Yesterday, I was the happiest I've been since my Mom died. I can't really tell you why, but I will do my best to reproduce it every day.

I drove Ray to the bus at 8:30 and he caught it. He has a 9:30 class on Tuesdays. It's about 5 miles from our house to the bus stop, but it's not the stop-and-go in-town traffic. We don't want to pay for a parking permit at UGA--I think it's about $600 a year. Or buy an additional car.

I went home again and did a little work in the vegetable garden--mostly thinning the young fall plants that are coming along nicely since our rain--spinach, carrots, lettuce, beets. I picked 6 radish, the first of the fall crop. I admired the zucchini and cucumbers that I started late, against the prevailing wisdom, and that will produce something even though it is the end of September. There are beans, too, but it is less sure they will bear fruit. There are cabbage and broccoli, too. And still peppers and eggplants and sweet potatoes to harvest, and a few tomatoes. That makes me pretty happy.

Then I went in and did some writing and work on my end-of-life project.

I met Becky for lunch and had a good meal at Gnat's Landing, which I will write up for Patch. I went to the Writing Workshop, which is comforting. I found pictures of things on my iphone for people: the Temple of Braga was mentioned in a poem, and someone else talked about Petra. I reminded myself of Ray, but they seemed appreciative. Only two people read their work and I was disappointed about that.

I picked Ray up and we decided it didn't make sense to go home and come back, so we had an early dinner at Casa Mia. That was the funnest part. I took pictures and made notes for another review. We were the only ones there and it was good. And, it didn't cost much either. I had a glass of Sangria and Arepas, something I never tried before. Cornmeal biscuit-y things with chicken and other things inside. Tasty. Ray ordered two tapas--tacos and chorizo. Each dish had at least two, so they were easy to share. And then I had empanadas with strawberry filling. Ray had coffee.

Then we went to our last dance class. It was fun. We can collect recycling after the football game and get passes for two more classes.

sangria, chips and salsa

Arepas, chorizo, tacos

Empanadas for dessert

Then we went home--no dishes to do. Fed Cameron. Watched TV, went to bed early. But I could not get to sleep. Too much adrenaline? A dog barking, a train whistle. I got up and was on the computer for awhile and finally fell asleep after I went back to bed, but still didn't sleep very well.