I’m overdue for an update, but you haven’t missed much. My excellent adventures have had a local flavor for the past couple of weeks. The weekdays are occupied with work during the day and reading in the evening. I can plow through a book pretty quickly and I’ve managed to read three novels (Rita Golden Gelman’s Tales of a Female Nomad; Gayle Forman's You Can't Get There From Here; Phoebe Damrosch’s Service Included) along with my magazine subscriptions, The Tennessean, and Rick Steves guidebooks. I did spend a few hours at the DMV on Friday, and I am now an official Tennessee resident once again. With no offense to any of my friends or family, I can’t say I’m particularly proud of this! Weekends tend to be a bit more spontaneous or at least a little less predictable. Greg & I spent last weekend at my mom’s house in Orlinda, TN. The primary purpose was to help take care of my Grandmother Patterson while Mom & Ronnie were in Terre Haute, IN. But we also got to baby sit my nephews, Grant & Bryce, on Friday night. It was a nice getaway with plenty of time to cook, read, walk, talk, and generally relax. We even took a quick drive up to Franklin, KY past miles and miles of corn and tobacco fields. It really is a beautiful area if you like country living. And we always enjoy feeding Mom & Ronnie’s goats! This weekend brought an unexpected but welcome visitor, Greg’s brother Doug, from Atlanta. We picked him up at the bus station in downtown Nashville around 9pm Friday night. Of course, he had plenty of stories to tell about his fellow passengers on the Greyhound bus! We had a fun evening walking down 2nd Avenue and drinking beer at Big River Grille. Saturday was a mix of work & play. We borrowed a neighbor’s truck and hauled a load of stuff to the dump and then met my Dad & Debbie for lunch. I also sold an unused X10 security system on Craigslist and we delivered it to the buyer’s house, which I never would have done if I was alone but we happened to be in that general vicinity for lunch and I had three other people with me. I only bring this up because I now believe the reason the guy bought the security system is his house is being used for dealing drugs. I only saw what I would call the living room of his house and there was nothing livable about it! A new adventure starts on Monday. Greg & I are flying out to Seattle for the month of August. As we both work remotely, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to test out living in another city. I’ve been to Seattle many times, and even looked at houses in the area a few years ago, but ended up buying in New Hampshire instead. Greg has never been anywhere north of San Francisco so this is a nice way to get a feel for the Pacific Northwest to find out if it’s somewhere he might be interested in living. We’ll be working during the week, but should have plenty of time to explore the city in the evenings. We also have a total of four weekends to take some overnight trips to places like Portland, Vancouver, and the San Juan Islands. Our home for the month is an extended-stay hotel in the Queen Anne neighborhood, a couple of blocks from the Space Needle. We should be able to walk or take public transportation anywhere we need to go. I am definitely looking forward to not being dependent on a car as is necessary here in Nashville. I’m also ready for some fresh seafood and a multitude of non-chain restaurants to choose from. The food is what I miss the most about New York, besides the public transportation (and my friends of course!). So today (Sunday) will be spent packing and preparing for being away for a month. The nice thing about Greg’s and my life at this point is our lack of strings. Meaning there’s nothing that ties us to a particular location right now. It remains to be seen to what extent we’ll take advantage of that.