I thought it was a weird feeling when people my own age started having kids. Then I found out what it felt like when their kids started attending high school. Now, I�m finding out what it feels like when a person whose birth I remember has her own kids.

My much younger cousin is in labor, right now. Perhaps it�s a generational thing, but if I was sitting in a hospital bed at four centimeters, updating FB about it wouldn�t be my first priority.

Last week, on my one day off, I was exhausted, but I kept myself running all day. I don�t remember the details, but I know it involved rearranging furniture, cooking and cleaning. I was trying to avoid feeling like a lonesome loser that has nowhere to be. Adam worked all day that day, so I was home alone.

I decided that I need to take a step back and get comfortable with my new situation. I need to relax.

Today, the same thing happened. Adam had to grade papers, so I invented a bunch of stuff that needed doing.

There were some dried chickpeas stored in a glass container in my kitchen for approximately three years. Last night, I sorted them and sniffed them thoroughly and they still seemed fine, so I started soaking them. Today, I finished reconstituting them, and discovered that I�d totally underestimated how much they would swell with liquid. I was just planning on making hummus.

I ended up making a bunch of chickpea �tuna� salad first, and then made this hummus recipe. I liked it because it didn�t require a lot of oil and it suggested that I could different kinds of nut butters in place of tahini.

I don�t have any tahini, but I had heard good things about using peanut butter to make hummus. Of course, we�re talking about the unsweetened, ground-peanuts and salt only, kind.

Neither Adam nor I can tolerate peanut butter that has any additives. The only peanut butter related contention we have� ok, there�s actually two.

The first, I prefer smooth and he prefers chunky. I grew up around chunky peanut butter eaters. My ex-husband preferred it, too. That caused me to take it for granted that chunky was better. I think I even bought chunky peanut butter for a year or two after my divorce. Until one day, when, for the millionth time, I was eating peanut butter, hating the nut fragments and the thought occurred to me, �What am I, an idiot? I can buy smooth peanut butter!� Since then, I�ve refused to eat chunky peanut butter. Adam and I buy separate jars.

The second, he hates jam and jellies of any kind. He won�t eat a PB&J. He�ll eat PB and just about anything else, but not J. Usually, he�ll happily finish any leftover food that I can�t eat, but not if it�s PB&J. For the most part, this doesn�t bother me, except when I don�t feel like finishing my PB&J.

So, anyway, the hummus turned out quite well. Adam and I both agree that it is better than any store hummus we�ve ever had. This recipe yields a lot of hummus, too. As I was heading to the sink with the silicon spatula that I had used to scrape the hummus out of the food processor, Adam said, �What are you doing? Don�t wash that off!� He took it from me and licked off the hummus. I said, �Look! There�s a giant vat of hummus, right there!� (pause) �Did you ever think I would say that? �There�s a giant vat of hummus?��

Once that was done, I made rice milk again. By the time the rice milk needed to rest, Adam was done with grading, and the sun was going down, so it had cooled off enough for us to play Frisbee. I tweaked my back a little bit while we were playing.

I came back inside and I finished the rice milk process, and then tried to go straight into working out with weights. My back started to spasm, so Adam made me lay flat on the floor. I lay there, feeling old and decrepit for about ten minutes, until my back settled down. Then, I looked up at Adam pleadingly and said, �Can I please have some weights?�

He let me have them, and I continued on with the workout, while being mindful of my back, and of course, skipping all the back exercises. I did ok. Once my back was feeling warm enough, I did a few yoga poses that I knew would stretch out my back and I think I felt some kind of re-alignment around the spot that was hurting.

Tomorrow, we�re going to a BBQ in the afternoon. Clearly, I need to get out and be away from anymore possible projects. I probably would have also made bread today, had I not already baked a loaf earlier in the week. By the way, I used 100% whole wheat flour. It came out quite dense, but I liked it a lot.

I need to chill out, plus the fridge is full. It can�t handle another salad, baked good or condiment.

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