Reflections on Birthday, Boy Vicar, and Shakespeare

I am one of "those" people. I LOVE my birthday! It's the only day of the year when it's ok to be slightly obnoxious. I admit I am because I tell everyone!
So the Boy Vicar (a Britisth term that I recently fell in love with) and I stayed with his lovely parents Don and Linda at their beautiful mountain home in Banner Elk, NC. We drove up on Wednesday evening and left on Saturday afternoon. What did we do, you ask? NOTHING. And it was glorious! We slept in, we ate a lot, we read, we talked, we laughed. And then it rained so we had even more permission to do nothing.
The Kings treated me like a Queen for my birthday! Linda, being the fabulous hostess that she is, cooked dinner for us, including fried okra- my fav!- and a Pink Princess cake! (Strawberry with cream cheese icing!)

This pic is of us before we had dinner at the Elk River club. It was dress up and oh-so-very lovely! I straightened my hair too, if you can't tell. (Pics compliments of Linda)

On Saturday the Boy Vicar and I drove through the mountains and on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stopped in Johnson City and saw Prego #2, aka Gina, and her hubby Petah, aka Peter. They are so cute and their house is so cute! Congrats you two for being so cute!

Sunday was THE BIG DAY. I became another year older. 24. Jack got to go to church with me at Cedar Springs and that was really special. Since we never get to sit together in church, its such a treat when we do. We had a really nice cookout at home with some of the fam and they showered me with attention and gifts. As they should. (just kidding) Jack surprised with a gift- a day trip to Atlanta to see the Braves and the Red Sox! It will be great. I hope it doesn't brew any hostility since I am a Braves fan and he is diehard Red Sox. It will be a great day though, and I'm sure my humility about how the Red Sox will kill the Braves will help. However, I am still going to sport my #8 Javy Lopez t-shirt.

And then Sunday night Jack preached a wonderful sermon! I get to brag on him.... He is so good! I told him that even if I didn't know him and love him to pieces, I think I would still say he is one of the best preachers I've heard.

So now we are back to the Monday grind. However, this Monday is different from most because I started class at UT! I was pretty nervous about parking, walking, and getting there on time, but after that all worked out, I realize how much I LOVE class! You can call me a dork all you want, I don't care. I love being on campus, I love walking, I love notebooks and pencils, and a syllabus. I love meeting new people in my class and waiting and seeing what my teacher will be like.

This class is Shakespeare's Later Plays, including Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. I'm not terribly excited about the subject matter, but I think my excitement for the class itself will override that. My professor is young, maybe 30ish, and it seems like she really likes to read. Maybe likes cats? She is very enthusiastic and I can already tell how intelligent she is. So I think it will be a good class. And it's only five weeks so we're going to be crusin' through.

I think this is all until something else exciting and out of the ordinary happens. Or not. I do know that Jack is giving his cousin back his couch today, so tonight he and I will be without a couch. If anyone has any suggestions for us, please let me know!