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 |  Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? |
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Fair Warning: I've upped the rating on this blog. It is now set at GC. |
| As much as I hate to see a vacation end, it is good to be home again. The drive home was fantastically unremarkable. No foul weather, no traffic problems, and the kids curled up in the backseat and slept like a pair of exhausted pups (which they were) creating an opportunity for my husband and I to talk freely and at length about a variety of subjects from writing, to career goals, to where we'd like to live, to winning the lottery. The animals where thrilled to see us when we got home! The dog was particularly enthusiastic and stepped on my still sore, broken toe every chance he got.  I walked around the garden to see what was blooming, and saw the first blades of new grass popping up in the freshly seeded side-yard. It filled me with a certain optimism and I cut across the lawn to examine the stump of my decapitated bush. I was sure there would be new shoots or something, but the stump looked exactly the same. Poor bush! May it rest in peace. I digress... Anyway, it was good to be home! It was good to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower (I missed having water pressure!). My vacation from work extends until tomorrow, so today is my day to catch up on things. I'll try to pop into your blogs today and see what's been happening. I started a bit yesterday, but didn't make it very far.  |
| I am so exhausted. I got up this morning and took a long bike ride with my husband, daughter and nephew. We rode along the wildlife loop. The intent was to ride all the way down to the beach, but that plan didn't go too well. Parts of the bike trail had been wiped out by a Nor'easter this winter. The trail was buried in deep sand. We had to give up riding and just push our bikes along in the sand. It was a pretty crappy way to travel, and when we finally made it to the end, my broken toe was throbbing from walking through the deep, shifting sand. The bike ride was followed by a long swim in the ocean and another hike up the beach (this time without the bike, but with the husband). Tonight I am beat! I've been having major camera problems. My digital camera is not working properly. I brought my old digital, but for some reason I can't get it to charge. I was borrowing my daughter's camera, but now it isn't working. It says it is having a "lens error." I've been reduced to taking pictures using the video camera, and those are looking rather grainy. Tomorrow will be our last day on the beach. We have to check out by 10 AM on Sunday morning. A week just flies by too quickly! |
| I walked out to the end of the pier tonight, sat on the end with my feet dangling over the lapping water of the bay. There was a stiff breeze coming off the water, and the sun turned orange and then pink as it sank down to meet the horizon. I continued to sit there as the colors faded. A family of ducks came into view and swam past. Insects clicked and hummed around me, and I drank in the peace and tranquility of the moment. I am vacationing with 10 family members and a 3 month old infant. I love my family, and I am enjoying the vacation... still, I need those tranquil moments. |
| When you are on an island, and there is only one bridge connecting you to the main land, it seems unnecessary to post a big sign that labels it as the "HURRICANE EVACUATION ROUTE." Today I spent another beautiful day at the beach. Driving back from the beach today my son was commenting on the smell of the marshes. Saltwater marshes have a distinctive sulfurous odor to them. To Zach's nose, it smelled like someone had farted. "Who farted," he asked. "No one farted. You're smelling the marshes" "The Martians?" "Mar-SHEZ." "Martians smell bad. I think maybe they farted." After the beach we went out for seafood again. You have to like a seafood restaurant where the place setting includes a small metal bucket holding a roll of paper towels. My brother and my sister-in-law both went for the all you can eat steamed shrimp, and my SIL found the prize in her shrimp. It was a small steamed squid! She opted to pass on that! My nephew asked if he could see the squid, and after checking it out a bit asked "can I eat it?" YUCK! Hope y'all are having a good week! I'm sharing computer time with seven other adults and a preteen, so I'm not able to do much reading beyond my email. Thanks to all of you who sent Happy Anniversary wishes and such.  Tomorrow I'm going for a long bike ride around the Wildlife Loop, and I'm gonna try to take some pictures! |
