Instead of using my New Year’s resolution to flagellate myself (and yes, I still need to get organized, be happier, eat more vegetables and drive with more courtesy), I am going to keep it simple: write.

Recently, for the first time in maybe 15 years, I rediscovered the joy of writing. Which is not to say I haven’t written in 15 years — I (sort of) write for a living. But I hadn’t plunged into a writing project this way. I wrote with the abandon and enthusiasm that I did when I was a kid banging out really bad novellas on an Apple IIc, being told by my mom to GO TO BED. I had fun. More of that in 2012.

Now that I have confessed, gentle readers, all 11 of you, whose support I need…pretend I merely made a resolution to exercise (which I did — exercising the creative muscle). In advance I will tell you:

No, I am not writing for any reason other than my own pleasure.
No, it will not be published anywhere.
No, it is not about you.
No, you cannot read it.

Like you would an exercise program, help me with your enthusiasm for my efforts, with no expectation of evidence of my results?

We had a lovely break filled with family and friends and fattening food. Really, we did. And not to dismiss the cheer and gratitude, which we had a lot of, we also had 15 days of togetherness, with alternately too much and too little activity. We were about ready to kill each other yesterday.

So I was thrilled to send Lucy off to school. I was less than thrilled when she walked back in the door 15 minutes later: SCHOOL DID NOT START UNTIL TODAY. Leaving us with another day to occupy her very busy brain, which we were able to do with Honour’s help. Milo, mercifully, did have school, but when Lu and I picked him up, he was worn out from the re-entry to his normal routine.

I took them both to the Gap (mistake — my apologies to the people trying to buy cheap sweaters in peace), then to Central Market, where Milo gave me a big wet raspberry and smacked my forehead, earning a timeout in the pasta aisle (apologies to those people as well). Lucy’s real shenanigans didn’t start until we got home, when she and Jason fought over whether she should clean her room or watch a movie on the iPad. She “ran away” (to the backyard), leaving this note:

They’re both at school today. With the professionals. Where they belong.