Fall Back

I have officially survived a week in Athens on my own!

Yesterday, I went to the 10:30 a.m. service at Redeemer Pres, and then walked around downtown perusing some stores until Palmer arrived from Atlanta. He and I then had "brunch" (which seems to be a pretty popular meal in this town) at The Grit. I'm glad we went there, because I've heard how great it is, but serves vegetarian only meals, so I figured I'd be hard-pressed to have any family members try it out this week. It was very very good- I had biscuits with yeast gravy, grits (of course), and coffee. We then walked around downtown for a few minutes, and he proceeded to drive me by the Athens landmark I've been waiting for: The Tree That Owns Itself. Very worth the wait!

A couple of stores downtown were especially interesting: Helix has lots of cute and unique gifts, jewelry, and accessories. Agora is a thrift/consignment shop with a little bit of everything.

Palmer and I then went to Memorial Park which has a little bitty zoo, complete with deer, Dill Pickle the alligator, some otters, and a black bear, along with an overabundance of owls. The funny part about the zoo is that it is in the middle of a Belhaven-like neighborhood.

We drove towards the west-side of town, and he showed me the Target (I didn't realize there was one here!), and then he headed on back to ATL. It was nice to have a face from home around for the afternoon.

Last night was the much anticipated "chicken bog" dinner with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Things went really well, and I had a good time! All 5 JWs were very very nice, and though I picked up on a few oddities in conversations, I wouldn't have known they were cultish if I hadn't been told beforehand. The chicken bog/chicken and rice is a coastal South Carolina dish (I found out) and was quite good- the sausage was a nice touch. The following link shows Paula Deen's recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/chicken-bog-recipe/index.html

We then watched Disney's "Song of the South-" an old movie about Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit, the tar baby, etc...it is also where the zippity doo dah song came from. It was a great movie! So all in all, the evening was fun!

Today is another Monday at SCWDS- we haven't had anything come in, so I've just been reading up on some articles!