YOU CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY LOOKING AT ITS' COVER

Well....here we are in the land of the Bulldogs, and a long way from Hickman County, I might add. How have the first few days in Georgia been, you ask? Well, John Mayer, one of my wife's favorites, has a song called "Why Georgia?" LOL....I have asked that question a number of times, between the bruises, falling off the U-Haul truck and in my yard, and packing an inordinate amount of boxes....But, did I really need that Britney Spears 2001 tour book? As is the case when anyone buys a house and moves, there are a lot of things that you wish you had done different. I can be a little lackadaisical in my approach to things sometimes, but this time I thought I had all the i's dotted and t's crossed....boy, was I wrong. I could tell you it's other people's fault....but at the end of the day, it is what it is. We're here, and it's not bad......The kids like it here, Shannon seems like to like it, and I've got to say the people are just as nice as they can be...

But, this post is about a good friend of mine, that deserves the mention. I will take you back in time to 2006. That's when I introduced Shannon---before marriage---to him. He had the strangest spiked hair, and didn't speak much. I called him a "psychotic hippie." They, on the other hand, developed a bond rather quickly. Somehow, we did too.....I can tell you many times I would sit on my porch before we bought our first house, and he listened.....When there would be the invariable fight, he would listen like nobody else,,,the kind of friend you just liked talking to.

Well, my little friend died last night. My first full day as a Georgia resident consisted of a drive to the doctor. They told me they couldn't do anything for him. I took him back home, and watched him die at 10:20 last night. You might have guessed by now, that the friend in question,Fluffy, is a cat. That may be, but I have cried my heart out over this loss. Before we ever spent a night in our new house, one of my first actions was burying this beloved creature. Some of my friends have accused me of being a bleeding heart when it comes to animals. Yes, that's true, and this wound isn't going to heal anytime soon, and he definitely wasn't anything like he appeared to be....Psychotic or mean? He was warm and loving as he could be, though he still might have been a little bit of a hippie!...Proof that you can't look at something by an outer package.........Godspeed, Fluffy....if there are houses in Heaven, I hope you're stretched out on the biggest one there...Who knows...maybe Jerry Garcia's!

Georgia....It will get better than this.....To be continued!