I blame PMS, but not entirely. This move is going to be a little harder on me than I expected. I cried when I was up there this past weekend. We were driving home from Pim’s mom’s and as we were getting off the freeway, all I saw were bright lights and lots of cars… and I started crying. Even hyperventilating a little. I figured it was PMS, and sure enough it was (TMI?… too bad)… but even a few days later, I still felt small pangs of that original agony. BIG CITY. Okay, so Salt Lake City is FAR from big, but compared to a town like Kanab, it’s enormous. There are more people in a block of Sugarhouse than there are in all of Kanab. And while Kanab is not a place for, well, most everyone, I really do love it here. Funny thing is, when I had my job interview down here in 2007, I called my mom crying that I absolutely could not live in this town… because people had cars PARKED IN THEIR FRONT YARD (I swear, I’m not as much of a cry-baby as this post is making me out to be). Anyway, by the next day, I’d gotten over it because I was born for this job and adored my soon-to-be coworkers. And now, despite all its redneck quirks, I still love living here.

It’s still kind of shocking to me that I’m moving back to SLC. When I lived there five years ago, I didn’t really care for it too much. I loved my job (and all the aspects that city life offered it), but I had no friends and all I saw were traffic lights and billboards. I had just moved from small-town Wyoming, and even though I was raised a city-kid, I had been converted. And now, it will take a little readjustment again, but I will be fine. I always love my trips north… I just think this last one had the PMS/too much at once combo. It’s a lot to take in at once… moving AND getting married?! But I’ll be fine. For four reasons really… first and foremost, Pim is totally worth it. Second, I have a lot more friends up there now. Granted, most of them are up in Park City, but same diff. Third, we live in a nice, quiet neighborhood. And last, I’m ready for a little shake-up in my job, and this is perfect. I’m gaining back what I miss most about working for newspapers – getting invited into strangers’ homes and sampling a little bit of their lives. So am I a little scared about this move? Totally. But stoked? Infinitely more.

A couple weeks ago, open water claimed the life of an old friend of mine. Since then, things just aren’t the same. I fear the water. I smell it, see it, even feel its humidity in the air, and I think of him. I wanted to go kayaking here in Richmond, but it looks like storms all week. I won’t let his accident stop me, but it will keep me confined to rivers and streams and away from big open water. I just need to get out there and face it, yell at it, while simultaneously bowing down to its power and beauty. These are two places we aren’t meant to be… the water and the sky. We are not fish or birds, merely visitors.

I’ve grown other herbs over the years since then, but never for eating, because of those blasted cats. I just like the smell of them. This year though, the cat hair will not win… because I’m done with indoor gardening (well, except for my houseplants and cacti). I’m taking it outside. And my dinner plate will be full of my own hair-free growings this summer. Strawberries, cherry tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, rosemary, lemon thyme, oregano, pineapple sage, basil (sweet and mexican cinnamon) and parsley for pesto, echinacea and mint for tea, catnip for the cats, and aloe vera for that desert sun. But wait, that’s just from my patio garden. Later this week, I am planting my other garden, up in the greenhouse at work. There I will be growing spinach, green zebra and ananes noire tomatoes, grape tomatoes, red bell peppers (and more yellow ones), broccoli, and lettuce. My belly can’t wait. Everyone is invited to dinner at my house.

lemon thyme

baby strawberries

ladybug on a thistle weed that I yoinked from the ground (after I relocated the ladybug, of course)

Dylan and I celebrate having finished planting my patio garden on Saturday.

parsley for my pesto

weird bee on my irises

pretty weeds

flower leaves

And yours truly, the attempted gardener herself. Let’s hope I don’t kill them all!

And then yesterday, just hours away from the new year I so desperately yearned for, I found myself being surprised with my own hope and optimism, by mud, chance encounters, and new friends. A great day in simple ways, but yet again offering just enough hope and insight of what’s to come, and more importantly, reminding me of what I really am… happy and hopeful, not sad and stressed.

After ringing in the new year with a new friend last night, I had just enough energy to make some lentil soup before hitting the sack. No, not opening a can of lentil soup, but making my own this time. Homemade. No strange ingredients, no MSG, no crap. And in 2009, this is how I’m going to live my life… homemade and deeeeelicious.

It’s gonna be a great year. How do I know this? Well, I guess I don’t. But the year started by making soup, doing handstands, and then trudging through miles of mud to fly a kite (when it wasn’t even windy out). And seriously, any year that starts like that is bound to be a good one.