Summer Flowers

                                 

In an effort to fill the dirt bed next to our front walk, I planted three hydrangea bushes. I am very pleased with how they are doing. They start out creamy with blue tinges and then darken into a violet color. I have a drip hose around them for watering purposes because I read that they can get a fungus on their leaves if they are watered from above.

Dinner is Served

                                 

 About a year ago I started getting Ladies Home Journal. I still haven't figured out who signed me up for the subscription. In the meantime, LHJ has gone out of business and the remainder of my subscription is being filled with other magazines. This month I got an issue of Parents. I wasn't too thrilled since I've moved beyond the stages of parenthood that are covered in the magazine. But then I found the food section. There is a section that has a grocery list for a week's worth of meals, along with the recipes. I was a little hesitant, since the main ingredient for the week is quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) and I had never even heard of it.

So far this week we have had Quinoa Salmon Salad, Peachy Pork Chops, and Quinoa Patties. We still have Chicken & Potato Salad and Fresh Tomato Pasta to look forward to. Everything has been delicious! Surprisingly so. The key to making the meals quickly was the weekend prep ahead of time. I cooked the quinoa, cut corn off the cob, prepared fresh green beans, and stored it all in pre-measured containers in the fridge. I could use a year's worth of these meals in a cookbook. Let me know if you see one!

Traditions

             

Some traditions are started deliberately and others by accident. Granny kept pictures of her kids from their senior year in high school on her dining room wall. Grandma M. had a large photo of her kids on her dining room wall. I am turning it into a tradition with these photos of the kids in my dining room. Maybe they'll continue the tradition in the next generation. 

This room is much brighter during the day, but I was so excited to get the pictures back today and wanted to share as soon as I got them up!

Doctors

Since I don't like to take sick days during the year, summer is the best time for me to go to a doctor. I always end up putting off making appointments and haven't been for any kind of check-up since 2006. [We do go to the dentist twice a year. :) ] This summer I decided to stop procrastinating and make an appointment. Partly because my insurance sent me a notice in the mail telling me that I'm getting old and should get things checked out, but in nicer words. I also have a small scaly spot on my shoulder that is probably nothing, but I thought it would be better to know for sure.

I have called two different doctors. The first didn't answer the phone and the second said they are accepting patients for next year. I take that as a sign from God that everything is A-OK. Plus, next time some idiot is going on about the evils of socialized medicine and how you'll have to wait eons to get an appointment, I can throw in my experience with un-social medicine where you can't even make an appointment.

Summer Job

There are, admittedly, several mindless hours of pointless Netflix watching during my summers. But quite a bit of my time is spent doing school work. This summer I have cataloged countless books for my classroom library, written close to 100 guided reading lesson plans, spent many hours trolling the internet for storage baskets, bins, and boxes, read/ studied books on classroom management in the hopes of improving instruction in my classroom next year, attended the Math Best Practices workshop, and already started worrying about test scores for next year and how to improve them. I think I'm just feeling a bit defensive because of the general attitude and remarks that people make about teachers getting the summer "off".

A Trip to the Beach

Apologies to anyone who has already seen these pictures from Hilton Head on Facebook. I really don't like Facebook and usually put stuff here instead of there. For some reason it was just easier to post a whole album to that site instead of writing about our trip here. A moment of laziness I guess.

The majority of our time was spent at the beach. Eric and Caleb were in the water and I watched from a very relaxing beach chair. The first couple of days, Caleb used his skim board, until he had an accident that landed us at the nearest Urgent Care. Three x-rays proved that he hadn't broken anything and could continue with a couple of prescription painkillers. However, after that he stuck to his bodyboard.

Besides the beach, we walked around Pinkney Wildlife Reserve, which is an island between Hilton Head and the mainland. It is a very unique place with tons of wildlife and miles of hiking trails. That is where we came across a baby alligator, but luckily not the mama!

Besides regular golf courses, there are several mini-golf courses. We played a round and I came in last place. If we had counted an extra shot each time Caleb's ball ended up in the water, he would have come in last. We had a lot of laughs.

One of the most fun things we did was to go on a 2-hour nature kayaking trip around the Sound. I have never been kayaking, so that was a new experience for me. Eric and I took a double, since I was worried about flipping a single. Remember my paddle boarding experience a couple of weeks ago? We saw lots of wildlife and learned about the nature in the area. One of the coolest things is that the tidal change in the Hilton Head area is 10 feet. It is the largest along the American eastern seaboard. You can really see the dramatic difference along the beach as well as the tidal creeks throughout the day.

Looking through the pictures I thought this one made Eric look really skinny, until I realized that it was Caleb! I find myself constantly taking a second look nowadays, just to see who I'm talking to.

There was a crescent moon during our visit, so I naturally had to try to replicate the South Carolina flag. Not too good. Here's the real thing:

We walked along this path to the beach everyday and this shot epitomizes everything I love about the Low Country: tidal creeks, the birds, marsh grass blowing in a breeze, and especially the Carolina blue sky. I wish this was my backyard!