This morning I’m so ingrossed in what I’m reading that I don’t notice Mike get out of the shower, or realize that he’s dressed and hovering over me until he sneaks in to plant a peck on my cheek. I look up and he kisses me, long and slow and then starts kissing me with quick, little kisses, bobbing his head back and forth, pulling his lips away and then placing them back on mine in rapid fire succession until I start to laugh.

“There, that’s what I wanted. Your beautiful laugh and smile,” he says as he gives me one final kiss and turns to leave. “I love your smile.”

I haven’t stopped smiling since…

But now, apparently, it’s a miracle that I manage to squeeze in my half-hour viewing of the Office every week (and sometimes, I’m doing that late at night on my laptop because Thursday at 9 p.m. is just not convenient) and get to the blog once a week. And instead of writing about things that catch my interest, things like Margaret Wente’s column where she stated that women don’t blog or the show we saw at the NAC last week, you get this…Because by now it’s all been discussed…

Last week was Spring Break, which means nothing to childless types like Mike and me, except that the traffic on Mike’s commute to work was even lighter than usual, and my strength-training classes were cancelled. Which meant that instead of taking the bus one hour across town post work on Wednesday, I got to go out with some coworkers to hit a bar in the market for St. Patrick’s Day. And, for the first time in my life, had green beer (well, cider, due to the whole no-gluten thing. Stupid gluten…) Thursday night was date night, thanks to the NAC and DaniGirl. The NAC gave Dani two tickets to their Pop’s concert Mysteroso to give away on her blog. And I was the lucky winner. It was a fun night out, not least of all because I finally got to meet Dani in real life. The show was fun – I’m a sucker for illusions. It wasn’t a show we’d normally have chosen, but we enjoyed it none-the-less and on the walk home Mike suggested we should look into shows at the NAC more often – especially since it’s now just a 15 minute walk home rather than a 40 minute drive. On Friday, we got our new granite kitchen countertops installed and I am in love. They are so pretty. I feel very old now, getting so excited about granite, but I’ll get over it. Now if only the restoration company could come and finish off the rest of the kitchen and then we’d be done… That would be nice. Living in half-finished renos for months now has been stressful, to say the least. It will be good to have everything back to rights and then maybe, just maybe, we can proceed to unpacking the remaining boxes. Six months after we moved in. What a concept.

Yeah, I’m bored reading that too.

I’ve been struggling ever since giving up the old blog and starting this new one on what I want to get out of blogging. What do I want this blog to be? Do I even want to blog? I keep coming back to it, so yes, I do think that I want to be blogging. But do I want this to be more than just a rehash of the minor day-to-day goings on in my world? And if so, what do I want to write about? And how do I ensure that I carve space out in my life to make blogging happen? I don’t expect anyone to have the answers, when I don’t myself. But these are the things that go around in my head as I sit down to write. And when I’m rushing around thinking “hey, I’d really like to blog about that” but then never get (or take) the time. Maybe blogging about the mundane once a week fills a need and that’s how it will continue, but somehow I really think I’d like this to be more than that. Either that or not do it at all.

Today’s walk gave me the chance to explore a new area near my neighbourhood I hadn’t discovered before – this little touch of paradise tucked away in the middle of the city. I never knew these little offshoot creeks from the river existed, these quaint wooden bridges passing over. Picturesque parks. Bliss. Peace.

I will never regret moving downtown. This is the life I hoped for, the lifestyle I wanted.

It’s funny – in some ways I feel like things are moving forward. That we are really progressing towards our goals for our life together. That I am really progressing towards my goals for what I want my life to be. I’m noticing small changes to my muscles and my body that show that my workouts are working. The house is, every day, becoming more and more how I want my home to be. My 6.5 mile walk last Sunday reminded me of why I love long-distance walking, and why I need to do it more often. Two hours alone with my headphones and my feet moving to the beat.

And then in other ways, I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. That it doesn’t matter what I do, because I always end up right back where I started.

I really need to learn the art of goal-setting. Of mapping out what it is I want, really want, and then figure out how to go for it. How to make it happen. How to stop sitting on the sidelines of my own life half the time.

It’s not a big deal really – it’s not a fancy watch or anything, but it does the trick of keeping track of time. Something useful as my walks start getting longer. Mike bought it for me a few years ago for Christmas or my birthday – either way, Dec. 25th. I was starting training for my first half-marathon walk and it was my constant companion on those walks. He bought it because it was purple and he knew that would make me smile. And I need it.

But I can’t find it. That watch is one of a growing list of things that I can’t find since the move; things that include my passport, my birth certificate, and the paperwork for the guarantee for my wedding rings. There are many others like them, needed in the moment and then left unfound for now. We still have boxes upon boxes in our basement, in Mike’s parents’ basement, in my parents’ garage. Things that I would be tempted to say we don’t need if we haven’t needed them since October, except that there are things we do need. Things that I can’t find. Because as much as we are home in this new house, we are not settled. We unpacked really only the essentials when we first moved in because we were getting the house rewired, and so why unpack a bunch of stuff when it would all get dusty and dirty and need to be repacked to give the electricians room to punch holes in walls and pull wires everywhere. So our boxes remained unopened. And then it was Christmas. And then it was the new year, and water was rushing through the wall between our dining room and kitchen and more holes were being punched in walls and here we are, almost five months since we moved in, with countless unpacked boxes in three locations, and unfinished renovations.

I can’t wait until we can finally have everything in it’s place…

I think that for some people there is one place in the world that is just for them, and if they’re lucky, they’ve found it. And I think “Home” can be in many places for others. I know I get that feeling from different places at different times in my life, so there may not be just one place where my heart calls home.

