32

As is custom, I don't know how long I've been trying to write this. I believe it's been five weeks, and I just thought that before we entered the sixth, I should just go ahead and hit publish.

I turned 32 recently––what a wonderful age to be. To celebrate, as has been custom on many of my birthdays, I spent part of the day at the airport, and consecutively on an airplane, but this time with the loveliest companion. All these years, however, and I'm still not sure if I should place a comma before or after a "but" so I'm choosing to do without it altogether.

Traveling is great––I love the new sights, history, culture and food––but it is without a doubt lovely to be back home each and every single time. I would talk more about what I did there but I'm smiling at the thought of how, as soon as we arrived back, I filled up the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen and did the laundry the day after. The husband helped clean the rest of our little home. It's just so comforting to have a roof over our heads, and to be together, after years of not having either or knowing when that day would come. Things like that make me feel spiritual.

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We were out with a couple of lovely parent friends of ours this past weekend and it was refreshing. I don't want to say that it's not fun with non-parent acquaintances, but hanging out with single people, who may or may not still be dating or "discovering" themselves, doesn't cut it for us any longer. We're in for the long haul and it's rather pleasant having long and endless conversations with people who are on the same journey as us. That being said, we do appreciate our single friends who are growing along with us as we grow older together, one way or another.

Anyway, the point was, we invited them over to our place on the way back (!) so that put them into a short list of people who have seen our home. The thought of hosting has seemed a little exhausting because we never know if someone will comment on how small or close our quarters are but I think we have surrounded ourselves with the right people and everyone has been really appreciative so far, including our latest little guest. I even got tons of compliments on how I've set up and curated the place and it made my week.

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These days aren't exactly a blur but they're busy alright. Which explains my absence. I've been trying to set up some things that are going to make the coming winter easier on us. I'm also, surprisingly for me, at a loss for dinner ideas. The height of my cluelessness knows no bounds and I'm willing to throw in experimental meatballs into a pot of vegetables that my husband cooked the previous night. My energy's running pretty low as well and there are only so many hours in a day that I can push myself to be productive. Sunny days are nice though and bring back some of that lost energy. I've been dreaming of long drives to greener places.

That's what's been up.