It Will Be 2 Months Tomorrow...

 

Lisa and I sat on our back porch last night after dinner. We lingered. It was a gorgeous Fall evening. Our solar lights kicked on. It was quiet. Peaceful. There was a little breeze. At times, it was snowing leaves. We joked about having to leaf blow and vacuum the leaves in both of our backyards. After a short bout of silence, I blurted out a thought that hit my brain quite suddenly. 

"It'll be 2 months tomorrow..."

Lisa looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"It will be 2 months since we've had people over for dinner."

She absorbed what I elaborated on.

I told her that the last time we had people over for dinner was on August 9th. It was a few days after Tropical Storm Isaias gave our area a beating. A lot of our friends and Lisa's coworkers were still without power days later. Amid a heatwave. 

On August 9th, we opened our doors for the second time and made a huge feast for those who were still without power. 

And, it's been the longest stretch in over 7 years that we haven't had people over for dinner. 

Lisa reminded me that it had been longer than 2 months since the last time. 

August 9th was to help those who had been affected by Tropical Storm Isaias. 

Prior to that, it was mid-July. 

Gasp!

We sat there for a bit before I broke the silence.

"Is that bad?"

Lisa didn't hesitate before answering, "Nope."

From that point on, we talked about the past 7+ years. 

I'm not going to bore you with the details.

What I will say is that for over 7 years, most weekends, we had company over for dinner or had gatherings to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. In addition, we had backyard fires, girl's nights, last-minute gatherings, etc.

We were always doing something.

It was to the point that when we bought our house in February, I was worried about the Halloween party we always had at our old home. This year would have been the 7th year to host the neighborhood and beyond Halloween party. 

I planned on having it the weekend before Halloween.

But. 

Between COVID and absolutely loving our "no plans" weekends, those plans never materialized and that happened early on. 

It's ironic because when we bought our house in February, Lisa and I talked about not making a lot of changes indoors and outdoors until we cycled through all of the seasons. That pertained to everything from the landscaping in our many yards and building a garden area and painting the indoors and figuring out where to put the air conditioners. 

I had no idea that it would also pertain to not doing what we used to do and the frequency in which we did it. And, that includes having new perspectives. 

Those new perspectives and everything that we've learned deserves its own blog column. And that will happen soon.

Very. Soon.