Happy Autumn!

Wow, the first day of Fall is already here. It's a balmy 88 degrees here in Savannah, and it looks like potential thunderstorms are brewing in the clouds.

So what, you may ask, have I been up to since Labor Day? Well, I admired this beautiful flower that bloomed out of nowhere in my little back yard. I haven't a clue as to what it is, so if you know, please enlighten me!

I've been out a few times with some of the girls from work. We stopped by the rooftop bar at the Bohemian Hotel on Bay Street for drinks (chocolate martini: yum!) one afternoon, then hit Fannie's out on Tybee another night (mudslide: yum!). It's great to be out and socializing more, but it did make me miss my girlfriends back up north! This ginormous cargo ship came into port while we were sipping. It's amazing the thing can stay afloat!

I finally finished the laptop cover that I started back in January! It's a felted wool sleeve lined in cotton with a bright yellow zipper (which you can barely see on the left side). I've been playing around with the knitting machine and wool felt appliques and have to say I really like the results!

Last night I bumped into this lovely Black Widow...in my kitchen! She was starting to spin a web across my back door and I almost walked right into it! After taking her mug shot, I relocated her to the other side of the back fence. I know they are toxic, but I can't bring myself to kill something that eats mosquitoes!

The Savannah Jazz Festival is going on this week, but I haven't had a chance to look at the schedule yet. I think there is a show in Forsyth either Saturday or Sunday, so maybe I'll be able to catch it.

That's all the little, day-to-day details. Now on to the real news. After much hinting and poking, um, I mean, encouragement from various friends, I took a stab at online dating with eHarmony. (Pause for giggling) I really wasn't expecting, or hoping, for much more than some interesting dinner conversations and maybe the chance to make some new friends. So I was just as surprised as anyone when I actually felt that "click" with the third guy I met.

That, in and of itself, was not as surprising as the fact that he's in the Army. Even people who just met me said that I didn't seem like the Army type. But I figured that dating self-absorbed, creative-types hasn't worked out so well for me in the past, so why not try something different? After just the third date I was promoted to girlfriend status and, by promoting him to boyfriend status, gave myself the awkward job of breaking it off with the two other guys I had been seeing (a small price to pay, really).

Unlike most of my past relationships, where I've known the guy for weeks or months before moving on to dating, Brian and I decided that we're both up for the long run and just jumped right in. Again, also not like me, but I'm OK with that. So things are going great and I'm walking around with that goofy "I've just fallen" look on my face. Couldn't be happier. Except...

You knew there had to be an "except" in there somewhere, right? Well, it seems that I haven't quite used up all my bad fortune from last year. See, just a mere five days after the "can I call you my girlfriend?" conversation came the "I just got my orders to go back to Iraq for 12 months" conversation. Yup. Oh, and he leaves in less than two weeks.

So, I could curl up in a pathetic little ball and bemoan my crappy luck. But I opted for looking at the glass as half full: I'm dating an amazing man and get to make him some really kick-ass care packages over the next year! Sure, it sucks that we will have to go through the first year of our relationship with him stuck in a desert, but things could be much worse. We'll just make the best of the situation and spend lots of time emailing.

However, I do reserve the right to curl up in a ball at any point, should the need arise.