| Dinner last night was lovely. We ate at the Inn over on the west side of Island. It sits right on the water of the Chincoteague channel. It was a late dinner. By late afternoon, the rain had slowed and I rounded up the kids and husband to go over and take a walk on the beach. I was expecting that we would walk the beach in the lingering haze of the rain, but the rain stopped and the clouds broke to brilliant streaming sunlight. It played across the rippling waves of the gentle ocean, and it was magnificent! We soon spotted a group of dolphins out in the ocean. We saw between 9 and 12 dolphins jumping and playing in the surf. A group of pelicans flew close, skimming the surface. They must have been following a school of fish. I would have been content to walk the beach in a light rain, but it was a gorgeous evening and I had a hard time leaving the beach. It was late before we went to dinner. It turned out again to be a blessing. Our meal was perfectly timed to be savored as we watched the sun sink over the channel. It was a lovely sunset. The seafood was exceptional as it can only be on an island where people still make their livings from the water. Fresh broiled flounder, and crab along with the requisite hush puppies. After dinner we took a stroll down Main Street and poked about the shops. At some point Tony remembered that he'd left his hat at the restaurant. When we returned for the car Tony went back for the hat. The restaurant was closed, and Tony crossed the parking lot shaking his head. "What?" "Is it a bad sign when a restaurant has a have-a-heart trap set in their doorway?" "No way!" "Yep. What do you think they're trying to catch?" LOL... I shudder to think! Probably they are just catching cats. Given the fishing industry on the island, there are tons of kitties about and the humane society has a very active catch and neuter program in attempts to control the population. I choose to believe this was the reason for the trap. Things I learned yesterday: 1. When pelicans land on the water they make a big splash. There is nothing graceful about it. LOL 2. Fiddler crabs look disturbingly bug like as they swarm about on the saltwater flats. 3. Always make the kids wear swimsuits to the beach even if you are only planning to take a walk. They are going in the water no matter what, and all those pockets on the cargo shorts will fill up with sand! The poor kid! Sand, gravity and water were all conspiring to pull those shorts right off his skinny little butt. Well, the sun is shinning and temps are in the upper 80s. It is expected to stay this way all week. The beach is calling, so I'm gonna get some lunch and head out. Hope you all are having a beautiful day!!! |
| Well I didn't expect to be entering my blog from the beach. My laptop has not been functioning properly and I didn't know if I'd have wireless. Fortunately, my brother fixed my laptop and figured out how to hack into the wireless. Lets see... we drove down in the rain. Today we've had wave after wave of thunderstorms rolling through. It hasn't been conducive to beach going or boating, but a rainy day at the beach still beats a nice day at home. The house we are staying at is beautiful and spacious. It has a lovely view of the water, and their is a long wooded pier that leads out over the salt marsh to the waters edge. The salt marsh is frequented by egrets and herons. Last evening I walked out to the end of the pier and watched the pelicans fishing for their dinners. I love this island! Though I've never lived here, it is a part of me. When we made that turn onto the causeway near the end of the tirp, and started to make our way out from the mainland, I felt the unmistakable sense of coming home. Since tonight is my Wedding Anniversary, my husband and I will be going out for a quiet dinner. If the weather clears up at all, we will go for a walk on the beach afterwards, but even as I say that, I can see more clouds gathering gray and ominous across the channel. |
| I'm going to the beach! One more day before we leave!!! A friend of mine once told me that the harder it is to get away, the more you need to do it. There is probably a lot of truth in that. Today at work I deleted about 600 emails, tidied my office, and put the "I'm on vacation so tell it to someone else" message on my voicemail. It felt good! I've still have piles of laundry and packing to get through. All these preparations mean that I've had very little on-line time these past few days and I miss y'all! Be Good! |
| Okay, so it was only SPF 50, but shouldn't it prevent a sunburn? Well, it's been kind of a rough week for toes around here. First, poor Nada  split her middle toe, and then yesterday, I broke my little toe. At least, I assume it is broken. It doesn't seem worth the bother of going in for an x-ray when there is really nothing they can do for it.Why do I think it is broken? Well, aside from the pain, it is one pitiful looking toe. It looks like someone took a black sharpie and drew a line around the base. Progressing out from the black rim are various hues of red and purple. It is very swollen and... Did I mention the pain? Yep, it happened yesterday at the water park. I was innocently walking along side my daughter when she oopscidentally stepped on my toe. Maybe it was the uneven surface of the pavers I was walking on at the time, dunno, but it really hurt. A knew right away that it hurt more than it should. So I limped around on it for three more hours of water park fun, and then headed home. Maybe if it had been a more significant toe I might have got some sympathy, but no one pays any mind to the "little piggy (who) cried wee wee