here we are. married. living in nashville. life is great. and a little surreal.

today we made homemade ice cream, which i was glad to see turned out just how i remembered it. that's the thing with doing things because they are a tradition, if the first time you do it yourself it doesn't taste familiar...what good would that be? lucky thing it did.

i love our house. we have no dishwasher, no ice maker, and no disposal. and for the moment actually no tv. which to me is like heaven since it means i can sort of pretend we are living old-fashionedly. i'm even thinking about doing our laundry in a tin bucket and hanging it up like the lady across the street does. to top it all off - we sit on the porch quite a bit. the last 5 days we've lived here at least we do.

this is my favorite holiday. no pressure to make perfect food, no pressure to buy the perfect or any gifts, no pressure to dress up or go to a fancy party, no pressure to write a very interesting blog post - it is just fun. lake, yard, house, vacation, river, any locale will do for the 4th of july. it's a flexible yet traditional holiday. it's summer, there are fireworks, there are hot dogs, there is ice cream. in fact, it is a holiday where kids and grown-ups all eat the same food and where you don't have to worry about breaking nice dishes. there are flags, it smells good like people cooking out, you get to go outside, if you are lucky you get to swim. man. it does not get better.

happy our first married fourth of july from the rectors. we are surely blessed to be having a happy one here.