Memphis in the Meantime

Ok, I know I have slacked off again, but we have been out of town for the last week. I took the kids to Nashville and then on to Memphis to visit relatives with my mom. We spent the first night in Nashville visiting my family and then left for Memphis on Tuesday morning.

It was nice being in Memphis again. We got to spend a lot of time with my aunt and uncle and cousins. We stopped by my alma mater, Rhodes College, saw some new sights downtown, drove over the bridge to Arkansas so the kids could add another state to their tally and went to the zoo. If you have never been to the Memphis zoo and are ever in the area, you must go. It's become a world class zoo and has an amazing polar bear exhibit. I also got a chance to visit Molly's and catch up with some old friends.

Memphis seemed much the same as when I left about 8 years ago. It's still poor as dirt, rundown, and dangerous. I loved living there because I liked the realness of it and the people. It also has a great nightlife scene and great local music. Now, however, I don't think I would want to live there with my kids. We would have to put them in a private school because the public schools are so awful and we would have to live way out east and not in the Midtown area that I love. Big B would never consent to live there anyway, so I think it will have to remain a place for memories and not a future home.

The kids did surprisingly well for their first real hotel experience. Sweet Pea slept in a bed by himself and Ladybug slept on sleeping bags on the floor. She is still in her crib at home and thinks a big bed is just a trampoline, so I didn't want to put her in a bed. They ran around like wild animals for about 30 minutes the first night and Ladybug sang in her little bed for a long time before going to sleep. The second night they were so tired that they were asleep the minute their heads hit the pillow.

We returned home late Friday afternoon and I think we were all a little sad the trip was over. The trip to Memphis was a little sad for me, just because I had such a good time living there and made some great friends. I could never return to that life, but I do miss it from time to time. Being in Nashville is just being at home and I am always sad to leave. The first year or so that we lived in Knoxville, I cried for about the first 40 miles every time we left from visiting Nashville. I miss my family immensely and I miss the city. We both want to move back, but with the economy and housing market the way it is, who knows when that will be. Sooner rather than later, I hope. The three cities are so different from one another--something to explore in a later post, maybe.

So that's what I have been up to the past week. Hopefully now that we are back and now that I don't have a cancer diagnosis hanging over my head, I will be posting on a more regular basis. The huge piles of laundry, the weeds in the yard and garden, the messy house, the prep for the beach, all that can wait, right?