The company was wonderful, the weather just about perfect for near mid-November, and the B&B lacked nothing for comfort, a peaceful atmosphere and restfulness. 
I picked Amy up Saturday morning (having left Oscar at Classy Pooch for grooming and kenneling overnight, which worked out great), and we met Sher in Oxford around 11 a.m. After we checked into our cabin and had a tour of other accommodations on the grounds, which were equally charming, we drove back to downtown Oxford and the court house square. The whole of downtown was a beehive of activity and it's definitely a pedestrian's town, with cars yielding to people crossing streets. It's one-way around the square with a 2-hour limit on parking, so I had to move my vehicle a coule of times, but it didn't take long to find another spot because I suppose drivers were constantly playing musical parking spots around the square. Square Books was great as always, and we ate lunch at Proud Larry's, which evidently had outgrown itself as there was a pretty long wait after we were seated. But the pasta was very good. We walked around to other shops on the square and Sher called Doe's for supper reservations at 6:30.
Ann Patchett (Truth and Beauty; Bell Canto, Run) was scheduled to do a reading and have a reception at Off Square Books at 5:00, which I decided to show up for. Sher and Amy came on a bit after I got to OSB and Ann's reading and Q&A were very good. (I'd met her mother Jeanne Ray at our library a couple of years ago, on a book tour for one of her books. She's written Eat Cake, Julie and Romeo.) Of course, I asked to have my picture made with Ann and she graciously obliged. I told her I'd met her mother; she admired my nest and eggs necklace Sher had given me for my birthday. 
There was a wait at Doe's; it's a small restaurant in a hotel there, but the food was good. Afterward, we went back to Holly Ridge, read for a while, nestled in our warm, cozy beds, listened to Sher's ocean/guitar/flute CDs and went to sleep soon after. Amy's first sleeping arrangement was in the loft, but that didn't work out, so she took the full size bed in the next bedroom. I paid for it the next day. The loft would be great for kids, though.
I woke up around 6:30 Sunday morning, just about my usual time. Sher was awake soon after and we lay there for a while looking through the open blinds and open door at the leaves sparkling in the early morning sun, hearing the tinkle of wind chimes, and breeze stirring the leaves, many of which fell in golden flakes around the garden and pasture. I got Amy up sometime later and we all got ready for our breakfast at the "White House" that our hosts live in. They'd made a sausage loaf, baked hot fruit and scrambled eggs from their own "organic" chickens. Their house is just as beautiful as the cabins they've decorated. Curtis has his own design business (which we saw downtown on the Square) and there home is so warm and inviting, which paintings from many local artists. Terry is a retired nurse. There were two more guests besides us - a couple - and the young lady whom they have to help with their housekeeping/cleaning. 
After a very filling breakfast, Sher and I took a long walk off the property, down the county road, past an old cemetary, down another private road and back to our cabin (which is one of four on one side of the barn) and had a very relaxing lay-about, just watching the trees through the doors again, napping and occasionally talking. Amy had already gone back to sleep and I hadn't bothered her to take a walk with us. I knew she'd rather be sleeping. 
Around 1:15 Sam (the young girl) came to clean our room and we packed up, put our bags in our cars, and had a picnic of cheese, bread, milk and chocolate chip cookies on the bench in the garden. Before we left, we stopped to tour the "Treehouse" cabin near the owners' home. Everything was open - so trusting - and we climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor bedroom. The last steps sort of did me in and I was ready to go home. I later talked to Sher and she didn't get home till around 8:00, having stopped in Tupelo at Sanctuary Hospice House. (Mama's brass name plate is in the gazebo and her brick is there, though not placed in the walkway yet.)
Amy drove to Memphis to her house and I drove home, arriving around dusky dark. I took Oscar for a walk, watched a program on PBS about a hand-raised cheetah named Toki, and went to bed around 9 p.m. (Paul had already gone around 6:30 - had a sore throat from sitting out in the cool at the ballgame, which MS State won!) It was a beautiful weekend - so nice to go somewhere you've never been, be treated so graciously, invited so trustingly, unhurried time for books, gazing, whatever. A balance is what they have found. It was simple and uncluttered. When I got home, Paul had taken everything out of the utensil drawers so he could finish painting and I was amazed that all that stuff was in those small drawers. So of course I want to simplify, discard what is not essential, get my prisms out of storage and hang them in front of the kitchen window, move my butter mold to the living room (yes, it can be done!). I like my house; but the stuff owns me, and I just want to enjoy simplicity and not constantly take care of stuff. Stuff, like paper, circulars, subscription renewal notices and ads, catalogs...
One thing that was very evidently missing in the B&B owners' home was books - unless they were in enclosed bookcases, there just weren't any unless they were used for decor, maybe sitting under small figurines or other objects (the butter mold). I bought books at Square Books; I need to let go of some now.
Simplicity, enjoyment, ownership, yet letting go. Balance. Maybe someday when I can be at home, there will be more balance, more days like this past weekend, just to be.
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