Savannah, GA

The past couple of days I was lucky enough to be able to get away from Cookeville and head down to Savannah, GA with my parents. Savannah is a gorgeous city, and it was nice to spend some quality time with the 'rents.

If you ever have a chance to get down there, I highly recommend it! For a semi-history buff like me, it was extremely interesting. We got to see several pre-Civil War houses, and I absolutely loved the architecture and stories behind them! The weather for the most part was agreeable, and as always, I loved being able to walk everywhere. I think the main thing we did, though, was eat, lol. There are so many amazing restaurants in Savannah, and of course we wanted to try as many of them as possible! I'm thinking of entering a major diet mode actually to cleanse myself of all the great albeit rich food we had. Of course we ate at the Lady and Sons, Paula Deen's restaurant, and had some of the best pecan pie I've ever had. We also had some great seafood along the riverfront, and we sampled incredible fried chicken at Mrs. Wilkes! All in all, it was a pretty successful trip I would say, and I'm in love with the deep southern mystique that Savannah has to offer. What a great little vacation, and a great place to brush up on my Civil War history! :-)

So, now I'm back in Cookeville and getting into the swing of work again. I'm writing a few more articles for Strum Magazine this week...y'all should check it out, I added it as a link on the righthand side of the page, along with all of the articles I've written for the magazine thus far. I'll also be continuing to work at the Market on the Square while I make a decision on where I'm going at the end of the summer. I think I've given myself an August deadline to make a decision. One last relaxing summer in Tennessee, and then who knows where the wind will blow me! I do know that I'm headed for Costa Rica in 4 weeks!!! 4 weeks until I see the beautiful shores of Montezuma while spending some quality time with my family!!

Hope all is well for everyone! I'll leave you with a beautiful picture of a ship docking in Savannah at sunset.

Love and peace,

Amelia

Can't sleep...I want a pinwheel.

So, it's 2 a.m., and I am yet again wide awake. My attempts to become an early bird have obviously failed thus far, so I guess I'll just have to try again next week. All of you people out there who don't have sleeping troubles...any suggestions??

Tomorrow, though, I will be forced to be an early bird. My dear friend Jess Padgett is getting married tomorrow, and she asked me to do some singing at her wedding. I'm pretty excited and honored to be a part of her big day! The wedding is in Kentucky, so I'll be getting up bright and early, along with my buddies Kristen and Jacquie, to head north to celebrate Jess's big day. I'm excited to spend quality time with some of my UTRI sisters. I met Jess and Jacquie last summer while I was interning at UTRI, and I love it when I get to spend time with them. :-) So, we're off to see Jess get hitched tomorrow, and we're praying for no rain because the wedding is supposed to be outside. No rain please!

On a more sentimental note, I said good-bye to my bro tonight for 6 weeks. I always get sad when I know I'm not going to see him for a while. Of course, he's not exactly sentimental, lol, guess it's not very cool. Him leaving, though, means I'll be chilling at Montezuma in 6 weeks...this makes my heart happy. :-)

So...lately I've been trying to be less thoughtful and more surface level. This sounds shallow, I know, but the more thoughtful I am, the more I analyze things, and the more I drive myself crazy. Anyway, the highlight of my day today was extremely thought-provoking, and today I was okay with that.

While I was at work, my boss's granddaughter was frolicking around the store just being a normal 6 year old. When she goes to the downstairs part of the store, she's always supposed to tell someone so that we can keep track of her. Today, as she was about to head downstairs, she yelled, "I'm going downstairs!! Hey, wait...what's that?"

She was pointing out the front door and windows, made entirely of glass, at a black and white polka dotted pinwheel stuck in a large flower pot right outside the store. She said, "Come hold the door for me!"

So, I followed her out the door and stayed there to watch her. The wind was blowing because it was pretty stormy this afternoon, so the pinwheel was spinning wildly. She just watched it for a while, then when the wind died down for a second, she blew on the pinwheel and moved it with her hands to make it spin again. This is where the highlight of my day comes in...

The wind picked up again, and the pinwheel started to spin. She looked at it, looked at me, and then just started to clap her hands, jump up and down, and laugh happily. I wish I could have taken a picture of her face. The sheer look of joy was indescribable and for what? A pinwheel? How many of us would be excited or happy to see a pinwheel spinning in the breeze?

I want this childlike fascination in my life again. Can you imagine how much happier our lives would be if we enjoyed little things more? A pinwheel...I want one...just so I can see that little girl's face in my mind and know that happiness really can come from the little things.

Well, I guess I will attempt to fall asleep now. 6 a.m. is going to come really early...

Hope all is well for everyone!

Love and peace,

Amelia

Writing and working!

Hello to everyone! It's been an exciting last few weeks since my last post! I completed one semester of graduate school, and I pulled straight A's! I was pretty pumped about that! Also...I can't remember if I mentioned in my last post that I got an internship with an online magazine out of Nashville called Stum Magazine. Today, my first article was posted online!

Click here to check it out.

I'm extremely pumped about this as well! I'm padding my portfolio! Things are going pretty well. Other than writing and finishing up my semester, I've just been working a lot. I'm working at this little shop on the square in Cookeville called The Market on the Square. For the time being, it's a pretty good job, though I'm definitely still ready to start looking for a grown-up job lol.

So, things are going pretty well I suppose. I'm looking forward to the rest of the summer. My bro is leaving for Costa Rica on Saturday, so I'll be sad to see him go, but I'll be headed to there as well at the end of June to visit him, so that's exciting!

Hope everything is going well for everyone else! Enjoy the beginnings of summer!

Peace and love,

Amelia

Up and at 'em!

Up and at 'em! (The phrase I heard every morning for most of my growing up years...I love my mom, but I think she knows how I feel about it, lol) So, I'm up early...okay, maybe 8 a.m. isn't very early for all you morning people out there, but for me that's pretty impressive! I'm going to try this whole getting-up-early thing for a while to see how it works out for me. I've always been a night owl but the phrase the-early-bird-gets-the-worm is starting to appeal to me. I'm about to start hardcore looking for jobs, but my current job occurs every afternoon. If you know me, then you know that doesn't bode well for my new job hunt. (Unless I have something important to get up for, I usually won't get up.) However, in order to facilitate said job hunt, I'm going to need more hours in the day, so it looks like getting up earlier is the answer! I know this isn't rocket science, but I've been fighting early morning wake-ups since I was probably 2 or 3 years old. I think it's time for some changes. :-)

I have one final this week, and then I will be finished with one semester of graduate school. As previously stated in my last blog, I'm taking some time off from school. So, after this week, you would think I would have a lot more free time to dedicate to job searching...it seems, however, that my class schedule is just being replaced with a new schedule. Instead of working for Habitat for Humanity and going to class, I'm going to be working at a new internship with an online magazine and studying for the GRE. So, no free time for Amelia! It's okay though, I prefer to be busy these days anyway...makes me feel productive. :-)

Travel plans have changed slightly. I am still going to Costa Rica at the end of June! Woo hoo!! I'm super excited to go back and see mi segunda patria (second home). I need some pura vida in my life again! Family vacation plans to the gulf coast have changed due to the oil spill...such a sad happening. I feel terrible for all the poor animals and shrimp fishermen down there. :-( It also looks like I might not be going to New York either. This saddens me, but I know I'll get up there someday. So, new family travel plans are in the works, not quite sure where we're going yet, but I'm already excited!!

Hope all is well for everyone out there! Enjoy the glorious spring weather!

Peace and love,

Amelia