Miss Macy

Aside from my husband, my little dog Macy is the center of the universe. At least, at our house she is :)

When we first brought her home she was (and still is to people who come to our house) WILD! But when it's just us, she's a sweet girl who just wants to snuggle. I caught her one day last week right before she took a nap. I can't believe how much she has grown!

I know that I will miss her sweet face when I go back to work in August. I mean really, who wouldn't?!

A New Project

My friend Erin blogs about the books she reads. She is attempting to read and blog 100 books this year. You can see her site on my blogroll.

I really want to spend more time on this blog, and part of the problem is that I feel it has lost some direction. At first, the blog was a place for us to update about our home's renovations because so many of our friends and family don't live close enough to us to come and see it as it develops. But a combination of completing lots of our projects and a time crunch seemed to make this topic fade away.

Then I tried writing about our lives in general. Lots of things happened to us in 2009, and I was glad to see it go.

I found myself pretty excited to write about my summer reading list (so far) and here's what I'm throwing out for a new exploration: book reviews.

I just purchased the Barnes and Noble nook, and I'm super excited about reading so many books so quickly. Over our weekend adventure with Matt and Erin, we went to Ed McKay, which is the best used book store I've ever laid eyes on. It's my one must-see every time we are in Greensboro. I picked up some new books (to me) there, too. I'm consuming them so fast!!

So now I want to tell you, faithful blog follower, what I'm reading and what I think of it when I finish. I'm thinking I'll write about books on Wednesdays each week. What do you think?

An (Un)Eventful 4th of July

I've heard it said that we make plans and God laughs.

True story.

Johnathan and I had plans to spend the July 4th holiday in Atlanta, Ga. My friend David was going to be there for AP training all week, so we thought we would join him there for a few days and have a sort of mini-vacation. We had some financial setbacks that prevented that trip, and I was sad to tell David we wouldn't make it to ATL after all.

Instead, we decided late Thursday night that we were going to spend the holiday weekend in Greensboro with other friends. Let me stop here and say a little bit about this, because I know you're thinking who cares about what you did this weekend or when you decided it?!

I am a planner. I live by calendars and deadlines and plans. I like to know well in advance what's going on as much as possible, and I don't like unexpected events that could have been planned. Disorganization drives me crazy in my classroom and in my life. The chaos that sometimes surrounds my husband's family due to the sheer number of them can put me into a panic attack in no time.

I would have planned our trip to Greensboro for days. Worked on a plan for meals and spending and such. Instead, we packed the car, we left Macy with my mom and we left Friday afternoon.

I cannot even begin to say how enjoyable and relaxing the trip was. No traffic on the way or on the way back (interesting by itself since I-85 was a disaster area all weekend...guess no one used I-40 but us). We stayed up late geeking out playing Beatles Rock Band and catching up at a pub downtown. Saturday we slept late, shopped a little, took in a movie and grilled out back at the house where we stayed. It wasn't hectic, there were no plans.

It was just lovely.

In the world where we live today, there is so much uncertainty and conflict. I'm beyond thankful that when it comes to the precious friendships I have, there is neither.