When I was in the fourth grade I painted a picture of a young soldier. He wore a red coat, white pants and a black hat. Apparently, when you’re nine years old and there hasn’t been a war in your lifetime, you take style inspiration from the Revolutionary War.

The painting was good. Was I a child prodigy? No. Did my mom think I was? Yes. Every person who came over for bridge club for the next two months had to see the painting. She was proud. I understand this now because of my daughter’s second grade gourd painting. Yes, gourd. I had it custom-framed and it hangs in our living room. Shut up.

Beyond the fourth grade, I lost my artistic mojo. Sure, there was the pencil sketch of a lion in the seventh grade and the envelopes I designed in order to get pre-sale concert tickets while in college, but it didn’t go beyond that.

Until I discovered Draw Something.

This little iPhone game is making my artistic mojo creep back. I have done a good job of drawing kung fu, spaghetti and crutches. I’ve sketched Barney, gardens and an orchestra. The little soldier in the red coat must be buried in there somewhere, too!

As NOT evidenced by my son guessing this, which I drew:

Him: Stares in disbelief. Looks at me, looks back at the phone. Says, “Mom, I have no idea what this is. I think the thing at the top of the picture is a gray banana, though.” In fairness to him, gray bananas aren’t an uncommon sighting in our fruit basket.

Me: “Let me give you a hint. The thing with the red handle is a tool.”

Him: “Oh! It’s a screwdriver stabbing a gray banana!”

I will not, in fact, be quitting my day job.

I had this great big post planned because I have been gone so long (I’m pretty sure my advertisers think my colonoscopy killed me). I typed it out at the airport in New York yesterday and thought it sounded awesome, but when I looked at it again today, it was just a giant rambling mess.

There is too much, just TOO MUCH, to say and when I try to put it all together it looks like verbal vomit on my computer screen. So, instead, I will share the very few pictures I took, and a few that I stole from my friends without asking. Without further ado, here is my last week in pictures.

I visited the 9/11 Memorial. It’s beautiful and well-designed. I ran my fingers over random names and had goosebumps the entire time.

I hung out with friends.

photo courtesy of Dresden from creatingmotherhood.com. Food courtesy of Ree from The Pioneer Woman.

photo courtesy of Angie from awholelotofnothing.net

In some photos, I appeared more greasy than others. NYC in August, holla!

photo courtesy of melisa of suburbanscrawl.com. photobomb courtesy of Jenn from mommyneedscoffee.com

And, for geeks like me, the fun and games continued in the panel rooms where I spoke at a day-long workshop on how blogging can change your life and then at a session on how to leverage Twitter and Facebook. The Twitter and Facebook panel was standing-room only and was a highlight of my short, but amazing, social media career thus far. I took a picture from the front of the room before we got started.

And, my friend Angie, snapped this picture from the audience.

That’s me on the right. This was insane fun for me. Geeks, unite!

I fulfilled my AV dreams. This is where I sat during keynotes by Martha Stewart and Katie Couric as I fed questions to the interviewers. It’s a long way from the cable access show that I worked on in high school.

Yes, I just wrote about how awesome it was to sit with the tech crew. At least I own my level of geekdom.

An impromptu dinner with the hilarious Jessica Bernturned into a quick tour of the Upper West Side and I got to see The Dakota and Lincoln Center and eat a vegan burrito in a hole-in-the-wall, which made it all the more delicious.

The gate John Lennon walked through just before he was shot.

I went to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I walked along the plaza outside of 30 Rock, strolled past the entrance of the Museum of Modern Art, and I bought an I <3 NY shirt from a street vendor. I peered into Gray’s Papaya and Carnegie Deli, but couldn’t resist the food at the Famous Halal Guys’ cart on the corner of 6th Avenue and 53rd Street.

The best falafel. Period.

I did SO much, but I didn’t scratch the surface of what NYC has to offer; yet my heart and mind are full.

And, more than anything, my feet hurt really, really bad.

Within hours of putting up my last post, I was in the hospital. You can’t make this stuff up, people.

It started with a dull ache on my lower right side and ended with sharp pain in the same spot that spread across my belly. I went to the ER thinking that I had an appendicitis or kidney stone and ended up being admitted so that I could prep for a colonoscopy. Yippee!

Everything you’ve ever heard about a colonscopy is true. The prep is the worst part, but what no one tells you is that IT’S NOT THAT BAD. I drink an entire bottle of Miralax powder mixed into frozen Gatorade and thanks to the Dilaudid I was on, I thought I was drinking a slushie.

Of course, that didn’t work because my bowels? They are stubborn. So at 4:00am I drank Golytely (pronounced, Go Lightly, because someone has a sick sense of humor) mixed with iced-down Shasta. At this point I had been up for 48 hours, was hopped up on pain meds and was very thirsty. Golytely went down (and out) without a problem. You’re welcome.

The colonscopy itself? Who cares! After Versed and Demorol you’ll look like this when they wheel you in.

What is that thing hanging from the ceiling? You’re going to put that in my innards? Okay!

Another thing no one tells you (and this could be because they’re too embarrassed, but I’ve already said, “innards” so I obviously have no shame) is that you will have intestines full of air when you are done. My step-mom told me I’d be gassy, but that term doesn’t really do it justice. I’ll just say that I’m glad I didn’t have a roommate, or visitors, and that my husband is, quite possibly, the most understanding man on the planet (who, for the record, canceled a THIRD trip out of town because of MY medical emergencies) (he wins for best husband).

All in all, the colonoscopy wasn’t the horrible experience people seem to think it is. I even got to hallucinate a little bit!

My pain was diagnosed as an inflammatory bowel flare-up. I don’t have Crohn’s, or cancer, or anything awful. The doctor said it was likely brought on by stress and told me to start meditating, and breathing, and stop clenching my teeth. I said, “Give me more Dilaudid and we’ll talk.”

So, I have a counter full of new medicines to take (for now) and I was cleared for travel to New York in a couple of days.

And now? Katie Couric and I totally have something to talk about.

So, you know how you have sewage come up through the utility sink in your basement and the plumber tells you it will be $300 to fix, but that you also need two more hours of work on the problem at $305 per hour, and then you get a $500 cardiology bill for your son, and two weeks later your husband goes for a sleep study and finds out that he stops breathing so often that he’s lucky he isn’t dead, and you’re so relieved he went for the study until you get the $1800 bill, and then the same day the check engine light comes on in your 15 year old car, and then the glass falls out of your back door and shatters everywhere so that you have to put cardboard up and your house looks like The Beverly Hillbillies live there, and then your son goes to the dentist and they tell you that he HAS to see an orthodontist immediately because his roots have no room and are deteriorating, and then you get pink eye, and then you get a bill from the IRS for THOUSANDS of dollars for something you didn’t know about from 2008, and then a car pulls up in front of your house and an elderly woman gets out, walks up your driveway, knocks on your door, hands you this, then gets back in the car and it pulls away…not stopping at ANY OTHER HOUSE?

Yeah, me too.

Who wants to get in a plane with me next week?