And what a break it has been!  About a year ago I took a look at this blog and thought just how absurd it was that I had left off at the place in the story where I was pregnant and miserably huge, and thought that someone might think that something dreadful had happened to me or to Noah, when in reality I just popped into Noah's room for a bit of a blankie reapplication and a hug as he naps away a yucky cold.

When labor hit, a couple weeks early I was going into motherhood thinking that I had it all figured out, especially as someone who had worked in childcare, who had been a nanny and teacher, I thought that I was ready for the challenges and emotions that would arise.  However, as I stared at my newborn little son, I was stuck with how profoundly beautiful the sight of him was that mere words couldn't describe what I was feeling.  That and a case of the "baby blues" dropped me into a writer's block that took  me quite a while to come out of.

For once in my life, I simply didn't have the words.

Which threw me for a loop. Would I ever be able to write again?  Could I possibly have the time, focus and extra me, beyond my all-consuming "Mommy-ness" to let my creative self free again?  Or was that being sucked from my body along with the milk and energy my little Marathon-nurser so readily consumed?

Only recently have I been able to think about delving into creativity once again, and quite honestly I have been focusing on the visual part of communication that I love so dearly, and have been having some small success with my portrait and product photography, which is something that I have always done as a component to my writing, especially in journalism, but only in the past year has it really been my focus.

I can't say that I will post as often, or with as much enthusiastic abundance as I did before.  In fact, as I re-read some of the thoughts of that former Carrie- BN (Before Noah) it sounds so foreign to me.  The me that is here now is a woman with a better sense of who she is, and of her own limitations.  My marriage has matured, my sense of self has matured, and Noah has matured to a wonderful and energetic toddler of 19 months.  I'm excited to write more of our adventures out here in the frigid North Country and to give y'all a bit more of an idea of what is going on with us than a status on facebook can give, and to show you, friends and family a bit more of our life.

Stay tuned!