Religion in Nashville

Here are the results of a google maps search of 'churches in Nashville'.

Here are the results of a google maps search of 'synagogues in Nashville' - showing an even bigger area.

Go here for statistics on religions in Nashville, Davidson County.

Road Trip (Part 3 of?)

I'm often in interesting places on my birthday (e.g., on cross-country train trips, in foreign lands, on airplanes, at girls camp).  This year I happened to be in Needham, MA.  When I learned that Mike and Tanya were hosting a BBQ before the traditional July 3rd Needham fireworks, I made sure to let Tanya know that I wanted to be invited!

Howard sneakily ordered a cake for me at Dudbury's (that's what we used to call Sudbury's) the day before.  (I don't know how they messed up my name so badly. The name 'Kathy' bears no resemblance to Eunice!) Anyway, Howard bought candles and even remembered to buy matches!  He arranged the candles in the prime factorization of my age.  It was so fun to visit with lots of 'old' church friends at the BBQ and at the fireworks.

3 x 3 x 3 x 2 = the prime factorization of my age

Earlier that day, we drove up to one of my favorite little coastal towns, Rockport.  We spent a few hours there walking around, taking pictures, eating lunch and fudge.

Road Trip (Part .5 of ?)

Let's back up to the first day of our road trip.  We spent the whole day driving through beautiful country in Tennessee and Virginia.

We made a stop (lunch? gas?) next door to this place called Pal's.

Hindsight is telling me that we missed out by not eating lunch here.

We stayed at the Hotel Strasburg in Strasburg, Virginia.  I had found favorable reviews for it on Trip Advisor and booked one of their cheapest rooms ahead of time.  We had to climb a few sets of narrow creaky steps to get to our room. We felt like we were staying in our grandma's attic - the kind of room where the tiny bathroom was an afterthought, carved out of a nook in the room.  The Victorian-esque room included white wicker furniture and quilts made from 70s panel fabric.  It gave us lots to talk and laugh about after spending the whole day together in the car.

These aged stone lions stood guard at the front door.  They seemed out of place.

Here's an artsy photo of a bench that Howard took.  He knows that I love rusty metal.  It's fun to watch his photographic skills and composition change and improve over the years.

We drove around the town for a bit in search of other inspiring architecture, like this church building.  I liked the composition of this photo.  I can't imagine the skill and planning that it would take to make a curved brick wall.

Howard noticed this license plate in front of us and scrambled to get his camera out of the case.  I stepped on the gas in hot pursuit of this vehicle.  With my supreme driving abilities and his fancy camera and photographic skills, he was able to get a pretty good shot.  It's not every day that you find your name on someone's vanity plate!

Road Trip (Part 2 of ?)

We spent a week in Boston.  Our first day there, Monday, July 1, ended up being Brazilian day.  Our first pilgrimage was out to Framingham to eat at our favorite Brazilian restaurant, Terra Brasilis.  It's the first and only place I've ever been where they figure out the price of your meal buy weighing your full plate.  My plate always used to weigh less than Howard's.  I'm embarrassed to admit that my plate weighed the same as his this time.  I'm going with the idea that he was trying to eat less.

(source for all 3 photos)

After lunch we had to go to A & J Seabra Supermarket, a Brazilian grocery store, to find Howard's favorite guarana soda.  Once upon a time I had no idea what the guarana fruit was so I googled it.

 (source)

I can't believe that such a yummy drink is made from bulging eyeball fruit.  It's just too creepy!  We didn't find Howard's favorite guarana soda, but we did find a bunch of other Brazilian products to buy - especially in the pastry/dessert section.  Howard bought a brigadeiro.

Here's a brigadeiro tutorial I found on youtube.  Give it a try and tell me what you think!

We spent that evening visiting a family that we adore.  We got to know them when we spent our last year in Boston serving with them in the Portuguese Branch (a small geographical church unit).  Their 14-year-old daughter had just returned home from a one-week stay at the hospital after having back surgery.  Rosie, her mom, had stayed with her all week at the hospital and was exhausted.  Sergio insisted that we come over.  They were exhausted and hadn't eaten dinner yet and treated us like we were the king and queen visiting from Nashville.

2013 Road Trip (Part 1 of ?)

We took an epic road trip that spanned 10 states and put 3,000+ miles on our Hertz rental car.  We visited family, saw old friends, and visited lots of familiar and new places.  We ate lots of good food and way too much of it.  We produced gallons of sweat as we played walking tourist on some of the hottest days of the year.  It was an exhausting but fun way to spend 17 days!

These are the major stops we made with additional one-night stays along the way.  Our first official stop was Connecticut.  We got to hang out with and visit Howard's brother and his family for a weekend.  They love their new life in Connecticut.

