Back to this other life

I haven't posted in exactly 2 and a half years. This was the time when I was employed by a humanitarian organisation here in Sudan and we were actively discouraged from posting opinions on a public website. Last summer my sister-in-law in Canada commented on how happy we all seem to be based on facebook updates. Well, this is what we DO put on facebook, right?

But now I am back and I won't even attempt to sum up what happened during this hiatus. I will just jump in where I am and we'll take it from here.

This morning I fiddled quite a long time with the layout. Not because I wanted it to be so sophisticated but simply because I totally forgot how to do what... So the simplest setting took about half an hour to find and another half an hour to apply.

Finding the right background was the major issue. I totally loved that raindrop background with the mountain behind it. I kept trying to change it, thinking that the layout should at least have some kind of link to the content. But I just loved it... In the end common sense prevailed and I used the scorched earth picture. Still not great, but getting there. You'll note that I did keep the orange font, vaguely recalling the colour of sand. I promise I will work on getting something a bit more suitable here in the coming weeks. Something with sunshine and sand and rocks and pyramids. Once I figure out how to reduce the size of a picture but not its dimensions.

This is day 2 of me being a "lady of leisure" as my husband keeps pointing it out. I still have a hard time getting used again to this life of no structure. I procrastinate and end up getting nothing done but taking up the whole day. I am sure some people here can relate... But I have some great ideas and plans and now it is just about getting my act together and start working on them.

Re-starting this blog is already progress. Many things happened that I wish I had been able to write down. I have never been great at journaling but (supposedly) I am relatively good at communicating, so I guess it just all boils down to some kind of discipline. I often think "man, this should be written down", so I am sure I will not run out of stories.

This will be loads of fun, just hang in there.