Are things back to normal yet?

So I took March off. Aaaannnd April. Seriously, every time I looked at my laptop with the thought of blogging, I felt like this

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A passing comment in email from my friend Keith made me ponder though, are things back to normal yet?

I think I got a little burnt out during the earthquake aftermath. There was a couple weeks where I was glued to the computer, trying to contact missing relatives for people who contacted me through this site, monitoring new developments on the Expats forum, etc. We also had no water for a week and so had to go fill up buckets and bottles daily, from a portable cistern that the municipality set up for our town.

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We only had to deal with that for seven days and it drove us nuts. I can't even begin to comprehend what people must feel like who are still suffering through lack of water, on top of still living in tents, unsure of when they will have a home and if it will happen before the winter rains arrive. It's so easy to forget that people are still suffering once your own life goes back to normal. When you think about it, it leaves you feeling helpless. After it all died down a bit, I just needed a break from my computer.

Not to mention that E got sick, and then I got sick because as you know, the only true way to get rid of a cold is to infect someone else. I don't subscribe to scientific theory. I know the truth. So E got me sick and I had no one to sneeze on besides the dogs. Apparently you need humans. So there was a week or so of recovery involved. I'm extremely pathetic when sick. There is moaning, whining and some drooling involved. Am sure there was another week of recovery in there for E, from dealing with me.

When I looked at my computer and remembered I hadn't blogged for a while, I just stared at it. Then I used it to watch the first two seasons of True Blood off a site that streams it illegally. Yay! for me. Maybe not so much for the corporate, money hungry types at HBO, but Yay for me none the less. Then I reorganized my iTunes library. I have close to 30 gb of music, so it took a while. In fact it's a work in progress. I take breaks from it and switch to organizing my iPhoto library. After living on 4 different continents and myriad cities, the only thing I have more than music is photos. Then I decided to move both libraries off my overburdened laptop. Soon they will completely live on external drives and my computer will once again have room for me to download even more crap incessantly.

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I could have blogged after that but since fall has arrived here in the Southern Cone, the nights have become cooler and we remembered that our little cottage is a testimony to shoddy Chilean construction, drafty as hell with no insulation to speak of. So I got busy around the house, weatherstripping and insulating the areas that needed it. Mostly windows and doors. And since I was on a roll, I decided to paint the kitchen, living room and our bedroom, build some furniture and shelves, redecorate and renovate. I can be lazier than a cat when I want to be, but I'm also OCD enough that when I start channeling Martha Stewart, I plan projects and plod along until I've completed my vision. And of course, home renovations require brain food, so there has also been alot of baking. I have a cupcake fetish and am constantly hunting for the perfect icing & cupcake combo. I'm not sure if I've found it yet, but I am dedicated to searching for it and will undoubtedly go through numerous cupcakes until then.

I know what you're thinking, how am I not the poster girl for Diabetes? Well, to be fair, I have E to help me eat the aforementioned cupcakes. I also give them away. The neighbors get a kick out of trying non-Chilean treats, I still get my cupcake fix but my blood sugar levels and more importantly, the size of my ass, do not hit those danger levels that should be feared ;)

Anyhow, I'm back. So to the two people who actually read this (Dana, Leon), sorry I have not been entertaining you lately. I was busy doing nothing and everything. And eating cupcakes.

Long live cupcakes.