I just want to let you know, I cooked a whole roasted tandoori cauliflower a few weeks back.  It was a Monday (my cooking night) and I was wildly excited, nervous and then proud of my accomplishment.  Obviously there are improvements that could have been made, but in general it was a success and that made my little heart swell with pride.

The next night, I dutifully went to the gym and swam laps.  Tuesday was a good day.  Hubs made dinner, swimming was both frustrating (I am out of shape) and wonderful (I used to love to run because about ten to fifteen minutes in, my mind would clear and the stress would fall out of my shoulders, and it would just be me, my breath and the pounding my feet on pavement … well, and Lucy of course, but she loved going running.  Swimming felt a little like that — my mind clearing, my muscles working —and also wondering what the heck was going on! — the stress lessening the further into the swim I got).  So it was a good night & we were getting into a routine, and I think we both felt pleased about it.

On Wednesday morning I drove over for my yoga therapy session and despite being a little sore — I’d fallen on ice in the Starbucks parking lot the previous Friday and I’d swum the night before for the first time in months — it was a good session.

And then, I was diagnosed with shingles at the urgent care, and I spent the next seven days on medication that made my brain spin and all my thoughts fuzzy around the edges.

So I didn’t get to post about my cauliflower triumph, or my swimming struggles.  Because I could barely spell my name (that might be a slight exaggeration).

I’ve now been off the anti-viral meds for a few days, and I don’t feel terrible, so that’s a plus.  Yesterday, my office moved into our new (like, brand new just built) space and I’m feeling really excited about the growth of our company and its future.  We received the final paperwork for our house in the mail yesterday and life seems to be trucking along. Even my new MS medicine seems to be working (maybe five is the charm?).

And tonight, it’s the Oscars — one of my favorite award shows.  And the world is blanketed in snow (yesterday’s drive home from the city in my Mini was … fun?) and life feels good.  Content.

But here’s where my head is.  John and I have had our fair share of struggles.  We’ve had our moments when life feels really unfair, and everything feels like it’s too much.  But through it all (well, the last seven years) we’ve had each other.  And we’ve had a support net of our parents and my brother and family and friends who care about us, who prop us up when we’re having a hard time doing it ourselves.  We are insanely, incredibly, ridiculously blessed.  So yes, MS is hard.  MEN type I is hard.  Work is hard.  Life is unfair.  Like, really f*cking unfair sometimes.  But I just want to say thank you to God, to Gaia, to Buddha, to whomever is up there who brought my husband to me, to whomever decided who my family would be — because I can face anything with the people I have on my team.  And I am so grateful it is fathomless.

This has been a weekend.

I think that John and I have just embarked on the crazy adventure of buying our first house.  I mean — I know we have, but it feels completely surreal.  We are now totally obsessed with furniture arrangements, sound systems, flooring, tiles … you get my point.  And they haven’t even broken ground yet.

Yeah, you heard me.  Construction hasn’t even begun.

There are many emotions that we have felt in the past day and a half.  I can say without a doubt that cutting a check as huge as is necessary to buy a house makes a person feel a little faint.  But knowing that we have been able to pick every detail we want and we can still afford it?  That verges on euphoric.

Here’s the thing.  A little less than six years ago, the idea of the man and I buying a house — any house really — was comic.  We have come so far, that our lives are nearly unrecognizable.  So it’s a little hard not to be over the moon at this latest progression.

I’m also focusing on this new, big, amazing adventure, because life isn’t very fair.  And if I didn’t know that (which, to be honest, I sort of did) I most assuredly learned it yesterday.

So, in the spirit of all that this weekend held, I just want to say, I love my husband, I love my brother and I have the most incredible parents in the entire world.  I could never properly express my love for them. I am beyond blessed — in fact, there is not a word in the English language that adequately describes the incredible people I am lucky enough to be surrounded by.

For now, that is all.

