A Eulogy...

It is with much grief and sorrow that I accept the loss of dear friends today. Yesterday, in a horrific accident capable of snapping one in two, the pair of friends were lost. It will take some time to recover from this terrible loss.

Yes, I loved my summer buddies. We hung out several times a week all spring & summer long for years - when the weather turned sour, they went their way and I went mine until we were reunited once again as the grass turned green and the tulips bloomed. They stood with me throughout boyfriends...throughout long hours hunched over Autocadd and the CAPM....throughout domestic trips and abroad...throughout stormy moments and sunny days.

Yes, I am going to miss my favorite black flip flops. Yes, indeed.

So, yesterday we came off the lake and I drove immediately to the grocery store. In a bathing suit and cover up, red nosed and on fire from the heat, I entered the grocery store to get items needed for tacos. Two steps into the grocery store, the left black flip flop toe thong broke in half. I attempted to walk in them anyway which was a complete and total failure. I pondered going home to get new shoes, but ultimately decided that I live in Soddy Daisy and that I am not going to get thrown out of the grocery store if I walk around it barefoot. I was so uncomfortable - it was beyond embarrassing. No joke, I walked around the entire grocery store with no shoes on. The worst part was getting the white american from the deli - because the deli is right by the front entrance and it took what seemed like a decade - and every 10 seconds someone entered the store looking me up and down. Yes, I was Soddy Daisy trash yesterday. Good times, good times.

Oh, so we went to dinner at a new place (new to us) on Fri with Amy & Chris. The Meeting Place was ok. I had some sort of potato crusted trout and Ben had lamb. Ben's was pretty good - mine was "eh". But I have to postscript with the fact that I'm not actually a huge fish person (yet have found delightful dishes at other restaurants). We will go back bec the atmosphere was fun and there are plenty of other items to try.

I'm still craving a repeat visit to Bluewater.

Only 12 more days of school...how awesome is that?

I am so excited for not having to carry around a heavy bag all the time. Well, sorta. Ben told me the other day that no matter where we go, I always carry a heavy bag. I do for workout days, I do for school, I do for the lake, and I do for work when I want to do school work during lunch. My massage therapist had a fit the last time i was in bec my neck was in such bad shape - if I turned my head certain ways extreme pains would shoot through my neck and shoulders and I feared that it would get stuck. No more! I can't wait.

We're thinking about having a graduation party on the 19th - just a cookout here at the house - bec we deserve something.

Let's see - what else?

Stephen Colbert is awesome. Love him. How did we ever live with just the "God Machine" blips on the Daily Show?

So, 8 weeks from tomorrow we're getting married. That's wild. Everyone should be getting their invites in the mail anyday now. Chatty folks got theirs yesterday - hopefully other TN folks got them today.

I've been busy with the details - very, very busy. I hope we get everything wrapped up soon. And I also hope this thing doesn't turn out tacky! Ha-ha. That's my biggest fear. I've been to way too many southern tacky weddings in my life.

Ok...moving on. Oh...saved the fake shoe company from sheer destruction...that was cool. Next week will be busy with writing my last paper & preparing for the last presentation while making the last 2 decisions. I'm glad that ben and I decided to not be in the same group this time bec I met two really great girls.

Life is good!

So, we're gettin' hitched...

We bought our wedding rings last night.

Umm...what else. Oh, yeah - Mom's shower - I'm thinking we may have to move that date back. It's only 3.5 weeks away and no invites have been sent. I think Karen is going to help, and I'm so grateful!

Must add towels and silverware to Dillards registry. Ben is supposed to pick out the silverware (it was his only request), so I must get him back into the mall.

My list of things to do is getting longer and longer. Every time I mark one thing off, I add 3 more. Buying the car did not help my to do list. It did help my comfort when driving around trying to mark off things on the to do list, though. :-)

Tomorrow I have appts with a table linen guy and a florist - spoke with the table linen guy yesterday and he sounds fun.

I have a gazillion little details floating around in my head right now, and I love it. I revel in details (opposed to Ben's "big picture" perspective).

So, I bought a car yesterday...

...and I get it tomorrow. This is a HUGE thing for me bec I had the Ranger for over 7 years. I don't rush into buying cars, as you guys well know - I've been contemplating this decision for about 4 years, and I finally did it.

Anyway, so what did I get? I got a new Honda Accord Coupe in white, 4 cyl, EX with leather. My only concern was that I wanted heated seats to make the winter more bearable, so now I have them. If I didn't have the wedding to pay for, I think I would have gotten an Acura TL or a Lexus IS 250 (or 350), but c'est la vie.

Anyway, Ben says people have been asking, so I'll say it on here: invitations will be sent out this week. I've been working on them when I get free time and I hope to finish today. My etiquette guide says you're supposed to send them out 6 weeks before the wedding, but since some people have to travel, I'm sending them out 8 weeks before. Crazy. We're getting married in 8 weeks and I don't even have a florist. Oh, yeah - and just to let everyone know why I'm being tacky and printing the envelopes - my handwriting sucks. I wrote the first one out, it looked horrible so I showed it to Ben and explained the situation, and we both agreed that they should be printed instead no matter what the rule is.

I think I'm gonna take a day off this week and Mom is going to come in so we can plan my family shower (and hopefully get a few things done for the wedding, too). That'll be fun! We've picked Aug. 12th for that. Jess & K and I discussed a friend one, and I think we'll do that on Aug. 26th. I'm so excited!

We've been trying to decide if we wanted to have anything for anyone who might want to come in a day early or leave late-ish - like a cookout or a dinner/lunch/some other event/etc, but we don't think anyone is going to come in early or stay a day late, so I guess we won't do that. For those that are staying at the site, there is a breakfast but we have to leave by 10AM (I think) so that will be rushed.

