Someone special.
Well, it’s been nearly a month since my last blog post — the longest gap between blog posts since I started blogging back in 2003. Why the delay? Well, I’ve found something else to take up my time. Or perhaps I should say someone else.
I danced barefoot with my new sweetie at the Ohme Gardens Wine Gala last week. My friend Kriss shot this photo of us.
Yes, it’s true. After three years of being single, with occasional time-wasting dates that really made me happy to be single, I began a serious relationship with someone I’ve known for about a year. His name is Kirk, he’s retired (early), and he lives on a 15-acre orchard/farm in nearby Peshastin. I ran into him at a Meetup event the Thursday before my birthday at the end of June, he invited me on a double date for dinner and dancing in Leavenworth the next evening, and things progressed rather quickly from there. He treated me to the best birthday I’ve had in more years than I like to admit — pardon me if I leave out the details. We now spend quite a bit of time together doing the kinds of things we both like to do: hiking, dancing, eating out, picking blueberries, cooking, flying, exploring swimming holes, you name it.
And yeah, that, too. I’ve done more of that in the past month than I had in the last three years of my marriage.
Kirk is smart, upbeat, and friendly. He’ll start a conversation with anyone and learn interesting things along the way. He’s confident and comfortable in his own skin. He knows how to make me feel good about myself and never belittles me or tries to embarrass me in front of friends. He obviously doesn’t feel threatened by either my intelligence or success. There doesn’t seem to be a mean bone in his body.
He doesn’t have any previous relationship baggage and isn’t a slave to a job or tied to high-maintenance offspring or parents. He says Yes far more often than No. He’s willing to try anything once and then do it again if he likes it. Better yet, he actually suggests fun things to do so I don’t have to.
He makes me happy. Very happy.
And he keeps me busy. So busy that I simply don’t have time to blog.
So if you don’t mind, I’ll need to cut things short here. He’s on his way for dinner tonight. I’ll grill up some chicken tenders and he’ll cook green beans from his garden. I’m hoping he’ll bring some rhubarb, too — I’m thinking of strawberry rhubarb topping on vanilla ice cream for dessert. Wine on the deck for sunset. Later, when it gets dark, we’ll take out the telescope and explore the heavens.
Still later, we’ll likely do some other things that I won’t detail here.
I’ll get back to blogging regularly one of these days. I hope you’ll keep checking in.
The generous contributions of readers like these help make this site possible. Not only do they help me cover the cost of hosting an ad-free site that gets thousands of hits a day, but they encourage me to keep writing here — to keep sharing my experiences, opinions, and photos with people who apparently find value in them.