Hello, blog. It's been a while — nine days actually. You knew I'd return, and return with lots of goodies to share because we spent four days at sea, two days at Disney World, two days in Charleston and one full day of driving. We packed a lot into our last, real spring break. But with rolling into Charlottesville late on Sunday and playing catchup at work, I never got around to uploading my photos today. That's a task and a blog for tomorrow.

Instead, I'll hearken back to my pre-spring break blog about, Missing Snail Mail During Spring Break. It should come as no surprise that as soon as I wheeled my tired suitcase into the living room, I snatched up my mail key from the basket by the front door. I plunged the key in, hearing a soft thud, which means it's full of mail. When it's empty, it clangs metal on metal. The usual rolled out: a catalog, advertisements, a bill and a letter from Grammie (Yes, that last one is a usual). The contents make no difference to me; I just enjoy mail.

Speaking of mail … When I go on vacation, my email inbox cascades over into a seemingly unending pile. Between work and personal accounts, I sorted through more than 500 electronic letters today. Wowza. When my unread messages finally hit zero, I had to celebrate in Twitter #winning fashion. Most of those messages screamed advertising in my arrow-clicking face, but a weekday lady in teal heels caught my eye. That would be theSkimm. If you aren't familiar, no worries, I wasn't either until earlier this fall. A girl in my church community group told me to check out the witty, news brief, and I immediately enjoyed it. Once you sign up, you start receiving a weekday email perfect for skimming the news, hence the name. It's full of global and national current events, complex issues and funny happenings. "Putin on a black belt" still gets me (read and click link near bottom).

I find theSkimm super helpful because, even though I am a trained journalist, I don't always enjoy reading long articles about conflicts and struggles, but I do want to have an overview of the topic. theSkimm is perfect for that. I read a few paragraphs and have the gist. If I want and need more, I go research it myself.

If I have made you curious at all, you should check it out. You can always unsubscribe if you end up absolutely hating it, but I doubt that happens. All you have to do is click here, type a little and hit submit. You'll have a fresh newsletter in your inbox every weekday that keeps you up on current events. By using that link a few sentence back, you also help me become a Skimm'bassador. Once I hit 10, I get some swag. Spreading news and getting free stuff; yes, please. I thank you in advance for helping me reach the big 1-0.

I lied; here's one happy photo from our spring break adventures. Watch for more tomorrow!