Happy Place

I have two words for y’all: Happy Place.

Two more: The Beach.

Yes, that’s right. The beach is my happy place. The place I have been fortunate to be for the last two days, thanks to some kind friends who shared their vacation home with us, minus Hubby, sadly, because he had to work.

The place where I close my eyes and breathe in the salt air and with it, a sense of peace and calm. I breathe out any worries or cares. Everything  that seemed stressful before just seems to fall away. I look around and I see God’s beautiful work in the pelicans as they dive bomb into the water looking for that elusive meal. I hear the surf calling to me, “Shhh, shhh”, inviting me to sit back and enjoy.

And I do.

I love to sit there on the beach, sipping a cold drink, laughing with friends and watching the kids play. Watching the people go by. Listening to the gulls calling “feed us, feed us”. Cheering the kids on as they construct their masterpiece in the sand. And reading a few words in the book I’ve been trying to finish for three weeks.

There is no other better vacation spot as far as I am concerned. It never gets old to me. I don’t mind the sand and how it sticks to the sunscreen after you’ve applied it. I don’t mind all the work involved in packing every possible thing you might remotely need, just in case. I don’t mind all the dirty laundry it produces. I don’t even mind being separated from my internet!

It is all worth the trouble.

Even the sunburn.

“The cure for everything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea.” ~Isak Dinesen

“Your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity. The seas have lifted up, Lord,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the Lord on high is mighty.” ~Psalm 93:2-4 NIV

One thousand words a day

I have made the decision to write at least 3 times a week, even if I feel like I don’t have any “blog fodder”. I do so love when I have me some good blog fodder! But the only way to blog consistently, is to blog consistently, right?

Discipline.

Also known as “The Elusive Discipline”.

It is something which I feel is often in short supply at my house—not just in the writing area. But I am pretty sure that is blog fodder for another day…

I read recently that Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild, which Jacob and I just finished reading for school, committed to writing one thousand words a day. Every day, y’all! That, my friends, is commitment. Discipline. A determination to hone your craft. Now, I’m not saying I want to train Olympic-style to write the next great American novel, but I am saying, for the sake of my mental health, that committing to blog regularly is what Martha Stewart would call “a good thing.”

In other news, we are currently focused on getting through the  next day and a half. Emma’s last day of school is Friday, the 25th, and is also a half day. Unfortunately for Jacob, there is still work to be done. But I think we will be finished by mid-June, if we can stay on task. Which is questionable. Hm, the elusive discipline rears its ugly head. Again. Gotta work on that.

Not sure what this summer holds for us, but this I do know: there will be lots of water activities because no one in this house has any broken body parts! Can I get a WOOT WOOT?! We are having to work double time to make up for the Lost Summer of 2011. Plans are in the works for the beach, water park, surf camp, no surgeries and lots of walking around unassisted! And maybe running! Yes! Let there be running! So excited!

For me, there are also reading plans! I plan to finish HP Order of the Phoenix, which is currently half-finished. (I am trying to get through the series at the urging of my kids.) And then the plan is to move on to The Hobbit. Just to get in the Middle Earth mode, as Jacob and I are going to do a British Literature course next year based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy  in combination with some other goodies, like Frankenstein, Robinson Crusoe, Beowulf and Great Expectations. After that, I will be reading my Rainbow Science and Zoology textbooks and lesson planning to prepare for my co-op classes for next fall, as well as Jacob’s classes. So, I will feel really accomplished if all that happens! Methinks I better get crackin’!

Meanwhile, I am also hoping to get started on curbing my carb addiction and working out more…Time to really burn up that Zumba Wii game I got for Christmas! Oh! And work on my one thousand words a day. <wink>

Wish me luck!

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” ~Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” ~Hebrews 12:11

A little sand in your teeth

“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”  ~e.e. cummings

I am not, even remotely, what you would call a green thumb—I leave those talents to my Granny Hobbs and my mother-in-law. My thumb is probably some shade of orangey-yellow. I love plants and flowers, but they must be basically able to grow and thrive with little to no assistance from me. Here is what is growing itself in my side yard right now:

Hydrangeas! Aren’t they beautiful? They just make me smile and I love having them in my home to enjoy this time of year. Just wanted to share them with you today!

We are a beach family at this house. The most challenging part of living in the Midwest for a few years was not so much the winters, but being so far from the beach and our family. Being back in proximity to the beach these last almost 5 years, we try to make pretty regular day trips to the beach when we can. So yesterday, in spite of the threatening weather, we made our way to our favorite SC Lowcountry beach, Folly Beach. We love it for its family friendliness, its sprawling beach front and the fact that it reminds us a bit of Atlantic Beach, NC, where my hubby and I both grew up going.  Apparently, there was some tropical storm off the coast of Charleston somewhere. When we first arrived at the beach, things were looking pretty sketchy. In fact, it was sprinkling a little when we got there. And there was a looming band of black clouds. It was pretty windy, cold and rainy-ish for about the first 45 minutes we were there.

Here is how Emma spent the rainy time :

 

It was pretty funny. When it appeared to clear off a bit, and the boys were throwing the football, Emma and I decided we would walk down the beach and when we got, oh, about 100 yards from our chairs, it commenced POURING. We made a run for it back to the chairs and laughed so hard the whole way, trying to cover our heads with the towel. And by the time we got back to our chairs…it had STOPPED. We laughed some more. It finally cleared off and turned into a beautiful, albeit gusty, day at the beach.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

See the loose sand blowing over the packed sand? When said sand hits you, say, on the back of the legs or, in your EYEBALL, at about 30 MPH  it gives you a not-so-pleasant feeling. And it gets sand in places that I can’t even mention here. However, it is not enough for us to leave, no way. A rainy, windy, sandy day at the beach is better than a regular day at home! Can I get a “what what”?? Exhibit B really gives you a good visual for the blowing sand…the ground almost looks covered in snow. Or fog. Or something other worldly.

Jacob tried to build a foxhole and a sand wall to barricade himself from the blowing sand. It was very cool and quite effective.

There was also the obligatory sand sculpting, in the form of a dolphin. I thought is was pretty fabulous.

We topped it off with a trip to Jack’s Cosmic Dogs on the way home. What is a cosmic dog? Hm, well, next time you are in the vicinity of Folly Beach, SC, you will have find out.

I love days like these. Days just being. Where we laugh and relax. Where we enjoy each other and creation. Where my biggest worry is getting sand in my teeth.  Yep, good times.