Storms give way to sunshine
Something weird happened on Saturday, when it was cold and raining in Utah while heat waves raged across other parts of the county. The weather was awful and it was nearly dark even though it was the afternoon. I don’t know if the weather had anything to do with this, but who knows.
Ben and I are both stubborn people, you see, and things got a little harsh at one point during an argument. Not extraordinarily unusual for a married couple, I guess. But instead of ending anger or tears, we actually had one of the best, most honest conversations we’ve had in a long time. It was like therapy, but free, and with no facilitators. I think even our cats were impressed.
We had a pleasant evening together, which included dinner out at Mimi’s Cafe (let’s not talk about how there is no apostrophe in their logo) and some bargain-book browsing at Barnes & Noble. I felt a little guilty paying for books there with my Amazon.com credit card, but whatever. We then woke up Sunday morning to bright sunshine and a crisp fall day. I cleaned some windows and Ben cleaned the gutters, and we made a loooooong, room-by-room list of all the stuff that still needs to be finished around the house (which definitely weighs down on us and contributes extra stress when we don’t really need it). My OCD juices were tingling while making the list, though.
It would have been a nice day to finally drive the Alpine Loop, as one of my coworkers assigned me to do as a Utah resident, but she warned me not to do it on the weekend of the Mormons’ semi-annual general conference, which brings a ton of visitors to Utah who clog up all the scenic byways and other touristy stuff. Our newest next-door neighbor brought over a loaf of pumpkin peanut butter bread for us between sessions, which was really nice of her. It tastes odd, but good. So we didn’t go anywhere and just hung out together, ignoring the list (mostly) for the rest of the day.
So, in summary, we didn’t do much this weekend. But I think we both feel pretty great about it.