I had a fragmented idea of what I wanted to write about today … but I couldn’t find the start, I couldn’t see the picture.  So I began browsing the drafts that have been stored & forgotten (some for a very long time); begun and then neglected as my brain became hooked on something new.

I wrote the following in the wake of my cousin’s wedding (not especially long ago ~ the beginning of November 2013).  Re-reading it struck me, so I thought I’d share it as is, without adding to it, or fixing it.

“I was thinking this weekend ~ for various reasons ~ how little I know so many of my relatives.  My immediate family is fairly close ~ a nucleus including my parents, my mum’s twin sister, my brother, myself and my husby.  My father is an only child, and our tenuous relations with his side of the family ~ a huge web of Italian Americans ~ basically disappeared when my grandmother died in 2007.  My mother, one of five, but also a transplant to the United States, stays in relatively close contact with her siblings via email, but there’s a huge ocean and several seemingly insurmountable obstacles (such as vastly different cultures) that lie between our family and hers.  Add to this mixture the fact that we moved every two years (on average) for the majority of my youth, and it makes sense that we are close as a unit, but not as part of a larger tapestry.

Then consider other factors: age, religion, lifestyle … and all of a sudden, people who share your DNA look like strangers.  And feel that way, too.

My youngest cousin on my mother’s side was married last weekend ~ a much more traditional affair than the man and my celebration earlier this year.  She was a stunning bride, and I’m sure it was a hell of a party.  I’m sorry to have missed it.  But journeying to the UK, in this economic climate, while dealing with other (sort of big) factors just wasn’t in the cards.  I flipped through the limited pictures available, seeing my family all dolled up in their Sunday best, and I thought -not for the first time- that I barely knew them anymore.

Family is an interesting thing.  Mine -this side, obviously- is very, very English.  I looked at them, my mind full of our joint history, memories and conversations and correspondence.  And I thought how they didn’t know me at all either.”

Every once in a while, I have a moment when I feel completely and totally blessed.  There is no rhyme or reason to when these moments occur.  They just overtake me, and fill me with blissful contentedness.  I had one of those moments tonight, curled up on the couch with my two most important beings in the world.

Nothing incredible happened.  Nothing earth-shattering was said.

I just knew, in that moment, that life was okay.  After all the battles, the struggles, the difficulties, the challenges … all the shite that 2013 brought to us, it gave us a greater gift than all of that.  It gave us each other, it gave us our family and our love.

That’s worth more than anything else.  That is a true blessing.

Oftentimes, I arrive at my blog either void of anything thoughtful or provoking to say, or full of things which have been occupying my mind for hours; thoughts or grievances or gratitudes that have spent the day swirling around my brain.  Sometimes I’m in the car, and I realize I haven’t heard a word of my book, or a word of the story on NPR because I have become so caught up and lost in my thoughts.

Sometimes, despite my fingers itching to type, I put a lid on it; knowing that the blog isn’t the proper forum to address certain issues.  Other times, by the time I find myself with time or motivation to write, I’ve lost the passion or intensity of what I wanted to say.  That’s always sort of a bummer.

Today, I’m in a gray area, sort of able to know what I want to say, and sort of unsure if I want to put it here for anyone to read.  (PS.  I know I don’t have a ton of readers, but I have a few … and those eyes are precious to me).

Last night, as the husby and I settled into the sofa to wind down the evening, he said something sort of assumed, but also sort of shocking.  He said we’d never leave the Pennsylvania area.  Despite knowing his answer, I asked why.  His response was as I expected.  And then the evening moved on, the sentiment was forgotten and we enjoyed a sitcom marathon before heading to bed at the lame hour of 9pm.

It wasn’t until I was driving to work this morning, my mind full of all sorts of things having to do with the company I work for, my future and the business’ future, that I remembered the man’s statement from the night before.

And I got annoyed.

Weird, right?

His reason for committing to Pennsylvania was neither wrong, unexpected, misguided or untrue.  And yet, it made me feel trapped.  It made me question who I was making life decisions for: myself, or others.  I realized, as I intensely chewed on this train of thought, that I wasn’t ready to start making sacrifices or life compromises for anyone other than myself or my husband.  I wasn’t ready to close the door on opportunities or adventures for any reason that didn’t stem directly from me.

And I thought how selfish that was ~ but somehow couldn’t stop feeling that way.

I thought about how every single person who chooses to become a parent inherently makes the choice that some other human is prioritized above themselves.  I thought how amazing that sort of commitment was; how altruistic.  And then I wondered if I could ever do it.

I still can’t seem to get my head around it, come to terms with all of it.  At some point, we all inherit responsibilities that weren’t ours to begin with; that’s sort of the way of life.  It feels unfair that some people shoulder these burdens at a much younger age than others, but there it is.  I know that my husband is a much more generous, giving person than I am; that is who he is, has always been and will always be.  That is how he understands the responsibilities we have moving forward and embraces them the best he can, while I squirm and pout and get resentful.

I haven’t found a way to accept these things yet, but I know I will eventually; I don’t really have a choice.  I guess what makes humanity beautiful is that we are each individuals and we all have our virtues and vices.  For me, this is about facing the ugliness of my soul, and figuring out how to change it.

There is something magical about the sun in the morning ~ stretching its arms across fields, pale fresh light building to glowing yellow.  This morning, on my drive to work, I was awed by the beauty of the sun kissing the fields, full of cows and sheep and grass swaying in the breeze.  I was glad ~ even though traffic stopped dead about a mile from the traffic light (which is unusual)~ that I chose the route to work I take in the mornings.  Living in suburbia, there aren’t many places to see farmland, but there is a stretch near our house which also happens to be on the way to my office, and every morning and every evening it gives me peace to drive through the fields.

I would have taken a photo, but I try (very hard) to leave my phone untouched while I drive.

So, since I can’t share this morning’s enchanting beginning, I will share last night’s enchanting evening.  The man, who travels very infrequently for work, went to Chicago a few months back.  He had a great time and was able to visit “The Girl and the Goat,” something of  a top-of-the-wish-list thing for him.  On his journey home, he happened to fall into conversation with his seatmate and discussed, among other things, the food & wine business (still flush with his visit to Stephanie Izzard’s flagship).  He informed me upon his return that he’d met a really cool chick on his flight home, she visited Philly for business frequently, and there was a chance that we would get together in the future.

One of our current favs, and what we enjoyed with our Veal

Fast forward a few months.  On our third attempt to get together, we finally made it happen last night at a delicious BYOB, Paloma.  It was enchanting! (I use that word again, and deliberately, as it felt like a step back in time when you entered ~ white linens, lots of glassware, ornately folded napkins).

I have to say that I have huge admiration for Peggy; for reaching out to John, for meeting near strangers for dinner.  But I’m so glad she did, because after the initial awkwardness (have I mentioned that in general, I can be socially awkward … and talk non-stop about, well, anything and everything … and have huge non sequitur because something clicked in my brain that might not make any sense to those around me ….? Yes, well, all that is true) we had a really awesome time.

It started when all three of us ordered the exact.same.thing for dinner.  It continued when Peggy and I discovered we enjoy the same ‘escapist’ television (in the form of Nashville and Scandal).   After that, it was all gravy.

We all began with the Mushroom Flan.  Oh.my.goodness.  Deliciousness.  Light and fluffy, but full of incredible, intense flavor.  And so rich.  The chef’s wife (and, obviously, owner) took care of our table for most of the night, so we got to learn fun tidbits as well as lots of information about the menu.  Which, interestingly enough, is being changed as of today (seasonality ~ love it!).  She assured us prior to ordering that the Mushroom Flan appetizer would be remaining on the menu (it had, in fact, been on the menu for all 16 -18?- years of the restaurant’s existence).  Despite the possibility of missing something else that would no longer be around, we all immediately chose the flan.  And none of us regretted it one bit!

