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...