Thanks for the Birthday Wishes!

Hi Everyone!

I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes, Happy Birthday to Abby and good luck to Cathy on her interview. I feel very much like I've been on hiatus and have been meaning to give everyone a brief update on what I've been doing. 

Well, in case you didn't know, I'm back in Chattanooga for the rest of the semester. I was able to score a little space to process my soils (which basically is picking out roots) - so that's what I've been doing since September. I'm really glad that I can do this here because then I don't have to spend that time away from Stelios. Although the room I'm in is a bit like a closet - no windows, brick on 3 sides and the 4th is painted with things like spider man, the cat in the hat and has a bunch of writings. It used to be the smoking room for the building and based on the painting, I don't think it was necessarily tobacco based smoking.

My entire family was just here for the week (and we managed to find places for everyone to sleep in the house!). My parents were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. Because they spent part of their honeymoon in Smoky Natl Park, we had to go there for a few days. And since my younger brother loves Civil War History, we spent a good day and a half on the battlefields around here. It was kind of fun though. We have a distant relative that fought in the battle here and so we followed where his infantry was during the two days of the battle. Definitely made the experience a bit more personal. It was a really nice visit. When I finally download some scenic vista pics, I will try to post them.

Stelios and I spent my birthday hiking. There is part of the Cumberland Trail just a few miles north of our house so we went there. It was very pretty as the trail was up a gorge and the leaves are turning colors - Stelios was even happier because there were still a few beetles that he could collect. Other than that, he got me some flowers and a wonderful chocolate cake and we spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from all the family.

Hopefully I will get some pics posted soon! Thanks again for the Happy Birthdays!