Jenna over at Call Her Happy hit it out of the park when she came up with the monthly link-up tl;dr (as in “too long; didn’t read”). She explains:

You know how sometimes you have blogs that you love and blog authors that you love even more, but you also have a family and laundry and meals to cook and etcetera and so forth? So, you end up missing out on parts of your favorite virtual friends’ lives – not by choice, but just by life?

And then you feel terrible when you find out that she is pregnant or going back to work or moving, and you had no idea. Wouldn’t it be nice if bloggers put out a cliff notes version of their lives every once in a while? I thought so.

Yes, yes and yes. I have nearly 500 posts in my Bloglovin reader and I can’t delete them all because the last time I did that I missed major pieces of news from blogging friends. This way, when life is busy and we can’t catchup, we can get a monthly condensed version of the happenings. So if you are a blogger, go link up. For the sake of my overflowing blog reader, please.

If you haven’t been around to catch up on the RoL news, here’s my condensed version for the month of May.

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May 1, 2014 – We returned from a trip to So Cal to visit my family and celebrate my bro’s graduation, my bro-in-laws departure for training before deploying to Afghanistan and we went to Disneyland. Matthew saw Darth Maul in action and has been obsessed with his Jedi jumping moves ever since. Every night he asked me when we are going back to see the Star Wars show and every night I have to tell him not until Thanksgiving. 😉

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May 4, 2014 – Brian and I go out on a last minute lunch date. He still manages to make me swoon.

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May 5, 2014 – Brian starts round 3 of chemo, I share a little of my struggle here and later how I try to be a bit of Mary Poppins to make this cross easier on him.

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May 12, 2014 – I celebrate Mother’s Day and cry over Brian’s love letter to me and the kids’ homemade gifts. I wonder how I could be so blessed.

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May 15, 2014 – It is a day of saying goodbye and hello. Andrew’s pet fish Rocky passes away. He got a new fish (that looks just like him…Rocky, not Andrew) and names him Anakin Fishwalker. Best name ever. Meanwhile, we put our old computer out of it’s misery and get a new one. The screen is so big I can play Matthew’s Spider Man cartoon on one half and type my post on the other half. Yeah, baby.

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May 16 – I join Jen’s #SOTG photo contest and although I don’t win, Jen does post my photo of Super Matthew on her website as one of her favorites. I geek out a little. 😉

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May 22, 2014 – My shy Bella surprises me by trying out for the school musical, gets a part and does a great job as one of the Indians in Peter Pan. Bravo, Bella!

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May 26, 2014 – I get rid of my fancy Pinterest menu board and opt for a simpler version.

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May 26, 2014 – I get dolled up (relatively speaking) for my second date with Brian in one month. Two in one month! I’ll say one thing for this cancer, it has brought us closer and has made dating a priority again.

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May 27, 2014 – Brian starts round 4 of chemo and fights his cancer like a champ.

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 May 29, 2014 –  I stop comparing myself to other moms, particularly my sister, and instead I embrace my own mama abilities.

Well, that was May in a nutshell. What have you been up to?? Thanks again to Fräulein Jenna for hosting!

Have a great evening. 🙂

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoodReads, Letterboxd or Instagram (It’s set to private but I’ll approve you.) 😉

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