I may have previously written that I don’t like excuses. I don’t like receiving them, because when given it usually means the giver wants me to be understanding about something they promised to do, but found they could not. While I am an understanding person, my patience does wear thin at times when it seems the same person is making excuses over and over again, and sometimes they lack so much in creativity, I have to believe them. Thus, patiently understand.

Ah, but I am even less forgiving of myself, when I find a long list of excuses preventing me from doing something I promised to do. I can’t help but wonder if there are those out there who are growing impatient with me.

That is the case with my articles for Bella Online. I honestly love writing for Bella. In particular, articles about various types of relationships. My thoughts are that “No man (or woman) is an island,” therefore we must learn to live with others. In doing that we create relationships. Some of them good. Others needing lots of work.

However, last year when my father passed away, I started having serious bouts of writers block. I was furious with myself for this, but only after recently entering a grief counseling group have I learned to be a little more patient and understanding with myself. What I was experiencing was normal.

As the year passed things got even more hectic as we prepared our home to sell. Has anyone heard it’s a buyer’s market? Not in our case, though, we’ve hardly had a nibble much less a buyer. We are frustrated and very concerned. Add one more excuse to my list.

Meanwhile we had decided to have work done to the house we were planning to buy. Since it’s the home I grew up in, the one my father built, I was excited and found myself coming back to life. Unfortunately, our contractor hit a few glitches. Expensive glitches. More worries.

As a Christian I’m not supposed to worry. I’m supposed to place things in God’s hands and trust that everything will work out according to His will. Okay, that is easier said than done. I’ve had to struggle to be at peace with His will even when it is counter to my own. I wanted our old house sold yesterday! Funny thing though, when our contractor did not have the work completed on our new home as scheduled, I was grateful we had a roof over our heads – even if it was the roof of our old house.

I longed to work on my computer. To get some articles written for my readers here at Bella Online. Not to mention my other newsletter from my own web site. But that was not to be. My computer was packed and had been moved to the new home on the date we were supposed to be living there. It took a little over a month for me to get back to my desk where I planned to begin writing.

Each time I turned on my computer I started hearing boxes calling, “Unpack me! Unpack me!”. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, of course – okay, it’s a lie. But I did feel guilty for wanting to forget unpacking in lieu of writing. Unpacking won that battle. Guilt always seems to win over desire.

All during this time I’d been suffering ongoing sinus problems and feeling worse and worse. Finally an ENT doctor said it wasn’t my sinuses, but some other nasal problem. He suggested surgery would fix me right up. I jumped at that. I was tired of suffering and having too many sleepless nights.

So it was, pain and exhaustion even won out over guilt. So here I sit finally doing what I’ve been wanting to do, writing. Also doing what I don’t want to do, making excuses for not writing. Is that some kind of oxymoron or something?

There are still boxes to unpack, and still issues to resolve like selling a house. But I know that everything will eventually get done. Not in my time frame though, but done.

So I ask you please be patient with me as I try to return to normal. I won’t make you a promise of two articles a week, one article a week, or even two a month. That way I won’t have to make any excuses if I don’t live up to it. I will promise, however, to do my best to get my life organized and back into a writing routine. And a large part of that is writing for you.

By the way, while I was out of touch, I have had some good news. Some of my novels are now available at Amazon.com. If you are interested, you can take a look below: