Another Year

It was a birthday weekend.

We stayed at the beach, one of our favorite places.

Sunday we dressed up and went for Brazilian BBQ.

Monday we ate a late breakfast at The Beachcomber; the sun was shining!

Then we spent the afternoon on the beach with more sun.

Late afternoon was pool time.

After that we went to a Japanese marketplace and bought baumkuchen.

Baumkuchen isn't Japanese, but I first had it in Japan and the Japanese are quite fond of it so you can usually find it at Japanese bakeries and markets.

Dinner was at Lucille's.

Yesterday we spent the day at the Disneyland Resort.

(When I was a kid it was just Disneyland.)

All day ... more than 12 hours.

Lunch at the Blue Bayou was lovely and I had my first Monte Cristo sandwich; I'm not sure how I ever missed this before.

(Oh wait, I was a vegetarian for 18 years.)

We arrived home very late and very tired; it's a long drive.

Today we are very out of sorts.

(That pretty much means that I am grumpy and unmotivated.)

We slept in and never found our groove.

We picked up the dogs and found out that Puppy Girl's illness is worse so it was off to the vet late this afternoon for tests.

They don't know what is wrong and I am worried.

I managed to cook dinner, which is good.

Papa was running late for his meeting and didn't eat with us, which isn't good.

 We really like Papa.

Some of the laundry has been done, but I never managed to get groceries.

I should probably bake bread tonight before I go to sleep.

That'll be late anyway, it always is.

So another year has passed.

I actually like being the age I am now; I feel like I have learned a lot and take that wisdom with me.

Wisdom ~ I never knew what it meant.

I find myself respecting those who have spent more years on this earth than I have.

I understand better how they have come to know what they do.

I see that many things change but people really don't.

I know myself so much better than I did a couple of decades ago.

When you are young people say that you need to find yourself,

but they fail to mention that time is the only way to do that.

You aren't really finding anything; your refining who you are.

After all, we are all someone, young or old.

But time can bring us to authenticity because we learn to get past distracting emotions like anger and resentment and find truth.

We know what we make mistakes and we accept responsibility.

It's all good.