Fri. POD

 


Those camellias I was a little worried about after the dusting of snow at the end of March seem to be just fine!

Thurs. POD

The photo above shows a the remnants of a home that exploded approximately 2 miles away from where we live. The sound actually woke my husband up-he said the house shook and the windows rattled a bit, but it still didn't wake me up. This is kind of old news, as it happened back in March, but today my daughter and I happened to remember it when we were driving home from Target and decided to detour off the main road to see what it looked like. It appeared to be a pretty good sized home on a lovely lot surrounded by flowering trees and Leyland cypress'. The foundation is the only thing remaining and the entire contents of the home are blown to bits and lying about the yard (and even pieces remain in the neighbors yards). I guess they cannot clean up the mess simply because it is still under investigation.

Here is the link to the article in our local paper about it.

It was a rainy day that was spent mostly inside after the shopping trip so not much to photograph...

Wed. POD

After a great night's sleep in my own bed, I awoke ready to another lovely spring day. I enjoyed a little quite time out on the porch with a new book I bought while in Sylva. A book by Sarah Ban Breathnach (the author of Simple Abundance and Something More) titled, The Illustrated Discovery Journal-Creating a Visual Autobiography of Your Authentic Self. I am looking forward to playing with this more.

My hubby asked me to help him pick out a countertop for this remodel he is doing and has been left in charge of. So after dropping my car off for some service work, we went to the jobsite and to Lowe's. I had to go in the garden center while there and ended up bringing home a bunch of phlox to plant on a rocky slope in our yard. It was on sale for $3.33 each so I had to do this right now!

I came home and planted them all. I spent more time deadheading some plants that have already started growing again. I am worried about my Spanish Lavendar and was also disappointed to find out that one of our loveliest perennials, the Lantana, from last year isn't hardy in our Zone 6/7 area, yet it was sold to me at my local Lowe's! I'll have to pay much more attention to that this season if I buy much more from there...

It was a great day to be out in the yard, and the entire family was almost the entire day. Libby and I even got out on astronomy book at the end of the day and took a walk in the dark to try to identify some of the constellations. Tripp was having a ball playing nerf war with the neighbor's grandson.

Now, if I could only find a way to do all of my inside chores while outside!!!

Mon/Tues POD's

I apologize for being a bit of slacker about my daily posting over the last week, but this is the first time I've been on any type of vacation since starting this project and I really think vacations need to be as "techno-free" as possible. For that reason, I have not been online much and definitely not taking the time to upload pictures.

On Monday, I was lucky enough to steal away with 3 friends to a little cabin in the woods of Sylva, NC. We drove up around 1:00 in the afternoon, unloaded at the house, had a snack and then headed to downtown to walk around and explore a bit. We spent most of our time in two different book stores (one the library resale store, the other a new book store). We also had a good cup of coffee here and sat on comfy couches chit-chatting. After we toured the town, we headed back to the cabin, poured ourselves a glass of wine and started snacking on cheese, nuts, veggies & hummus. (The first photo was our first toast of the evening). For dinner, we had curried broccolli and cheddar soup with bread, pasta w/pesto, and then brownies and carrot cake for dessert with an after dinner drink. It was wonderful. We spent the entire evening out on the porch. At about midnight we decided to take a moonlit walk to a small waterfall and then continued on up the road where we laid down and looked up at the stars in complete silence-so peaceful!

After a short night's sleep, we were up enjoying coffee on the porch again and proceeded to stay in our jammies until well after lunch! (The birdhouse photo was one I snapped first thing in the morning before anyone else was up and about. )We intended to take a hike, but that never happened. Instead we talked and talked and talked! At about 3:30 or so, we headed out with a stop in mind-The Balsam Mountain Inn. This place is amazing, an old mountain inn situated right beside the railroad tracks and an old RR station. This place was built in 1905 and boasts 50 rooms, we looked in almost all of them! Each one painted a charming color and decorated to match, but in a hodge-podge sort of way that was so inviting, like staying at grandma's house...

I got back home around dinnertime and it wasn't long after eating and watching a family movie with my kids and hubby that I was snoozing on the couch. Refreshed from my day away, I was ready to get some things done around here!

Sun POD

Charleston getaway slideshow

Saturday POD

I chose this particular picture for my POD simply because it shows both children and we are at the BEACH! That was the main goal, to get to the water...

I have a complete photo journal of our trip that I will post a link to if you are interested in more photos...

Our day began with a quick breakfast at the hotel, I was tickled to find that they had low-carb offerings of sausage and omelets so I ate well. We immediately headed to Patriot's Point to cross over the beautiful Cooper River Bridge. My hubby needed to stop at a drugstore for allergy medication and the kids ended up buying these! They also insisted on wearing them and we kept laughing saying they looked like "country come to town". Next we took a drive to the end of Sullivan's Island. After that was a stop at Fort Moultrie. We took the walking tour and it was a beautiful day to be out. Tripp, who normally would have been bored out of his mind, was thoroughly engrossed and even took time to stop and read the informational signs and share some of his personal knowledge on the subject (this was all thanks to the Focalin). After, the fort tour, we found a public access to use to get out on the beach. Libby and I took a long walk shell seeking while Tripp played in the sand. Then, the swim! It was so cold I couldn't bring myself to get all the way in. Tripp and Libby had a great time though! Next, came lunch at Acme Cantina on Isle of Palms. This is one of our regular stops every time we come down. After lunch, was a quick shopping trip in Mt. Pleasant! Then back to the hotel for showers and a little rest time before heading into Charleston for dinner....

Part 2-
Found a perfect parking spot beside the marketplace and we made reservations at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. We thought the kids would like it the best although, I really wanted to eat out on a deck in Shem Creek. It was a good choice for people watching, though. We strolled through the market and around some of the neighboring shops, then got ice cream at Haagen-Daaz before leaving downtown. We were all bushed by the time we got back to the hotel...