It’s been a weird summer.

Since coming back from Scotland in April, I’ve been returning to the office three days a week. It’s been good, but the office has been very quiet. (Sometimes eerily so.) Plus, my routine changed so much over the pandemic. It’s been interesting to step outside the habits I formed working from home for a few years and realigning myself to working outside of my home office. Re-engaging with a post-pandemic world would have been weird enough, but a lot more has happened.

In July, for Kari-Lise and my anniversary, I somehow convinced her to climb Mailbox Peak in the Cascades. It was a great hike, but I badly rolled my right ankle on the way down. Still six miles from the trailhead and way too big for Kari-Lise to carry, I had to hobble back. (Thank God for my walking stick.) Adrenaline kicked in about three miles later, and I thought I was doing well, and my sprain was mild. But when I got home and took off my shoes, my ankle swelled up to the size of a large grapefruit and turned black and blue. So, yeah. Not mild.

The following week, both Kari-Lise and I came down with COVID. We’re still not quite sure where we got it. She was hit a little harder than me, but our cases were mild overall. I would have thought it was minor allergies if I hadn’t tested. So we sequestered ourselves at home, watched trash television, and waited until we tested negative. Thankfully neither of us has had any lingering effects.

We were over COVID in a week. But it took nearly a month for my ankle to recover. I wasn’t moving much for the first two weeks and returned to working from home since walking (and therefore commuting) was painful. July was a wash workout-wise. I didn’t get back to my daily walks until August. But I slowly recovered, and I’m happy to report that I am fully back into my workout routine and down a few more pounds.

Writing in the summer has never been the easiest for me. Seattle only gets three solid months of sunny weather, and it’s not uncommon for Seattlites to go a little manic and fill up our social calendars. It makes finding the time to write a little more complicated. With the changes that summer brings and my return to the office, I’ve found my writing time shaken up a bit. Lately been trying to force myself to at least try and write, even if I don’t feel like it—kind of how I made my workouts a habit. It’s been good to adjust to that mindset, and I think it’s working. Words have been appearing on pages. It’s not a lot, but it’s momentum. Finally.

With autumn on the way and life returning to routine, I hope to get back to blogging. I’ve been quiet for the last year, and I’ve missed posting here. I always found this space freeing and less oppressive than the obnoxiousness that propagates social media. There’s less pressure to comment on every little dumb topic du jour, and I can ramble on the stuff that matters to me, like my weird summer.

So expect more from me going forward. Buy my books. Let me know what you think of them. Tell your friends, and be sure to check out my Reader Resources. Some fun stuff is happening there, with more to come.