I truly believe that the most important lesson that we learned during the last two years is to pay attention to what is truly important instead of what is noise. Spending more time at home made us realize that we really wanted a more peaceful environment.

Autumn in the Sonoran desert is more than a little different from most other places. When it starts this year, we’ll still have temperatures in the 90s and there will still probably be several days in the 100s before they start to drop.

We’ve been asked how we ended up being so lucky to have found each other early and stay married for so long. We are lucky–we both have similar goals and values–but luck is what we’ve made of it.

The word intimacy is always thrown around like it is one easily definable thing. Either you are intimate with someone or you are not. Relationships succeed or fail based on some metric that no one seems to agree on.

Healthy habits are hard. Excluding college when I ate whatever was edible at the dining hall (cue: no vegetables or fruits usually), I tend to eat pretty well.

Today’s bingo topic is “Career Success” – I can tell you right off the bat, that I’ve come to learn that this means all sorts of things to all sorts of people, and, to make it even more interesting, I believe it changes throughout your life. What a weird opening.

It sure seems to be the case. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, some extreme peaks and valleys thrown in throughout. I’m not sure at the “highs” that I’d call it success, but at the same time, it’s hard to call all the lows failures.

She walked in and saw him looking at an image on the computer. He was a photographer and it wasn’t unusual to see beautiful women on his screen.

Magic. The word just evokes childhood fantasy to me.

I hate to self-censor. I’m not talking about being polite. I’m talking about feeling like I can’t say what I feel or think in a setting.

I love flowers. From the big splashy ones to the tiny cactus blooms that you can miss if you don’t catch them on the few days they are around.

We are lucky to have minimal allergies. Only a couple of medical ones that are really easy to avoid and the dreaded seasonal allergies that the rest of the world has as well.

Yesterday was Summer Solstice. It’s the “official” start of the summer season even though we’ve been having summer weather for over a month here.

Wow–10 years ago. It was really a lifetime ago because so much has changed between us and in our lives and world.

I’ve been writing this post for a while now. I have this idea in my head, and I keep writing, putting it down in the post and then pausing to re-read it. It seems like every time I do, you just happen to be there sneaking a look.

We finally sneak into the room, avoiding crowds. It’s been an incredible dinner – so much amazing and tasty food – just enough that we’re full, but not enough that it’s uncomfortable. And that wine… it was perfect. We’ve been wandering the grounds, looking at the clear sky and all of the stars, and even catching some of the shooting stars that happen to be whirling by tonight.

As we were walking along the trail, a stone came down on my head. “Ow!”

Books have been my best friend for as long as I can remember. My mom, who did love to read, could never understand why I’d spend summers reading rather than being outside with the other kids.

She had taken her easel and paints to the backyard. The sun hadn’t quite come up over the horizon, but it would soon. It was supposed to be a scorcher with a chance for thunderstorms.