Another six months

It's been a week of feeling old.

Well, actually, it hasn't for the most part. That was just a convenient way to start this post.

But it was actually my half birthday. I'm 28.5. You likely know that I only eat seasonal treats, but there are three times a year I can have whatever I want: (1) my half birthday, (2) the week of my birthday, and (3) New Year's week. Every year for my birthday, I have Mexican chocolate cake. And it just so happened that on my half birthday this week, my niece was making it for Young Women's. So the timing was perfect!

This picture has nothing to do with my post, except it's a run I did on Saturday. But Facebook no longer lets me choose the preview picture, and I didn't want food to show up.

Half birthdays aren't that big of a deal. Well, they're more of a big deal if I feel like I haven't done much, but I do feel like I've had some good accomplishments in the past six months, and I have plans to accomplish more in the coming six months. I've heard that being 29 is harder than being 30, and I've heard people make bucket lists to accomplish while they're 29, so I'm thinking whether I want to do one.

On Friday night, I attended a mission reunion. It's not like I had anything better to do, and it has been several years since I attended one with that mission president, and he recently became a General Authority, and he was speaking in conference, so I thought I'd say hi.

I attended my first mission reunion seven years ago. Seven! In those days, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I feel like it took me two years after I was home to adjust to "You're not a missionary anymore and it's OK." I never feel totally comfortable at reunions with this president. I only had him the last five months of my mission, during which time I was in one of the farther areas. When I talk to him at reunions, I know he barely remembers me, for the reasons I just mentioned, and because I'm frankly not that memorable. Also, I look considerably different than I did when I came home from my mission, and even then I looked considerably different than I did in my transfer board picture.

I also don't know many of the people there. I situated myself at a table with people I knew somewhat but not very well. To my knowledge, I was the oldest missionary there. (And by oldest, I mean the first to enter the mission; there were others there who were older in age.) It's always weird to meet up with various people you've unfriended through the years and see them with their multiple children...and I'm over here without even a girlfriend. I don't really mind being single, just that others think I'm deficient for being so. And let's be honest, I'd rather be single than several times divorced.

Um...I meant to make this post more thoughtful, but it's late and I'm tired. Between conference sessions yesterday and today, I made parsnip wheat berry pie,

(It was much better when it had mushrooms and asparagus instead of parsnips and wheat berries)

 carrot celery soup, and carrot cake.

Not a traditional carrot cake. Traditional carrot cake is my very favorite, though I only eat it at Easter. This version was good but underwhelming. But the quality of the cake is better than the quality of the picture!

Therefore, with all that cooking and conference watching, I'm writing this late. Maybe next week's post will be better.