For dinner, we all enjoyed stuffed veal, which was a perfect complement to the Flan (well done, us!)  The veal was served with a side of rice and asparagus, which visually cannot communicate the subtle and incredible flavors it held. I think we were all a little surprised at how good the rice was.

And then, to round out our dinner, we had two courses of dessert.  Which maybe wasn’t necessary, but boy, was it worth it.

We all did a Prix Fix menu, which did not include all the house-made desserts as options (not a surprise). Our options were layer cake, biscotti or bread pudding.  Peggy and I had the pudding & the man had the biscotti.  But this girl loves cheesecake, and I couldn’t not have cheesecake (especially considering the lovely woman who was taking care of us was also the pastry chef and had made it herself).

It did not disappoint.

White chocolate cheesecake, homemade crust, chocolate ganache top.  Mmm, mmm, delicious.  And even more surprising and fun ~ a coffee bean whipped cream to finish everything off.

So good.

Now that we’ve broken the ice with Peggy, I hope we get to have lots more culinary adventures when she is in Philadelphia and free.  But, even if it turns out to be few and far between, last night was a riot (our host told us several hilarious stories about her ‘other’ career as a lawyer and marijuana … you can imagine how amazing that was!).

Last night felt normal ~ something I have been striving for more and more every day.  Some days, normal is driving to work and wishing to walk through the fields of cows & sheep wrapped in a snuggly sweater.  Some days, normal is working really hard and getting piles of things accomplished.  On other days, it’s enjoying good take-out, good wine and the company of my man and my dog on our couch.  But yesterday was a different kind of normal ~ a throw back to when the man & I still worked downtown and went out to new restaurants more often.  It felt fun and refreshing … and a true treat.

Til tomorrow.  Xo.

This past weekend, the man and I ~ after visiting a new MS doctor and setting up rounds of new tests ~ journeyed across the great state of Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh to visit friends and attend the first pre-season NFL game of the year for both the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NY Football Giants.  My cousin was kind enough to give us the tickets as a wedding present, and it gave us a great excuse to journey west.

Spending time in and around Pittsburgh gave me ample opportunity to contemplate the idea of home.  This isn’t a new subject for me ~ in many ways, it’s been a quest of mine; to define it, identify it ~ figure out what home means to me.  I guess that’s not hard to understand since I have lead a somewhat nomadic life to this point.

It felt different being in Pittsburgh this time.  It felt familiar and yet new ~ comfortable.  I wondered if the feelings I felt were because of nostalgia or because for so long, I clung to Pittsburgh as my north star in a stormy sea.  But I think it felt as comfortable as it did because even if I have spent more time elsewhere, have been living outside Philadelphia for over nine years and have established a life for myself somewhere else, Pittsburgh fits me.

Pittsburgh feels like home ~ even a strange foreign home ~ because it IS home.

I might never live there ever again, visit sporadically and drift even further from the kind of person who calls Pittsburgh home.  But it is my history, it is the backbone of my identity.  Being there, sitting next to the fountain at Point State Park, that was abundantly clear to me.  Whether I become ingrained in the fabric of Philadelphia, or another part of our country, Pittsburgh with always be my north star.  It will always be where my dad grew up, sled down steep hills, hopped the fence at the old ball park and became the man he is.  It will always be where I said good-bye to my grandmother for the last time, and drank champagne and celebrated life ~ because that’s what she believed.  It will be where I learned to drive, and found and pursued my passion for art, theatre and music.  It will be the backdrop of so many landmarks in my memory and life.

My heart swells with pride for the way the city has re-invented itself and still maintains it’s unique and incredible identity.  I lost that for a little bit … I felt adrift and as though I wasn’t sure anymore of my foundation.  After Friday, and the turmoil and onslaught of so much new information, it felt beyond reassuring to remember who I am because I remembered where I am from.