{"id":16522,"date":"2026-03-16T13:10:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T18:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/?p=16522"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:10:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T18:10:42","slug":"taking-a-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2026\/03\/16\/taking-a-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a Break"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hi, folks. Let me start by apologizing for the lack of activity here at the Gazette, although I know it’s hardly life-changing for anyone. I’ve been crippled by [Ed. \u2014 melodramatic much?<\/em>] a sort of mental\/psychological malaise, compounded by the daily requirement to deal with the billions of leaves falling from our live oak trees that JUST. WON’T. STOP!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*ahem<\/em>*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d like to blame it on a case of writer’s block, but to be honest, I have about a hundred things I’d like to post. The real problem is that I don’t know whether any of them are actually worth your time to read, and this leads to a deeper problem and one that I need to work through: has the Gazette reached the end of its useful life (if it really ever filled a useful role)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

After almost 24 years of semi-continuous publication (there were a few fallow periods here and there), I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything new under the sun that I haven’t already covered. I’m not particularly interested in writing about current events \u2014 there are too many talking heads already screaming for your attention and mine \u2014 and I gave up opining about politics a long time ago. Even the observations about nature that came so easily when we first moved to the Texas Hill Country are hard to come by as development has depleted the nearby habitat that provided so many interesting encounters with wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all of that, I’m hesitant to pull the plug at this point. Instead, I want to take a sabbatical to mull things over and seek some inspiration…maybe do a little writing just for myself, and see if it leads to a renewed enthusiasm for sharing with you. I’ll try not to be gone long (I hope you won’t completely forget about me!); I’m thinking that June 1st would be a good target date to fire things up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, please know that I deeply appreciate each of you who take the time to visit these pages and pretend that what you find is worthwhile. Your feedback and kind words have always been the fuel to whatever fire keeps me motivated, and I can’t thank you enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this is not goodbye, but rather…go with God and I’ll be checking in later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Meme:<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m going on Sabbatical for a couple of months while I mull over the future of the Gazette. Don’t forget about me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-navel-gazing","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/header_sunrisewithspotcolor.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16522"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16527,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16522\/revisions\/16527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}