Celebrate with us.

Today it’s been FOUR YEARS since Sam and I found our home in Texas. It was Saturday and Sunday on Memorial Day weekend 2007, Sam was being transferred, and we were house-hunting in the Dallas suburbs with a really nice realtor named Darrell. By lunch time on Sunday we realized we’d been comparing every house we saw to one perfect house we loved the day before, so we wrote a check to Darrell and bought it. (The house, not lunch.) Here are two photos for your possible interest.

But wait ... there’s more! Because I made a promise to myself and to Sam that I’d never stink up our brand new house with cigarettes, this weekend we’re also celebrating FOUR YEARS SINCE I QUIT SMOKING. I was an addict for 42 years — seriously, that’s NOT a typo — but quitting turned out to be easy and the smartest thing I ever did aside from marrying Sam. My smoker’s cough disappeared after the first two days and I’ve never looked back. All together now: YAY MARCY!

As part of our Memorial Day weekend celebration, tomorrow Sam and I will make a pilgrimage to Eatzi’s, an amazing gourmet market in Dallas’ Oak Lawn neighborhood.

We visited Eatzi’s for the first time the same weekend we bought our house in 2007 and try to go back at least once a year to buy French baguettes and worship at the deli counter. It’s a religious experience.

Incidentally, this is what happens to senior citizens. You get nostalgic about idiotic things like markets, lucky underwear and froggie banks. (You’ll have to ask Sam about the froggie bank issue.)

I’m going to take a shower now and then finally eat some dinner. I warmed up a container of jambalaya a couple of hours ago that I bought yesterday at Costco but the flavor was seriously crappy so I threw it out. Now that I’m finally hungry again I’m considering chicken salad, a bowl of watermelon and an Errol Flynn movie. Thank you for reading this!