as we roll into 2021 — or should I say stumble into 2021 — life is falling back into place, and I am getting back into a regimented schedule.

My plan for the first 8 months of 2021 is to work my ass off and make as much money as I can. Starting in August 2021, I’ll be going back to college to finish my Bachelors in Cyber Security. I am halfway done!

So until then, I’m going to be working two part-time jobs (one serving at the restaurant where I currently work, and I got another job as a bartender) while I also work online. In order to pull this off, I need a regimented schedule.

One of my flaws is I buck against a regimented schedule. I need it, but I don’t enjoy creating it. I used to be much more regimented before I got married.

Unfortunately, my husband is not exactly a structure loving person. He goes to bed and wakes up when he feels like it. He doesn’t like to eat at the same time every day, and so on, and so forth.

I, being the flawed mortal that I am, tend to put him ahead of me, and as a result I haven’t done the things I need to make sure I am regimented.

…for about 8 years now.

•••

My aim is to move from being a sporadic podcaster to a regular podcaster, and to do so within the next six weeks. I hope to release new episodes on Wednesdays because, well, #WisdomWednesdays is a thing.

I have a lot of teachings to share with you, and I so hope you’ll forgive my absence and continue to tune in.

Til next time,