My blog is boring. Everyone else seems to have all these thoughts and discussions of big ideas (or at least little ones). They discuss the topics on the news or in books they have just read or from classes they are taking.

Mine is just a badly kept journal.

Oh well.

Still addicted to it.

Anyway, I've got a lot to do today in preparation for heading to Ohio on Saturday morning. A bucket of orange cannas to get planted. Some of that pretty purple groundcover (no one knows what it's called) to plant after I figure out where it should go. An oakleaf hydrangea to plant (again, after I figure out where it should go). Red canna tubers to box up for Jessica. Three more mums to get into a pot on the front steps. LOTS of housecleaning. Need to water everything inside and out. Oh, and laundry and, of course, packing for the trip. Lovely.

We had a birthday party for Autumn (and her grandpa) last night at the coffee shop. Turned out to be the perfect place to have it.

Right around the corner, but not at home--convenient, but didn't have to clean up for company.
Quiet--we pretty much had the place to ourselves until the shift change at the hospital when it suddenly filled with nurses.

Friendly baristas--the fact that we had 9 people there all ordering meals and drinks in the evening and leaving nice tips probably had something to do with it.

It was nice and very simple.

The best thing though--the coffee. This place has better coffee and espresso drinks than anywhere I have ever been before. A zillion times better than Starbucks. A zillion times better than any of the local places we used to visit in NoVA and DC. It's weird because no one is really into coffee down here. If they want coffee they go order some at Burger King. So I'm not sure if the local place here will be able to stay in business--but I HOPE so. I LOVE THEIR COFFEE.

And the odd zombie horror dolls are gone now too. So the ambiance has definitely improved. Oh, speaking of which--we stopped by The Joshua Cup near Matt's work the other day. He wrote about it on his blog. But their decor was really cool--they used old wood doors, minus the windows and some panels, and hung from the ceiling as room dividers (something I've always wanted to do). Anyway, the decor was really good, but the latte was icky. Tasted like milk and vanilla with maybe a tablespoon of watery coffee. Definitely not like the place around the corner--their lattes make you sit up and take notice.

Well, I'll try to get some party pictures posted at some point today--that was a lot of p's.