Back To The Real World

Hilton Head Island is beautiful! Lush and green everywhere you look. Palm trees, magnolias, oaks, pines, maples, etc. grow side by side. There were oleander and butterfly bushes in full bloom. Absolutely gorgeous. The whole island is landscaped beautifully. You can hardly find the grocery stores or gas stations behind their screens of trees. All you can see is a very modestly sized sign in front of the tree buffer that states the name of the business that is hiding behind the greenery. In fact there was a large mall that you couldn't even spot from the road, the sign in front of the expanse of greenery merely said "The Mall". Every town should be so thoughtfully landscaped!

The condo we stayed in had a lagoon and it was visible from our balcony. There is a resident alligator in the lagoon, but we never caught a glimpse of him. Some fellow vacationers told us that they saw him the day before we arrived. I'm kind of glad he didn't show up while we were there. The turtles in the lagoon are more than happy to come out and show themselves and they are real cuties. In fact they follow you as you walk across the bridge over the lagoon. Even though you're not supposed to, people feed the turtles. There is a stiff fine if you get caught because it may cause the alligator to come up looking for handouts from the people too.

I had a great time and wish I could have stayed several more days...............time truely does fly when you're having fun.

Mini Vacation!!!

Yep, haven't been on a vacation in years and a friend invited me to go to Hilton Head, SC. I've never been to Hilton Head before so I'm excited. The weather forecast during my visit is for thunderstorms every day, but hey, it's the beach, how bad can it be?

I'll only be there three or four days, but that should be sufficient to end up with enough sand in my car to fill a sandbox, don't ya think? I got these pictures from Googling Hilton Head, if I don't forget to pack my camera hopefully I'll have some pretty "real" pictures for my next post.

The Grass Is Always Greener..............

Frosty is always trying to get to the greener grass on the other side of the fence. With all the rain we've been having she won't need to look outside her pasture fence! It's been a regular monsoon season here lately. I think it has rained every day for about 3 weeks. No sunshine for weeks gets depressing.

This weekend it was finally sunny and warm both Saturday and Sunday! Saturday one of my daughters and I were like slugs basking in the sun at the pool. Today we repeated our slug act at the pool and then I took Frosty out for a good long ride. Life is good : ).

Frannie

This is Frannie. When my kids were little they pooled their money and bought a fishbowl and one tiny fantail goldfish each. It only took about a week to figure out that the fish bowl would have to be bigger and it needed a filter. That led to a 5 gallon tank. Several months later it was apparent that it was getting crowded again, which led to a 10 gallon tank. After about three years we were down to two fish (we started with four), but the two fish were getting too big for the tank again. You guessed it, I go get them a 20 gallon tank. Frannie and Goldie lived happily in that tank until they were eight years old. Who knew goldfish lived that long!? I always thought Frannie was a girl, she had a beautiful extremely long flowing tail and fins. Goldie always bossed Frannie around and sort of guarded her like he was protecting her, so I figured he was a boy.

When I saw this silver goldfish with the long tail it reminded me of Frannie and I just had to make something out of it. It's a fun and whimsical choker necklace, a tribute to Frannie. : )

Needless Tragedy

This is a picture of Hunter my 14 year old cat basking in a sunbeam for a nap just hours before he was attacked and killed by two 100 lb. dogs in my yard. His favorite thing to do was lay on his back in the sun. Last Thursday evening I was outside when I heard a big commotion out front. I came around the side of the house and a woman standing out by the road called to me and said, "I think your cat might be hurt". I ran out to see what had happened and there laid Hunter in the road gasping and howling in pain. He had been sitting in my front yard when this woman and her husband came by walking their dogs. She had one on a leash and he had two large dogs on leashes. She said the dogs her husband was walking took off after Hunter and he couldn't control them. They came into my yard and attacked him dragging the man with them. The man looked at me and said, "Your cat didn't even try to run up a tree or anything." What the hell is that!? So it's Hunter's fault because at 14 he didn't run fast enough. They even chuckled and said that Hunter put up a good fight. My son and I rushed Hunter to the nearest 24 hour Animal Hospital, which is about 35 minutes away. He died in my arms before we got half way there. We took him anyway just in case his breathing was just very shallow and that he might still be in pain. He was gone when we got him there, as I thought. What a senseless death. If Hunter had died of old age, or even cancer, I could have accepted it. For him to die such a violent painful death because of an adult's stupidity, I can't seem to get over it. The arrogance of the man responsible is unbelievable. He never even said he was sorry! What if that had been a child playing in the yard, he couldn't have controlled his dogs then either. IDIOT comes to mind does it not? Okay, my rant is over, but I still don't feel any better : (

Remembering Sadie

Sadie was a birthday gift for my oldest daughter's 9th birthday. She grew up with my 4 children and was a true blue friend to them, and all the kids in the neighborhood for that matter. Her only vice was chewing. She was well known to chew up ANYTHING that she could reach. All the kids that came to play at my house knew not to hang their bike helmet on their handlbars because it would be shredded all over the yard when they came back outside. Boots, shoes, baseball gloves, baseballs, batting helmets, even a cell phone once, you name it, she shredded it! Sadie even chewed the plastic/rubber hubcaps off the 4-wheelers in the garage! She could skin a golf ball in about 30 seconds flat. One good thing about all of her chewing, her teeth were pearly white and completely tartar free even at 13 when she died.

We found out that Sadie had cancer about one year before she died last May. We all still miss her terribly, she was a sweetheart beyond compare. We love you Sadie!

Derby Day!

I grew up just a few miles from Churchill Downs where they run the Kentucky Derby. All my life there was BIG hoopla goin' on all around town for a couple of weeks leading up to the Derby. Now that I live in North Carolina it's barely even mentioned and I live in horse country here! No derby parties, no derby pies, no mint juleps (yuck), just nothing derby. Oh well, at least I can watch it on TV (sob), at home (sob), alone (SOB).

It's raining out today so I was stuck inside. After doing what I considered enough boring house work I decided to get a little creative. Here's a "beachy" little necklace I made for summer.