• Eating: Chocolate-covered candied ginger.
• Listening to: Wounded Rhymes, the latest from Lykke Li.
• Wearing: A very big sweater.

Hello, cheri.

Well, it’s 10 minutes till the end of my first day back in dreary old Jackson. Unfortunately, in an optimistic instant I threw caution to the wind and left all my winter wear in Carolina. But it’s still March, folks, even if just a few days ago I was sunbathing (or, perhaps more accurately, sunburning) on the beach.

But it’s not just the warm weather I’m missing as I return to life in Tennessee. I also left behind me a city brimming with life — with all of my favorite boutiques, eateries &, perhaps most regrettably, coffee shops. (If you’ve been keeping up with this blog at all, you know just how much value I place on a good cup of joe.) In a way, I lost my freedom to choose. I’ve traded diversity for that one good ethnic place, that one hot-spot for lunch, that one really good coffee shop.

Yet, as good as it is to have the world (or at least one pretty sweet slice of it) at your fingertips, sometimes it is freeing in an entirely different way to have the choice made for you. If I’ve been learning any one lesson of late, it’s that decisions are anything but easy. And besides, my “defaults” here in Jackson aren’t half bad –– like Gusta Java Coffee Co., the best beans in town, & Soup du Jour, a local theatre-turned-soup & sandwich destination downtown.

I guess it all just comes down to contentment, no matter where you find yourself, or what you find in your mug.