Random Thoughts From Home

Some days I wake up and still find it a bit weird that I'm back in my home town. I'm totally enjoying myself here, more so with each passing month, but certain aspects of being here are still strange to me. High school literally feels like yesterday to me, probably because I spent so much of my 20s in school, but when I think back to high school here, I have a hard time putting all the pieces together.

For example, I went by my old house I lived in when I was 17. Strangely enough, I couldn't remember how I got to school in the mornings. I'm pretty sure I walked to school, and I'm pretty sure I met my friend Landy on the way, but I really couldn't say what route we took or where we met in the mornings. It's hard to believe that it's been about 13 years since I was in high school.

There's a certain tranquility that comes from living out in the country here that I found I've really been missing these last few years. The other night I was sitting on an outdoor chair swing with my niece Jessica, staring up at the stars and talking about all the boys in her class and what-not, and it was pretty awesome. In fact, just being able to walk out my front door and walk over to my sister's house in about 10 minutes is a pretty nice feeling.

I have a couple of goals this summer. First, I want to reconnect with a few old friends back here, something I'm slowly starting to do. I'm also trying to undo about five years of abuse on my body, mostly as a result of lack of sleep and eating crappy restaurant food non-stop. To that end, I've been going to the gym fairly religiously for the past few weeks, and have been trying to eat at home as often as I can (something I rarely did in the city). I've been strengthening my knee at the gym, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to try a hike one day soon and see if I can get back into that. I'd like to do Mount Cheam this summer, something I missed out on when my friends did it a few years ago.

I'm hoping this will be a really memorable summer. Given that I've already visited San Francisco and am currently preparing to go to Victoria this weekend, it's off to a great start already. A couple other random things I want to do this summer are :

• A wine tasting tour in the Okanagan
• Camping up at Cultus Lake
• A road trip, either to Banff or Oregon
• Play guitar at a coffee shop

That's it off the top of my head, but I'm sure I'll come up with many more items over the summer.