25 Minutes

11:15 p.m.  The husband, exhausted from a long day of work and running errands, has gone to bed.  I'm feeling restless, though...  I also don't have to work until 2:00 tomorrow, so there's no harm in staying up a little later.  I kissed him goodnight and tended to our little living room garden, watering all of the plants.

The basil and cilantro are growing incredibly quickly; I hope that we are able to keep them flourishing into maturity because I am so looking forward to cooking with them!  The sunflowers looked a little down today but hopefully a good watering will do the trick.  Also, I continue to be amazed with our avocado tree--seemingly overnight, it is standing up straighter and sprouting much larger leaves.  I know it may be several years before it bears fruit, but I am excited for our little tree and look forward to keeping it around as long as possible.

I also picked up fresh flowers for the apartment, putting some in our bedroom as well (photos will be coming, as soon as I get some daylight).  Having all of these freshly cut and growing plants in our apartment helps make up for the fact that winter has gone on for so long.  We will finally be seeing some warmer temperatures in the next few days, but the thermometer has not been kind the last few days... we're talking 30's and below.  I haven't been able to get in as many runs as I would have liked, but the weather between now and the race on Sunday is supposed to be much better than it has been.  I'll be downtown running on Sunday morning regardless!

Lately, it has occurred to T. and I that we are both in need of a vacation.  He is considering taking a solo weekend trip somewhere, something I am totally in support of, and I, at some point, would love to go out to Washington (I have good friends on both sides of the state) or Missouri to visit my sister and her sisters.

Along these lines, he and I took a week off in May for a vacation...  our first vacation in over two years, since our adventure to Costa Rica.  Granted, we've gone on small excursions here and there, but nothing that I would truly consider a "vacation."  We are still in the process of finalizing our plans, but I think this will be a very fun trip, and I am really looking forward to it.  I love adventuring and exploring with T. and I can't wait to see where the road takes us.

I have a few recipes I'm hoping to try out when my schedule allows for it, and I'm planning on documenting them here.  One of my goals upon moving into an apartment with my husband has been to become a better cook, and I have slowly but surely been working on it.  Plus, everybody loves a good recipe, and eating and truly enjoying food is a wonderful shared experience worth documenting.  I've also been getting into a little more baking--so far I've made brownies and cupcakes and they both turned out amazingly.  There are many family cookie recipes that I am hoping to get my hands on, and I can't wait to try them all out!

I've written about it before, but tonight when I was driving home from work, I glanced out the driver's side window at just the right moment to see the Chicago Skyline glittering through the haze of nighttime clouds there on the horizon.  It's truly a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing, and it's definitely much more difficult when you're heading in the opposite direction.  But it's there, for a brief moment in time, and its presence even when I can't see it is reassuring and steadfast.  A reminder that I have everything that I have ever wanted, and life is only getting sweeter.  (2014, you have been really good to me so far.  Thanks.)

Tomorrow: a run in the morning; lunch and a little bit of tidying up; work in the afternoon.  Only two more days until what is sure to be a fantastic weekend off!  Bring it on.  In the meantime...  11:40 p.m.  Time for some music and more writing and, eventually, sleep--to the wind rustling the trees and the trains just across the way.