a few joys of my life

you may have been wondering what i have been up to the past few days since i haven't been bloggin'. well i'll tell you:

1. workin'
2.cookin'
3. sleepin'

it's an exciting life!

actually it has been a pleasant past few days. work is going great. my only gripe is the same as before: the camp is way too short! but that is probably the best complaint you can have about anything. i hope i like whatever job i have next half as much as i enjoy this. i did apply for a job-working at the bookstore at pitt. if i got that job, some of my tuition would be covered and it would be nice to work on campus and to work with books. just no kids, which will whither my soul. seriously. nothing makes me happier than working with kids. i have so much joy and feel so alive. i don't dread going to work; i look forward to it. i have energy every morning when i wake up and restful sleep at night. i'm less selfish, kinder to others and kinder to myself. it's so good for me. so even if i can't have a day to day job in which i'm working with kids, i think i need to find somewhere to either work several days a week or volunteer.

jay and i have been cooking dinner together every night so far this week. we've been making some simple but fantastic meals. here's a little secret about jay and me: we love sloppy joes! there's another secret about our cooking that you can't know. it's a new secret ingredient we've been putting into everything. so odd, but really good! tonight we made mexican. jay has also been making some great white iced tea. it's perfection.

we went to the new aldi to buy some of our dinner supplies. i forgot how fantastic it is. some of you may know this already, but i love to grocery shop. i think it is the best ever. i know that there are people who don't enjoy it and i don't understand those people at all! my love started when i lived in oakland. we would make a weekly trip i would volunteer to go every time, even though it meant carrying the groceries home about six blocks. we had a sweet little community owned grocery store which hired people who were having a hard time finding work and was working to make the community of west oakland a better place. i'm not sure if they are still in operation, but i hope they are. i think what i like so much about grocery shopping is that it makes me feel like i am providing for my home, even when i am just shopping for myself. i like keeping a well stocked kitchen and planning meals and selecting foods that i know are healthy for me. i like getting things for jason that i know he really enjoys and then showing him when i get home. i like buying and preparing food for other people. it's another one of my joys in life. it's funny because i used to hate ever spending money on food. i would skip lunch at school to pocket the two dollars my mom gave me for lunch so i could buy the new smashing pumpkins album. but now, it's probably what i get the most enjoyment out of for my money.

the other nice part of the past few days and one of the other joys of life is jay. when you're in a relationship for a long time with someone, it's easy for everything to get very comfortable and boring. i'm not saying we were bored with each other, but it feels like over the past week we've been connecting more than usual and in different ways than how we normally do. i wish could better describe why it has been so good. this will probably sound funny, but i think part of the catalyst of this is jason's 200 memories post. i learned a ton of little things about jason that i never knew and reawakened some of those initial intrigued feelings that you have at the beginning of a relationship. it's wonderful.

i am now off to go swimming at forrest hills family swim night. it'll be the first time this year that i will swim without being responsible for any kids! it should be fun!