wee all the way home." I was exhausted last night. The water park is built on the side of a mountain. In the wintertime it is a ski resort. In the summer it is a water park complete with a wave pool, many slides and other various water attractions. Walking around involves a lot of steps and hiking up hills. It is tiring. Yesterday was the water parks 1st annual Christmas in July celebration, but I didn't know that straight away. There I was in the wave pool wondering why the hell I was listening to Jingle Bell Rock! For a brief but scary moment, I thought I'd finally snapped. I asked my daughter "do you hear that music?" "Yeah, why do you think they're playing Christmas music?" Yep, it was another close call. One of these days though, that girl is going to learn to play me. Then, she'll look me square in the eye and say "Music? I don't hear any music." Later in the day my brother and I took the kids on a slide called "The checker flag challenge." The slide is very wide and divided into 8 lanes. This is a slide you go down head first on a thin foam mat with handles. They line 8 of us up at the top, blow the whistle and then at the bottom they announce the first one down as the winner. Well, we were up at the top ready to launch, but the little girl in lane two was looking down that slide and was terrified. She was getting tearful and her father and the attendant were trying to get her to hold onto the mat and give it a go. Well, they settled her a down and the attendant gave her a shove to get her going and then blew the whistle to start the rest of us. At the bottom my brother admitted that his first thought when he heard that whistle was "I bet I can catch her." He was surprised that everyone else was so slow off the start. "We were distracted by the crying child ya cold-hearted bastard." "Yeah well... she wasn't crying at the bottom when she won." When I got home last night I was exhausted. I was sun burnt, and my foot was throbbing. It was a good day. |
| I went over to my Mom's house this evening to visit. My two nephews are up from Virginia for the week. The other brother was there with wife and baby. They are staying over, and tomorrow we are taking the kids to a water park for a day of fun. My brother forgot to bring the baby's stroller, but when he was walking the dogs he saw "a perfectly good" stroller that someone had set out with the trash. Well, I pointed out that I still have two perfectly good strollers at my house and I'd be happy to bring one over for Mom to keep at her house. My brother has an obsessive sort of nature though and kept going back to that damn stroller. Finally he decides that he is going to drive over and take it. He asks my 8 year old Nephew, Alex if he wants to come with him to "steal" the stroller. "Are you really going to steal it," Alex asked. "No," my brother said, "It isn't really stealing if they are throwing something away." "Oh Man! What fun is that then." Alex went along anyway when promised that they would be very sneaky about it. He was the one to jump out of the car and snag the stroller. He jumped back in the car breathless with excitement." "Okay, GO, GO, GO!!! But, don't speed. If you speed we'll get busted by the cops." They arrived back at Mom's with the prized stroller. Well, we spent the next 45 minutes trying to figure out how to open it up. We even looked on-line for advice. "You know..." Alex said, "next time you should steal one from a store because those come with instructions."   Alright, now I have to go dig out the stroller I have downstairs so I can take it over to Mom's tomorrow. Have a good night everyone! |
Well, I did it. I created a GC rated book item for my limericks. If you're curious and would like to read them, you can link to them here.
Okay then, today I'm gonna get all sentimental on you. Next Monday is my thirteenth wedding anniversary. Since I'll be away on vacation next week, I'm gonna blog about it today. I don't recall the particular twist of logic that led my husband and I to pick a July wedding date. In retrospect April or October might have been nice. It was hot!!! The guys were sweating profusely in their tuxes and the church was NOT air conditioned. Fortunately the ceremony was relatively brief. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is me with my father as he walked me down the aisle. As much as I miss my father, I am infinitely grateful for the time we had together. I'm glad he was there to walk me down the aisle and to hold his Grandbabies. My husband and I married fairly young. I told him when he proposed that I thought we both still had a lot of growing up to do. We DID!!! It was a bumpy road, and we still have our moments, but at the end of the day, he is the person I want to share my thoughts with. In a sense, we grew up together. We know each other so well that we can complete each others thoughts. Tony is very talkative and I tend to be quiet. In this, we compliment one another. Tony is both thoughtful and far more sentimental and romantic than I will ever be. I love him with all my heart! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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