Granny Said So!

Well, according to Andy, when Granny makes requests, things should happen. Granny's been hard at work this week it seems, because suddenly everyone's blogs are getting updated!

During all of the sadness and such with Hurricane Katrina, I really stayed pretty glued to the TV. When I was on the computer, I was busy reading all I could about what was going on. Those people are nowhere near out of the woods yet, but what's done is done. All we can do is continue to pray and help in whatever way we can find. They say there are silver linings to every cloud, and I guess for me, the silver lining in this great tragedy has been in seeing the outpouring of love and generosity from our entire country. It is so devastating to see all of those in need, but there are those few stories that come through of people truly giving their all for others that give a glimmer of hope for an often self-centered country.

All of that aside, I've been a busy girl lately. School is going well. The new clan is keeping me on my toes. They're actually a really good group, but I'm having a harder time getting attached to them because of it. I think it's usually the stinkers that you spend so much time with that you really get attached to.

I posted some new(ish) pictures on the Flicker account. A group of friends got together to go to the Brew at the Zoo. This was a wonderful event at the Louisville Zoo! It was sponsored by a local brewery, and it was a wonderful tasting party! There were three huge tents set up filled with tables representing tons of local eateries. For a flat donation, you could visit each table and eat til you dropped! We certainly got our money's worth. Furthermore, the cost included admission to the zoo itself, so we wandered down to the new Lorikeet exhibit and had a ton of fun taking pictures of everyone with the birds. Personally, I'm kind of creeped out by the whole bird thing (thanks, Granny), but I had fun watching all of them. The birds were beautiful and made great photos!

This weekend, I went camping with a group of friends from Louisville Mojo. Mojo is a Louisville based social website described as "free personal ads, events, classifieds, forums, chat, and more". It's not a personals/dating site, but is just a huge network of people who often get together for a ton of different activities. I've met a wonderful group of friends through the site and the places I've visited with them. All of the people seen in the Brew at the Zoo pictures are from that group. Anyway, five of us headed to Red River Gorge this weekend for a fun night of camping. Pictures of that will be coming in the next day or two, but I'm running out of steam. We had a wonderful time, and the area was really pretty. I'm not sure it was worth a 2 hour drive to get to camping, but I'm glad I can now say I've been there.

Today, Doug and I spent the day in Indianapolis! Doug, in his extreme geekiness, has been dying to get the new Ipod. I'm not really sure why he needs it, as he already has a couple, but I no longer question Doug's electronic and gadget needs. Apparently there is no store in Louisville that carries these little gadgets just yet, so Doug decided a road trip was in order. I agreed to ride along if he'd take me to the Indy Children's Museum. I've heard wonderful things about it. When we first got into town, we were starving, and just happened to come across a Cheesecake Factory. This is apparently a national chain restaurant that has been getting rave reviews. There is actually one opening very soon right here in Louisville. Knowing that the waits will be unreasonable when ours opens, we decided to give it a try today. I've never seen such an extensive menu at a restaurant. It was a huge book, complete with advertisements for other stores. Weird. We went with some recommendations from our server since we were totally blown away by the choices. There were two PAGES of appetizers alone! We went with the recommended Corn cakes and we were thrilled with them! There were three sweet corn cakes topped with spicy sauce, pico de gallo, tomatoes, avacados, sour cream, and more. These could have been a meal in themselves. Our entrees arrived, and neither of us put so much as a dent in them. We tasted enough to know they were both good, and had them boxed up. We then went on to the main anticipated course, dessert! One simply can not visit The Cheesecake Factory without saving room for dessert. Doug had a lo-carb cheesecake that even I liked! I'm not a cheesecake fan, but that was some pretty good stuff! I had a strawberry shortcake that I made Doug take a picture of. It was more than enough for 4 or more people, I think. It was topped with a mountain of REAL whipped cream. I was in awe. By the time we finished all we could stand, we still had a pile of dessert. I highly recommend this restaurant, but I'd suggest splitting an appetizer and then going straight to dessert.

By the time we finished all of that, we were definitely ready to walk around the mall for a while. We found the Mac store where Doug was disappointed to find out that they were sold out of the coveted Ipod we went for. After perusing this VERY posh mall, we moved on to check out the Children's Museum. This time it was my turn for disappointment. The museum was closed on Mondays! We'll have to do that one another time. We headed on back home, and Doug was nice enough to stop in Edinburgh at some outlets so that I could do a bit of shopping before heading back home. It was a really fun day even if we didn't accomplish anything!

Finally, when I got home tonight, I did something sort of drastic that has been a long time coming. I whacked off my hair. I've been saying I'm going to do it for a while now, but I kept putting it off. In the summer, I love having long hair so that I can just wash it and throw it back in a wet ponytail and go on to work. That's no so fun in the winter. Since Labor Day is officially passed, I figured it was probably time to start drying my hair before work. So...I got it whacked to just above my shoulders. It's not that great of a cut, but it's still tons better. I alwyas love how healthy it feels right after a cut. Don't worry Mom, I left it the same color, so there's no scary purples or anything this week.

I've spent way too much time here tooling about the net tonight, so I'm off to bed. This week already promises to be a fast one with plans almost every night. Staff meeting Tuesday, getting together with old O'Charley's friends Wednesday, an art soiree on Thursday (Mojo people again), and just maybe a free night Friday. I'm sure something fun will come up, though. Saturday, the Ma'am-George is going to be here sitting Cooper, so I'm sure I'll spend part of the day with them, then I'm heading to Bardstown for the annual Bourbon Festival. I'm really excited about going to that, as it's just one of those fun fall small-town festivals complete with a craft fair and bands and all of that stuff. I'll try to update with more pictures this week, but this is quite a big blog for now. Will it suffice, Granny? ;-)