We had dinner at two new places this weekend - Blue Water on Friday night and Fox Cay last night. Bluewater (not sure if one word or two) was FABULOUS! Seared tuna appetizer came with thinly sliced cucumber - who knew that cucumber was so wonderful in wasabi & soy? I never thought to take it out of the sushi and eat it on its own. I had Grouper Piccata which was pretty good, but Ben had some sort of pesto flavored fish which was addicitive. Anyway, we recommend that one. Fox Cay was pretty cool, too. It used to be a horrible restaurant at a great location - it's on the water at the marina in Harrison. Crazy cool decks - just a great feel to it. Glad to know the food is much better now.

Well, my list of things to do is growing out of my control, so I guess I should stop typing and get some work done. It's been a whirlwind weekend. :-( Wish I could stop time so that I could get these other things accomplished.

Happy 4th of July!

So, what are we doing today? We don't really have anything on the agenda, and that is quite nice. We might drop by Jess & Terry's later on today - but it feels amazing just leaving everything unstructured for once.

We've had a wonderful weekend. Friday night we rented The Producers (okie slash dokie!) which I was happy to discover that Ben loved (and I must note the closing credits might have been the best part). Saturday, we went out on the boat on Chickamauga - it was like an ocean at some points even though there weren't too many boats out. Sunday, Ben went to see his dad, and I went shopping (ATL had the cutest yellow flip flops that I just couldn't resist - but everything else is too chocolate brown right now - I wanted some fun new work clothes but had to settle for boring new work clothes - and I have a feeling that the next round of new stuff will be fallish - which means no more summer brights :-( ). Yesterday, we went out on the boat again - to Nickajack and hung out around downtown. They have pops in the park on July 3rd every year the symphony plays to the fireworks so we hung around for that. Docked the boat and went to some new restaurant called the Blue Plate. It was "eh" at best. Cute decor, but my food wasn't very interesting - Ben said it was because I didn't order anything interesting, which could be true - I ordered side items - but I did expect more. His hamburger was pretty good, but I don't really see us going back there. They did make a pretty good Tequilla Sunrise, though - I'll give them that - and I have to say that was the first time in my life that I could order mac and cheese and a gin and tonic at the same place which was kind of cool. Anyway, then we went to this other new restaurant called Bluewater (what's up with all the blue names???) just to have a drink at the bar. Looked at the menu (and at our neighbors' food items) and I think we'll be going back there for a proper dinner. Then we tried to get ice cream before going back on the boat, line was crazy long, saw Nate and Ben, invited them on the boat, and we all hung out for the rest of the evening. Fireworks were cool - we were right underneath them which was awesome - wish we had been close to the symphony, though - ever since I've been here, I've always wanted to go to the Pops in the Park. Almost every year, I've had class on July 3rd - actually including this year - but since this is an unusual class (no teaching) and since we convinced the teacher to make nothing due - the whole class decided to not go. It felt nice not having any responsibilities for a few days.

So that was us - we had an excellent (long overdue relaxing) weekend.

Umm...I had a dream last night that I went to work on July 5th and was told "You would rather be a teacher, so we're transferring you to a local high school to teach math". They told me where to go, I went, and showed up to a Calculus class - brief moment of panic as I took Calc I in college 10 years ago this fall - but it seemed to work out fine. My dreams are usually rooted in the normal - not strange unbelievably weird flights of fancy - so I guess they're really not interesting enough to write about. Although, I did have that one dream last week that I was homeless again and I didn't have anywhere to go, so I bought a cot and a sleeping bag and was spending the night under the overhang at a gas station. Hehe. I woke up one morning to a car horn beeping at me to get out of the way - the guy wanted to use the pump I was sleeping by. I thought, "I don't have to do this too much longer - I'll have a new place to live soon."

We got some good news and some bad news this week.

It was good to see Ben Sch. I hadn't seen him in - gosh who knows how long? Ben Sch. was like my brother for so long - wherever Nate and I went, he went - and I have such a soft spot in my heart for him bec he is such a terrific guy.

Oh, and our deck is so full of color right now which makes me wonderfully happy. My lilies (stargazers and some plain pink ones) are blooming right now, the jasmine is getting huge, we're gonna have to cook with some of the herbs bec they need to be cut back, and the new plants that I tried this year are in fantastic shape! The hisbiscus adds such a tropical feel - although the Japanese beetles were having a feast until we took some beetle annihilating measures, the blue daze is fun and cheerful with its bright blue blooms, and the jasmine has the most intoxicating smell - paired with my lilies, it's like a perfumery on our deck. The front of the house is in such bad shape - we just don't care about landscaping - but we sure do love container gardening in the back...

So, what's been going on with us?

Ummm....started our last class. It's a strange class - a game of sorts. Anyway, the game is that each group owns a fictitious athletic shoe company. We must all make detailed decisions about our company and our competition is the other groups in the class. We have two practice rounds before the real competition starts. This is more of a "ben" class than a "stacey" class - I tend to like textbook learning over real world application - hence I would like to pursue a doctorate someday. Teaching sounds more fun than the stress of making real decisions - haha.

Ben went to Maryville tonight to have dinner with his dad, so it's been a nice quiet stacey evening. I cleaned up my computer a bit and have had some show called the 4400 on - it's weird - I don't really get it.

Two more hours of dish washing today - I hope that someday the house will get back into shape.

I am SOOOOOOOOOO happy for a four day weekend. I have a list of like 30 things I want to accomplish - both fun and work.

Anyway - I'm boring - guess I'll go - Ben is home...