Beautifully Warm Thoughts

Finally the suffocating heat disappeared today and left us with a beautiful, temperate day. Clear blue sky, warm sun, and a cool breeze that seems to caress my skin. It just feels good...

All this brought to mind some nice events of this past week plus a random musing or two. But first the nice events. Sunday V. decided that it was finally time to clean off our two patios with a broom and hose. I call this his "Annual Homeowner Masquerade", much to his chagrin, because it's really the only thing he does around the house that makes it appear that he owns a home. I don't mean this condescendingly at all - it's just that the property management company does all the upkeep outside our home and I do all of it inside the home. Except for cleaning the patios off. It sounds simple but logistically it's a nightmare complete with 1 long, forever kinking hose, a big embankment that said hose must be lugged up and then two stories of patios. The "nice" part of this event is that V. had a little helper this year in the form of a 3 foot tall, curly haired girl determined to help her daddy with a broom twice the size of her and many ideas as to how this project should be completed. From inside the house, I watched I. inform V. where he was to be and where she was to be and who should be doing what and I just laughed with pure glee - at the look of disbelief and amusement on V.'s face at all these orders being issued to him and the certainty and scolding tone in I.'s voice as she issued the orders and rebuked V. when he didn't follow them correctly. Needless to say, V. said I. sounded just like me, which I of course took as a supreme compliment though I'm not so sure it was meant exactly that way.

The other nice event was this same day but after I. went to bed. We decided with a nice clean patio, we should have a BBQ and eat dinner outside. The day's heat had burned off nicely so it was just a wonderful, warm evening and we sat out there and enjoyed our steaks and adult beverages while we relaxed and chuckled over the "Annual Homeowner Masquerade" and what an amazing, funny little person we created. This led to us remembering the moment our two lives and future slammed into to each other and teasing each other about that sequence of events which ended our day and evening on a warm, reminiscent note not unlike the evening's weather.

Onto the random musing I had a couple of days ago and how it tied into yesterday evening. Last night I enjoyed a Moroccan dinner with some of my momma friends to celebrate a 30th birthday. A significant birthday and one that got me thinking a couple of days ago about my own 30th, though many years ago. It got me thinking about how my 20s were filled with a lot of excitement but a lot of mental anguish and emotional pain. So much pain in fact, that it spilled over into the first few years of my early 30s, leading me to almost lose what most people would believe is a primal human urge - the will to live. Really the most significant birthday I've had was my 33rd because it was a miracle of God and a testament to how love, friendship, and loyalty can rebuild the human spirit when it feels it no longer wants to go on. In light of that period of my life and what my friend Mark is fighting for, it makes me want to make this year, the last year of my 30s, something really special. That's the realization I had at the kitchen sink a couple of days ago yet I'm still not sure what that special thing is. I feel good that I recognized this desire now instead of later on in the year because hopefully that'll give me time to figure out what "it" is. I'm not sure it's something concrete that I'm going to do but it could just be a change in my daily mindset, my attitude, how I look at things, how I treat people etc. All I do know is that I want it to positively affect the people that I care about in my life and you know, that's not a bad jumping off point.