8,760 hours and counting...

I passed my one year residency landmark yesterday. I pulled into central Tennessee at 3:00am on December 19, 2010. I have a Tennessee drivers license and a Tennessee license plate on my car. I was in corporate housing for 2 months, an apartment for 7 months and a house for 3 months. I don't have much furniture but it's home. I got a little promotion at work and I'm enjoying life on the construction site. My car was new when I left Texas and it has 16,000 miles on it now. I'm learning my way around Nashville and I've managed to avoid the Parthenon. My running has gone from 200 miles a month to 100 miles a month. That will change back in 2012. I'll turn the double nickel in November. yikes.

My goals for 2012 include keeping my job, buying a lawnmower and dipping my own bottle of bourbon in the wax at the Maker's Mark distillery. It's good to have goals.

oh, nuts....

Since I don't have the gang at Green Mesquite to bake for any more, I've started baking batches of banana bread for the guys in my group at work. At first, I would sneak loaves in and place them by the coffee pot. Everyone thought the banana bread fairy had paid a visit. Finally the secret was out. One guy was so taken by the bread that he had his wife pick up a bag of nuts for the cause. His wife had picked up 2 types of nuts. He asked me if I had used walnuts or pecans. If I was the bread nazi, I would have said "No bread for you." He thought I may have used walnuts? yikes. I calmed down, accepted his gift of pecans and let him keep his walnuts. He will also receive his own mini loaf in the morning. yum

"why don't you make like a tree and scram..."

This post is a couple of weeks old but the trees are bare. It seemed to happen over night. One day everything was bright and colorful and then a wind comes along and blows all the leaves off. It was really evident when I drove toward Nashville this weekend. The interstates in this part of the country are really quite scenic. In between cities, the highways go through windy and hilly sections of the state with very little evidence of development. The woods come right up to the edge of the road. It's a drastic departure from central Texas where businesses and strip malls tend to migrate to the highway.

Anyway...the scenery was very different on the drive this weekend. I guess I have about 5 months until everything is green again.