We spent part of a Saturday (June 29th) at the Connecticut Science Center.  It was a hair-raising experience!

This room was full of water experiments.  The nephews had lots of fun in there.  Unfortunately, all of Aunt Eunice's pictures of them came out blurry.  Bummer!

I grabbed this photo from Facebook.  There's the whole group minus the photographer.

 (source)

They live dangerously close to a cute ice cream shop called Praline's - it's right around the corner from their house.  We bought some kind of death by chocolate and peanut butter ice cream pie there.  Up until now they have avoided 'shopping' there - for fear of starting what could end up being an expensive, obesity-inducing habit.  I think they're wise.

Howard and Eunice vs. The Rock

The Rock won.

The plan was for Howard to help me dig out some grass for a flower bed.  About ten minutes into it, Howard glanced over at the mysterious 'lawn rock' that we've been eying with disdain for almost three years now.  He said, "I wonder if I could dig out THAT rock."  And off he went.

I like a good challenge, so I followed him.  We dug and pried with the shovel that dad bequeathed to us.  It creaked and moaned and threatened to snap in two.  I kept warning Howard that he better not break that shovel that has probably been in the family for six decades.  We continued to pull and push and tug and grunt and grimace and kick and hurt ourselves, but that rock did not budge.  Not even one millimeter.

When you work in your yard around here, your life is an open book.  Sometimes that can be a good thing.  Charles (our across-the-street neighbor) walked over and said, "Whatcha y'all doin'?"  I said something like, "We're supposed to be digging out a flower bed, but this rock distracted us."  Charles says, "I have some tools that might help out."  He came back a few minutes later with a big heavy iron rod and two picks.  I could barely pick up the iron rod so Howard took over.

Here we see that after almost two hours the battle is over and the exhausted opponents are strewn about the lawn.

This is an after picture but really could have been the before picture too, because grass does not grow well around this rock.  See how it just lies there, laughing at us.

We are planning our revenge.  We have been working out - on smaller rocks in the flower bed.  With Charles' pick and iron rod and our new leverage technology (devised by Howard the physicist), we will be victorious!

Unicorns and Stuff

This is what I did last Wednesday.

Amish Country

I love that I'm only about 1.5 hours from Amish Country.  Mar was visiting a few weeks ago and we spent the day there.  We bought all kinds of yummy pastries, candies and jams.  We demolished a delicious loaf of freshly made bread and were especially smitten with the peanut brittle.  We saw lots of beautiful countryside dotted with Amish homes and 'English' homes.  We saw lots of cute Amish kids doing their chores.  They were so calm and confident in what they were doing.  We smelled lots of cow manure, fires and stoves burning, and people who work hard but don't bathe often.

One of the highlights for me was to discover that there was an Amish 'fabric' shop.  We followed the verbal directions we had gotten and read all the hand-painted signs and eventually found it - a very small shop full of durable denims and other durable cloth in blacks, blues and whites.  The small thread section had only black, blue and white threads.  I found a random bolt of navy corduroy (they don't use corduroy) with about 10 yards on it.  It was only $2 a yard.  I had to get it, the whole bolt.  We'll use it for next year's smile bags.  I also bought 10 yards of muslin for only $1.75 a yard.

[source]

I was looking for and found an upholsterer, Moses Yoder.  His work is amazing and he charges next to nothing.  We happened to be there when one of his customers was picking up some reupholstered boat seats.  The captain's seat was particularly stunning.  It was blue and off-white and had curved piecing like the 'premium pontoon' above.  It had way more pieces and piping than the 'designer series'.  I always wonder what goes through an Amish tarp maker or upholsterers mind when he works on projects for vehicles that he's never been in and maybe never even seen in action.  Once I find the 'perfect' craigslist chair, I'm totally taking it to Moses.  It will be an adventure.  I'd much rather have cheap furniture with character and a story than expensive furniture from a fancy schmancy shop.

Mar and I went to the Lawrenceburg Walmart to soak up some local color.  I squealed with delight when we came across this special parking area for buggies with a sign that read "Reserved for Horse-drawn Vehicles Only".  We saw a few Amish shoppers in the store.  Of course, we had to peak into their fairly empty carts and see what they were buying - socks, peanut butter (interesting because some of them sell home-made peanut butter), coffee, cereal.

Here's a Google satellite picture of the Lawrenceburg Walmart.  You can see the buggy parking area at the bottom of the picture in the center, at the end of Manor Drive.  It's the unpaved area surrounded by some trees.

What a fantastic day!  I loved spending the day with Mar and visiting the Amish.  I often wish I could live in an Amish household for a week or so, to get a feel for life without modern conveniences.  I'd love to hang out and quilt with the women.  By the way, they charge about $.60 per yard of thread if you want to have them hand quilt your quilt.  Just thought I'd mention that.