[Rose on Monument Avenue in Richmond, taken November 2011]

If you were with me almost a year ago, you might remember a goal I set to write something creative every weekend. Like I often do, I didn't really stick with it as long as I said I would. Things happen--migraines take hold, you have to go to work on a Saturday, there are no groceries in the house, there are episodes of television to watch and pages of books to be read. Life, as wonderful as it may be, can also get in the way sometimes.

A week ago, I wrote something that made me proud. It was one of those days where you feel something and the words come easily and those paragraphs that you write just plop into the world like they should have been there all along. No prompt, no nudge from anything but your brain and the words that fill it up and spill out onto the pages of your notebook and the screens of other people's computers.

But today was one of those days where you don't know what you're feeling. You wake up warm and happy, but as the morning nudges itself into afternoon, you confuse yourself with bills and holiday plans and what to make for dinner. You find yourself in bed at 3:30 PM and you don't know why you're crying.

When I first started blogging, I wrote all kinds of melancholy shit. No one was reading but my parents and my roommates. Now, if I have a bad day, I'm sometimes nervous to talk about it. I want you guys to think I have it all together. But that's a silly way to live. I don't have it all together. And sometimes I cry for no apparent reason. That's just me.

"Much of my crying is for joy and wonder rather than for pain. A trumpet's wailing, a wind's warm breath, the chink of a bell on an errant lamb, the smoke from a candle just spent, first light, twilight, firelight. Every day beauty. I cry for how life intoxicates. And maybe just a little for how swiftly it runs." --Marlena De Blasi, A Thousand Days in Venice

I opened my copy of Old Friend from Far Away this morning and it asked me, "What's in front of you?" and I wrote but didn't want to post because I was standing in my kitchen and that thing is too damn small. I hate our kitchen. It reminds me every day that I left a stainless steel refrigerator and huge windows and high ceilings and so much counter space and enough light so that I could live here for a year, in what's essentially student housing, surrounded by inconsiderate, loud neighbors who make me feel old.

But then Rob comes out of our bedroom with sleep in his eyes and a smile on his face and being in his arms feels right and I remember that this is worth it because we get to be together, and besides, you can't just stay in one place forever. One must be able to adapt. Like every other season of life we go through, this one will pass, and we'll look back on it one day and hopefully laugh about that tiny kitchen with no counter space.

There's a lot of stuff in front of me.

Sunday mornings are for coffee. And eggs.

They have always meant something. Years ago, Sundays were for family--for 11:30 mass and breakfast right after. They were for Catholic friends and parents and nice talks over hot mugs and scrambled eggs. Sundays were for an afternoon walk through Barnes & Noble and for you to peek your head into Ann Taylor LOFT, "just in case."

In college, Sunday was for being homesick. It was for disliking the church in your new town and slowly ceasing to show up there, and for calling your parents to catch up. There were still eggs and coffee, though, as you sat in the dining hall with your friends and ate and laughed. After your first year at school, your new Sunday became normal and you looked forward to that omelet and those potatoes and the never ending coffee with your beautiful roommates and some other people who would become your family away from home.

Then you graduated. Maybe you went back home for some time. You could have your original Sundays back--just reach out and take them--but you've changed. You might still go to church sometimes. You might still spend the day with your parents sometimes. You might go back to college to spend the weekend with your boyfriend sometimes, letting Sundays continue with friends and a dining hall. The Sundays have evolved, and life and your very self feel different.

Another year later, Sunday was for working. It was for serving coffee, but no eggs, to people from 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM and wishing you had time to write. It was for thinking about your thesis and dreaming of a job you would love. It was for being a little bit sad, and wishing to be spending the day with a book and your parents or roommates from college or your brother or boyfriend--anyone you love.

And now, just a few months later, that coffee shop has hired a new person and you have Sundays off again, and this time they are so that you can write. So you can tip-toe into the living room for an old Moleskine and actually put a pen to paper because people are asleep in the guest room where you keep your computer. Sundays are for reading and working on your dreams and deciding where to go later for eggs and coffee.

Sundays might be for missing your old life. Or they could be for figuring out your new one.

It's cold out there! I'm loving it. I don't have to be at work until two this afternoon, which almost feels like a day off even though it's really just a Saturday morning for normal people. I slept in until nine (!!) and Rob and I went downtown for a little breakfast before he heads out to visit his parents in North Carolina for the weekend.

I'm going to spend the weekend at work and then cleaning the apartment before we head to Roanoke for a Thanksgiving mini-vacation on Tuesday. Maybe a movie tonight with my friend Patrick and definitely some cuddles with his cute pup Riz.

What are you guys going to be up to these next few days?