This is a lightly edited re-post of a recent post I made to my Facebook status on my birthday this year:

Thank you so very much to everyone for the kind wishes on my birthday. My day went something like this:

I celebrated by getting up at 4:30am in San Diego (we got about 4 hours sleep).  April and I returned the rental car and caught the 6:30am flight to Chicago. We had about 45 minutes to make our connection to Asheville and had to hustle from the C concourse to the F Concourse at O’Hare; suffice it to say that it’s far. We hustled however, fit in a bathroom break and a stop for sandwiches and made it with 10 minutes to spare. Which is a good thing because the airplane was delayed, de-iced and re-stocked with water — all while we waited. Anyway, the airline did get us home tonight and faithfully delivered our luggage back to us so all IS now right with my world. There’s something for me about descending beneath the cloud cover and seeing nothing but trees and mountains that makes my City Induced Aggression Syndrome melt away. <– I made that up BTW, don’t bother googling it. This would normally be a pretty average day for me travel-wise but April was with and even though we were both tired and grumpy my life is immeasurably better when we are together. Plus, it’s always a good travel day when you actually get where you are going AND are in love with the person sitting next to you.

I had a date with Lexi for dinner tonight and as a very nice surprise Erica wanted to come too. We ate at Plant:

(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Plant/102125983212959?fref=ts)

We shared the smoked hummus appetizer and a bowl of asparagus soup and ordered separate entrees. If you have ever eaten there you will know this isn’t an exaggeration when I say that every bite of food was an amazing taste, texture and smell sensation that I have never experienced anywhere else. The endorphins never stopped rushing, every mouthful of food was chewed tirelessly in order to extract every nanogram of flavor therein. The table was silent except for the muted sounds of chewing and after a while my cheeks ached from the perma-grin. I am currently in a food induced coma but I did manage to keep my wits about me long enough to remark that every time I eat at Plant I think to myself “this is the best restaurant I have ever eaten at, anywhere” (and I’m not even vegetarian let alone vegan). I just want to say thank you to all of my friends at Plant who make that place so reliably, repeatedly fantastic. So now all I have to do is polish off some of the assorted delicious looking desserts that I found at the end of a trail of post-it-notes when I got home. That and climb in bed, assuming I can even make it that far.

I have had a wonderful 47th (yes, that’s right) birthday, I feel blessed that I am surrounded by such amazing people both here and in my non-internet based relationships.

I think I can say that I’m happier and healthier in mind and body than I have ever been — and that’s thanks to all of you. Peace. — at Asheville, NC.