Not This Time

            I must sadly say that I will not be participating in the A to Z Challenge this year.  :(
I put a lot of thought into this decision and I even started working on some posts, but I realized that I do not have the time for it this year. Any of my regular followers would know that I have been struggling with keeping things balanced the last few months, and since I’m still trying to manage my schedule, I know that I will not have the energy to keep up with daily blog visits and comments during the challenge.

Speaking of time and balance, my presence has not been felt in the blogging force very often lately and for this I apologize. There have been some things that have come up in the foreground of my life, both good and bad, that have taken precedence over blogging. Most of February and on into March, sicknesses have plagued my local area. The pharmacy has been bustling with endless cold and flu patients, schools canceled classes in February due to the flu, my church has had some low attendance days, and both of my parents have suffered from some congestion issues. I blame the weather. It has constantly gone up and down in temperature. On more than one occasion, yesterday's low was tomorrow's high. This instability has plagued my sinuses and I'm sure it has caused these adverse effects in others as well. Come to think of it, maybe the weather is part of the reason for my fatigue and exhaustion these past couple months. Although, I think the strain of extra patients at work has been the primary reason. I have been drained of mental reasoning and motivational energy most days. In fact, I fell asleep at 10:30 a high number of nights for this night owl, and when you get home from work around 7:30 some days, that doesn't leave much room for anything else besides dinner, de-stressing, and getting ready for bed. 

But it hasn't been all illness, fatigue, and canceled challenge plans. I am in the process of finally finishing up some courses and tutorials over a new writing-related project I decided to try out months ago. I still have some kinks to work out, but once I get it going I will be happy to share it with you. For now, it shall remain a secret! I also hope to work on getting more blog posts written in advance since I’ll have more time than I initially expected next month. Sometime this week, I will make some visits to see what themes my blogging friends are doing, and I still plan to follow some during the challenge.

Are you participating in A to Z this year? If so, I might go visit your theme reveal and I hope you have fun!