Taking Control

Well, it's been a while since I've written on here, so I figured I'd take a second to post real quick. I'm wrapping up my trip to St. Albans for Thanksgiving and football, I head home tomorrow and hope the weather will cooperate with me till I get home. This has been an awesome five days. Every time I come up to visit, it gets harder to leave. I love this area a lot- not to say I don't love Hillsboro, but this place is nice, a good middle ground between city and country, not too far out but not insanely busy. I'm glad Cate and Ben and Elliott all live around here, if nothing else it gives me an excuse to spend a lot of time here.

It was good to spend Thanksgiving with the family again, it's been a long time since we've all been together to do this. And it was definetly a nice change of pace from the past six years, from working at the grocery store to hanging out with the crazy clan and sitting at the kid's table to eat...

The football game was awesome, it was great to be right on the front row in the endzone and take it all in, even if some of the people there made me feel like an old man. Great time and experience, I hope to get to do it again nnext year, and it'd be nice to make it to some basketball games as well this winter...

I think I'll wrap it up for now, I gotta get some sleep before the drive tomorrow. I hope you all are doing well and had a great holiday, be positive and love your life, folks. Peace...

C-

Speak Easy

Well, it's almost been a month since I've moved to West Virginia. It's gone by a lot faster than I thought it would have. I've started working out of the house, gone back to Toledo for the first time in several years, and got to visit with my brother and sister also. This has been a slow week so far, just cleaning up around the house and organizing stuff for the business. Next Thursday I'll be heading back for my last round at bloom before ending my ten plus years at the establishment. It'll be cool and kinda sad (again) to go back. While I'm looking forward to it, and need to go back for monetary reasons, I'd almost rather stay here. I don't miss Charlotte at all. I'm beyond content here. I thought it would be a hard transition going from the city to living essentially out in the middle of nowhere, but it's been a breeze thus far. Being with and closer to my family doesn't hurt the situation either. It's been good to laugh with my folks, walk through Hillsboro just taking everything in, heading up to St. Albans and hanging out with at Cate and Ben's house playing Wii, watching movies, and attempting to carve pumpkins, and going to Huntington for Elliott's birthday, complete with a trip to Stewart's. It's an awesome time so far, it's been great getting back to being me again. I got to a point over the past few years where I was trying to be someone else to make something broken work out and lost who I was. Now I'm finally back to being me. I feel great right now, better than I have in a very long time and I can't wait to see what's to come in my life. Stay tuned...

Celebrity

I don't want to seem to dwell on the Smart car, but I'm going to anyway. I went into Marlinton to visit my grandparents, go to the bank, and stop by the grocery store in the Bee today. Everywhere I went, I got stopped by at least one or two people who wanted to know about the car, what it was, where it came from, how good is it on gas, all that. It's kinda cool, really. I'm not the most outgoing or confident person in the world, but the Bee erases all that. It's like I'm famous or something, as dumb as that might sound. I'll talk to everyone who comes up to me and the car and tell them whatever they want to know. It's really given me a huge boost of confidence that I was needing, very cool that a tiny car can do that for you.

That'll do it for now, folks, gonna go back to watching it snow. Peace...

Drive

Okay, I'm back from the trip to Charleston and to see the siblings, the first time I've driven the Smart more than five minutes at a time as well. Heading up Saturday was a little nerve racking due to the rain and insane truck drivers. It took some getting used to, and almost missing a curve, but by the time we got to Quaker Steak & Lube, I was loving it. We got to visit with Cate and Ben for a little bit, which was nice. Hopefully we'll get to visit for more than 24 hours at some point. We watched a movie and Cate and I carved a couple of pumpkins before calling it a night. This morning we got up and went to see Elliott. We picked him up at his house and went to Stewart's for some hot dogs- they are the best, getting to go to Stewart's and White Castle in the same couple of weeks is pretty damn cool, I think. Anyway, we ran a couple of other places before heading back home. It was a good trip, till we got to Gaulley Bridge. I was following Dad in his Smart and got pulled for speeding- he said 35 in a 25, but I honestly don't think I was going that fast. Nothing more badass than getting a ticket for going that slow, I'd rather be pulled doing for doing 70 in a 60 or something like that, but whatever. He brings me the ticket and then gets all chatty with me. I really enjoyed this little gem he dropped on me.

"Is this car even legal in America?"

Yikes. That's what passes for a cop these days, folks. Granted, in a town that sounds like it was named by Gomer Pyle, I guess qualifying for the job just requires that you have a second grade education. I was kinda mad about it, but I had had such a good weekend it couldn't bring me down. If this had happened in CLT, I'd probably feel a little different. All right, I guess that'll do for now, it's late. Take it easy, all!

New beginning again...

After reading Cate's blog and really enjoying it, I figured I'd give it a try, mostly to document my new life situation here in West Virginia. This'll be short for now since I should be asleep, but I'll add more to this later. Peace to you all...

C-