As you may know, last week was my birthday and I wanted to take a moment to share some of my reflections on turning 36. For a long time, every year for my birthday it was about going somewhere or doing something. Now I’ve reached a point in life where I choose to go nowhere and spend as much of the day relaxing as possible. I’m officially a Dream House Hermit. I absolutely love being in my space and I love inviting people into my space.

This year, my mom came over along with some friends and their kids and we all just had a good ass time. When it comes to my mom, well, I’m the apple that didn’t fall far—we love so much of the same things, the most important one for birthdays being creamy delicious alcoholic beverages. She made me drinks and kept things going all day
long.

What struck me the most about this particular day might seem like such a small thing, but to me it meant so much. We spent the entire afternoon at the pool. No big deal, right? Well, I have never lived in a community that had a pool that I could just go to. To me, it was amazing to just get to go sit out at the pool, relax, not stress about my kids because this pool also has a kiddie pool, and just be there.
Then there was the after-pool nap.

You know the kind. The soft nap where you’re not like totally asleep the whole time, but just completely chill. My mom took care of my littles to gift me with said soft nap and it. Was. Everything.

Overall, 36 feels pretty similar to 35, but I can feel that I’m approaching a different phase of my life. It’s become all about finding the quickest, simplest way to get to the end result.

And for the first time ever, I actually enjoy time off. I have always been so much of a workaholic that not only did I rarely take time off, when I did I could never relax and enjoy that time. I’m finally finding a work/life balance. Raise your drink of choice (mine is a mudslide) and let’s cheers to 36!