A few of you from the old days still pop in on occasion to check out this blog, and you might be wondering why I go days or weeks without posting anything. Some of you might think that I haven’t gotten over the Republican primary, or Donald Trump becoming the 45th POTUS. Well, it’s not that. He still makes me nervous, but I’m holding out hope for the time being.

The reason for my extended absences is really simple – I don’t have time. Heck, Donald Trump and the insane reaction to him would certainly provide plenty of blog fodder. It would be fun to make a living throwing in my two cents every time the left freaks out over his every tweet and pronouncement.

The problem is that being a little independent blogger isn’t a good way to pay the bills. For a while I was able to spend a lot of time doing this and the blog did bring in some money. But it was nowhere near what was needed to make up for the increases in our family’s health insurance premiums that skyrocketed after Obamacare took effect. The premiums went up so much that we had to go to a high deductible plan. That plan cost more than the plan we had before that had no deductible. It was kind of horrifying. So I had to shift my priorities.

I’d love to save the world. I’d love to save our republic. But I have to save my family first. So I increased my hours at work so my two boys and I could at least have a decent health plan. Unfortunately, my share of that plan went up this year, and the plan my husband has for himself through his business is going up 20% this year. It’s insane.

So I work a lot more, which leaves me with a lot less time for this blog. To get an idea, take the past two days of my life:

Yesterday morning I packed up my car at about 8:30 AM and drove about 2 1/2 hours to a client’s location. I spent about 2 hours there and drove back home. There was a problem with the card reader at the gas pump at the Thruway rest stop, so I had to detour for to fill up my tank which made the trip last a little Longer. After I got home I checked and responded to some work emails. I threw in a load of laundry and then picked up my 12 year old from Wrestling practice. My 15 year old came with me so he could go in to the gym and say hi to his varsity wrestling team. He wasn’t at practice because he fractured his collarbone last week. We got back home and I made dinner. By the time we ate and cleaned up it was after 7:00 PM. Then I wrote up an invoice for my husband’s company and followed up on some wrestling emails because I’m “team mom.”

This morning I left for my office a little before 8:30 AM. I worked all day and then went straight to our 12 year old’s wrestling tournament. There were 4 or 5 teams there, so it went longer than usual so we didn’t get home until after 7:30 PM. We ate dinner and I threw in another load of laundry. We cleaned up. The kids watched a little TV and I posted a few guest posts here on this blog. It’s now a little after 11:00 PM. I have a cold so I’m still not sure how I found the desire to open up the laptop, but I did, and tomorrow I’ll find out I that the blog made about 30 cents.

That my friends, is why I don’t spend much time on this blog anymore.

Update: I almost forgot to mention that since I stopped spending so much time online that I lost almost 20 pounds. I got a fitbit, and instead of sitting at the computer I get up and walk, or hop on the elliptical. I’ll bet I gained two pounds just writing this post.