It has been a delightful day.

I am the oldest of four siblings. I have two sisters-in-law, four nephews and three nieces, and love all of them. Fortunately, my sister and my youngest brother, and their families, live here in Middle Tennessee, and I get to see them pretty regularly. My other brother, however, lives out-of-state with his wife and two kids. They used to live in California; now they are closer, in North Carolina, but I still don’t get to see them that often.

They were in for Thanksgiving, which hasn’t happened in some time. But as you know, I’ve been sick this week — I was in a zombie-like stupor much of Thursday, and confined to quarters on Friday, so I missed a lot of the visit. But I started feeling better last night, and today — while I’m still coughing, and still taking generic Mucinex — I felt fine, and without any other cold medicine.

We drove to Murfreesboro this morning to spend some time wandering around The Avenue, which — while busy — was not the madhouse I had expected on the day after Black Friday.

We had lunch at Jason’s Deli, which was great considering I’d not been able to enjoy much food during the week.

My eight-year-old nephew is train crazy. By this, I do not mean that he as a mild childhood interest in trains. I mean that he can identify specific models of locomotive on sight, and sometimes by the sound of their whistle. That is NOT exaggeration for comic effect. So after we had finished walking around all the stores at the Avenue, my father — who is also a model railroad buff — took us to his two favorite model railroad places in Murfreesboro. One is a toy store with a large selection of model railroad stuff; the other is a charmingly-quirky combination of unfinished furniture store and model railroad store, with two working layouts on display. My nephew was delighted with both.

We came home and relaxed with movies, tacos, and some of the chocolate pie I had not been able to enjoy on Thanksgiving.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable day. My brother and his family will be leaving for North Carolina early in the morning, so I’m glad I recovered in time to spend it with them.