Blogging from Maryland

*Paula's wedding was beautiful, and not only because she was a beautiful bride. The band was awesome, which meant the dancing was great. And the photographer was great, so I can't wait to see photos. And I fit perfectly into my dress, which was a relief and an accomplishment. Wedding photos can be seen here.
*It was great to see everyone for a whole weekend and forget about studying. It was sad to think about the fact that, assuming the bride doesn't die suddenly, I'll never see that particular group of people all gathered together at the same time ever again.
*It was not great to actually stop studying for four days. I tried to start back up again today and was only 50% successful. We'll see how tomorrow goes.
*Pre-packing for Alaska last Thursday night didn't really end up happening so much. I opened a suitcase, threw in a jacket, a new down vest I bought on clearance at Old Navy a few weeks ago, a pair of long socks, some long underwear, and jeans, and I guess I'm thinking that I can create layers out of that plus what I brought home with me. We'll see if that turns out to be correct or not. Plus, when we stopped at my parents' house on Saturday before the wedding, we forgot to take a suitcase for Eric to bring back to Kentucky with him, so I'm not really sure how the luggage situation is going to end up.
*We stayed in an awesome motel in Morgantown, WV, on Friday night. Well, it was as awesome as an Econo Lodge could be, but that still puts it up around the caliber of, like, a good Holiday Inn or something. I've stayed in a lot of budget motels on road trips, and while I can handle a bad mattress for a night or two, I hate bad showers with low water pressure. Luckily, this place not only had a comfortable bed and good pillows, but a GREAT shower. And all for only $63! Plus it was really close to lots of restaurants, including a Panera for my getting-to-be-a-necessity latte, stores, a drugstore, and a 24-hour Kroger. I'd definitely want to stay there again if we had to.
*The cats survived the weekend without us at my parents' house; the dogs didn't eat them, which is definitely a good thing. Not that they can't take care of themselves when it comes to physical defense, but their timidity around the dogs means they tend to stay in the bedroom, even though in theory they have more than triple the square footage than normal to explore.
*Studied at home today, for what little studying I did. I'm going to try a local coffee shop tomorrow, and I'm going to find out if Panera has free wireless, because if they do, I could definitely set up shop there for a whole day. The problem with most coffee shops is that they don't have much in the food department, so then I'm stuck eating a scone for lunch (yuck) or packing up and leaving to go somewhere else, and I'm not that good at starting back up studying after I've had to stop (hey, I know my weaknesses). So Panera would be great, if they have internet. Stay tuned and I'll let you know.