growing up

sometimes i really get 'growing up.' i understand the draw of staying home on a saturday night, cooking dinner and listening to NPR (a prairie home companion, selected shorts), making fresh pizza dough and just being in my space. i didn't used to understand. i didn't even think, before this year, that i'd be able to give up going out to dinner 2 or 3 nights every week. but it's been easy...simple...fun, even. i've begun cooking more, planning out meals and cooking them up for the two of us. sometimes we eat together at the dining room table, sometimes we read or sometimes we watch tv. but we've said that when we have kids, we'll eat together every night at the dining room table like we both did with our families when we were little. that's something that we wish our students had--dinner at the dinner table with their families, every night. we've talked about how that's where you learn to talk with grown-ups, to eat with manners, to enjoy a meal with your family.

i always think of my mom, my grandma, when i bake. i made pizza dough with my friends' anne and hannah's recipe that they made for us before we got married. and i have been listening to NPR for a few hours now. i don't even want to watch TV. i just want to listen to the radio.

i like growing up, and i'm starting to get it. i hope for jesse and i that we can grow old together just like my grandparents, and so i love the things i do, we do, that are like my grandparents. like baking bread, and listening to NPR on a saturday night. because really, that's an okay thing to do on a saturday night.