I know that our downtown house is far more ‘home’ than our suburban Ottawa house ever was. Even with the upheaval of (seemingly unending) renovations I have never once doubted that this was the right move for us. That this is the right house for us. That we are in the right place for us. And Ottawa feels much more like home to me than many other places I’ve lived. But is it my heart’s home? I don’t know.

I also know when I see the skyline of Toronto from a plane or a train (or an automobile) I get a familiar flutter in my belly of “HOME” – I was born there, it’s one of my favourite Canadian cities, so that could be it. I love the energy of the city, the availability of theatre, music, food, and cute little boutiques that can be found there. I love that some of my best friends live there. But I’m also glad when it’s time to return to Ottawa, and the slightly more laid-back lifestyle here.

I know I feel a peace and a grounding like no other when I’m in the midst of the big sky of the prairies, so that could very well be “home”. Some people think that the flat prairies are boring, but I know better. I love how you can see a storm roll in from dozens upon dozens of kilometres away. I love how such an expansive sky is so freeing – like nothing is penning you in. I love that the city where I was a child – Winnipeg – has world class arts and culture that allowed a geeky, music-loving girl the opportunities to sing with a semi-professional choir, and see amazing theatre and ballet on a regular basis. Some of the people I love best in this world live there.

But I’ve had that feeling in places I’ve never lived too: New York City is one of my favourite places on earth, and when I’m walking in New York, it’s like the energy of Toronto, times a thousand, is coursing through my veins. When walking around the streets of Paris I felt a familiarity, a sense of “Home”, even though I’d never been there before. And I thought Vancouver a near perfect city when we visited on our honeymoon – with the Rocky Mountains to one side and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean to the other. PEI, with it’s beautiful red sandy beaches, was one place I didn’t want to leave on our trip down east. I could also see myself living in Halifax with its rolling hilly roads and amazing boardwalk.

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t found the one place that makes my heart sing in just that way that tells me all these other places are simply mere imitations of HOME. Or maybe there are multiple places in this world that make me feel at home. I know that I do love where I am in life right now, and really, that’s all that’s important.

• We have a partially-functioning kitchen again – huzzah! The renos aren’t finished, but we are on hold until the new countertops arrive (the lovely, smooth, shiny black granite countertops…I never thought I could be so excited about stones or a kitchen. I am getting old…) Hopefully by this time next month, we will have our kitchen completely back to rights. In order to carve out a bit of serenity amidst the chaos, we cleaned up what we could of the kitchen on Saturday and then Mike made bacon, eggs and homemade hashbrowns to celebrate that we could, once again, cook at home. I then spent the rest of Saturday turning out bedroom inside out and tossing out all the clothes that are too big/too ugly/too ‘what the hell was I thinking’ and now I have closet space once again. Which I will attempt to not fill with more clothes that in a year or so will fall into one of the too big/too ugly/too ‘what the hell was I thinking’ categories.
• I need a lesson in goal-setting and prioritization. Also, time management. If someone could also tell me what the perfect career for me would be, that would be swell.
• Today was a near-perfect day. We went to a friend’s farm in Cantley, Quebec and I proceeded to hang out in front of the wood stove in their gigantic kitchen for pretty nearly the whole day while Mike went to the ski hill to tackle black diamond runs. I also learned how to make delicious chocolate pudding from scratch and was amazed by my friend Jen who simply whipped up a lunch for 20plus people in the course of a morning. I would like to find somewhere where I feel so at home like she does just puttering in her kitchen.
• I may be the last person on earth to be watching this, but my in-laws are out of town so I finally got to commandeer their TMN on Demand on Friday night to start making my way through Season 4 of Dexter, and can I just say that John Lithgow is one terrifying SOB? Seriously creepy. And brilliant. I may never sleep again…
• Can you do me a favour? Keep your fingers crossed for me – the signs are pointing to something that I’m hoping for might actually work out and if you could just send me some good thoughts to help this along, that would be swell…Thanks.
• Finally, I leave you with a song that has been running around in my head for a few weeks now, ever since my latte buddy (the other) Mike posted it on his blog…

I know that once this is done, we will be even happier with the kitchen than we were when we first bought this place. I know that once this is complete, it will be worth it. I know that once this is done, I will have a space that is my own, not just inherited from someone else’s tastes. I know that once this is done, we will have shiny black granite countertops. We will have the simple, crisp, white subway tile back-splash I love so much. I know that once this is done, and my house is once again in order, I will not feel so much in upheaval. I know that this will not last forever. I know that it will be done soon. I know that it will be worth it. I know, I know, I know.

But still. It would be grand if it didn’t have to be torn down to be built back up. It would be grand if we didn’t have to have chaos in order to have peace. And it would have been good had we not picked such a stupid colour for our dining room wall…

Tremblant was wonderful and busy and exhausting. I finally made it to the top of the mountain and attempted to make it down by ski. I was not successful. I made it half-way down, but not without stress and tears – I am not ready, or I do not have the confidence to ski some of the even moderate steepness of the ‘easy’ slopes, despite my best efforts. Skiing triggers some of my deepest seated fears – heights, speed, injury, pain, failure, etc., etc., etc… I keep trying because I have moments of understanding what it is that makes this a much-loved sport of many, including my husband. I have moments where the fear subsides and the thrill of the (timid, tepid) speed takes over, but those are few and far between. I want to enjoy this sport. I want to have a winter activity I enjoy. But I also have to wonder how many times I will put myself through this? How long do I keep trying, keep giving myself panic attacks, before I say “Enough. I have tried enough. This is not for me”? I have three weeks of lessons left, lessons I intend to finish. And then, from there, we’ll see.

All in all things have been fantastic, even if they have been stressful. We’re out living our life if nothing else. And how can we complain about that?!