Ben and I dashed away for a quick trip last week. We spent Friday-Tuesday on Sanibel Island in Florida. I've wanted to go there ever since I was a little girl, and given the impending doom that BP has unleashed on the Gulf, Ben was kind enough to put our Glacier National Park trip on hold so that I could fulfill a childhood heart's desire.
We opted for bikes, and I think it's largely the way to go. The "Ding" Darling wildlife refuge, for example....I'm sure it would be fine in a car....really, fine. Okay. Probably not. It was great to be able to hear all the birds and other wildlife before we came up on them so that we could slow down, get out the camera, be quiet and see them before they ran away. We also saw mangrove crabs and some enormous fish that I'm sure we would have missed were it not for the need to take some water breaks.
The shelling was great (of course, a number of people told us that it's better in winter, and that this year is an off year....whatever. It's still better than anything I've seen in my whole life). I have a bathtub full of shells upstairs soaking and waiting to be packed away. I want to use them to decorate a house someday, if we ever manage to get into one! My prize find was a murex shell, all bleached white, about the size of my thumb and in really great shape. It made the early morning of the last day we were there worth it (sand flea bites and all!). I got up at 4:30 to be out on the beach at 5 for a 7:15 low tide. Yeah, I'm a little obsessed. I found such great shells, though!
We went to the Jacaranda to eat (good, but nothing great), and Ellington's for dessert and jazz (we were later getting there than we planned, and I WISH we could have heard more). The chocolate mousse was up there in the "best things I've ever eaten" category, and the group was really good. It was sort of funny, the bassist, drummer, and trumpet player were all sort of late-middle-aged or older, and the pianist/singer was my age. They were excellent, though.
Ben's request was that we go kayaking. I was trepidatious at best, and was pretty sure we'd drop the camera to the bottom of Tarpon Bay. But once we got going, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed myself. We saw a few birds, but mostly some pretty crazy jumping fish! My favorite thing of the day was the Anhinga we saw. They're birds that can dive down into the water, swim a while, come up to look around, dive down again, and repeat the process a number of times before they fly up out of the water again. I was flabbergasted by them.
It was a great trip, and great to have some time with just the two of us (thanks to Dad and Lisa and Chip and Cara for keeping the kids!). I hope I can get there again some day. It was wonderful to look for little treasures, and listen to the ocean, and not think about anything else.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Patience
I just don't have a whole lot of it. I'm a planner, constantly looking forward to the next thing. My wonderful mother, thankfully, has taught me a lot about enjoying the journey and just relishing the time that I have now, wherever and however it is. But that hasn't changed the looking forward...at least not a whole lot.
We still don't have jobs. Well, in Ohio. We have them and can continue living comfortably as we are for quite sometime. Which is a nice sort of safety net.
Despite this fact, we went to look at a house in Ohio yesterday. A 170-year-old farmhouse with a 10-year-old addition. An awesome hodgepodge house with interesting angles, odd little quirks, and wasted space as only old houses can have (a room almost like a closet that's on the second story above the tiny entryway, with its own door to close itself off from the rest of the landing of the stairs, and a giant church-style window). It is NOT in good shape. They're selling it for cheap, and we could probably offer a LOT less than they're asking and get it. But then there would be plaster to strip off walls, wiring to re-do, moisture barriers to install pre-drywall, painting, a dehumidifier or other similar system to solve some basement issues, floor to re-sand and re-finish, more painting.....we would be MARRIED to this house...do nothing but pour money into it for years and years to make it livable.
I've started looking into types of loans to make that possible. And I'm not even sure I WANT to do the work! AND WE DON'T HAVE JOBS HERE! Which makes the whole thing moot.
I love the house. Or at least the idea of it....a cool house for my kids to grow up in, that would have a great story to it. And character. And no cookie-cutter similarities to any others around it.
And despite the fact that it's completely a non-issue, I will proceed to worry about it until someone else buys it before we get jobs and can do it ourselves.
That's just what I do. I guess I might as well accept it.
We still don't have jobs. Well, in Ohio. We have them and can continue living comfortably as we are for quite sometime. Which is a nice sort of safety net.
Despite this fact, we went to look at a house in Ohio yesterday. A 170-year-old farmhouse with a 10-year-old addition. An awesome hodgepodge house with interesting angles, odd little quirks, and wasted space as only old houses can have (a room almost like a closet that's on the second story above the tiny entryway, with its own door to close itself off from the rest of the landing of the stairs, and a giant church-style window). It is NOT in good shape. They're selling it for cheap, and we could probably offer a LOT less than they're asking and get it. But then there would be plaster to strip off walls, wiring to re-do, moisture barriers to install pre-drywall, painting, a dehumidifier or other similar system to solve some basement issues, floor to re-sand and re-finish, more painting.....we would be MARRIED to this house...do nothing but pour money into it for years and years to make it livable.
I've started looking into types of loans to make that possible. And I'm not even sure I WANT to do the work! AND WE DON'T HAVE JOBS HERE! Which makes the whole thing moot.
I love the house. Or at least the idea of it....a cool house for my kids to grow up in, that would have a great story to it. And character. And no cookie-cutter similarities to any others around it.
And despite the fact that it's completely a non-issue, I will proceed to worry about it until someone else buys it before we get jobs and can do it ourselves.
That's just what I do. I guess I might as well accept it.
Monday, May 17, 2010
I really love....
......when General Relief Society Presidents validate my existence. It's even better when they did it in NINETEEN SEVENTY FIVE!
"The Church places no restrictions on a woman's going into the marketplace and into community service on a paid or a volunteer basis, if she so desires, when her home and family circumstances allow her to do so without impairment to them. Women are encouraged to develop their full potential as women, and the Church affords abundant opportunity for them to do so. Well-directed compassionate service, which is according to the nature of women, is but the law of brotherhood in action. It is Latter-day Saint doctrine. "
- Belle S. Spafford
Now, I'm not by any means saying that all women need to/should/have to/whatever work. Just that I really wish that when it comes up that it's ME in school, not Ben, the missionaries we've invited over for dinner don't go. "OH! YOU'RE in school? What do you study? What are you going to do with that?" And when I say teach, they assume high school. Not college.
Anyway. I'm not up for a full-out rant. Just wanted to say that I think it's cool that Sis. Spafford thinks it's allright for me to be a professor, even if the missionaries don't. :-)
"The Church places no restrictions on a woman's going into the marketplace and into community service on a paid or a volunteer basis, if she so desires, when her home and family circumstances allow her to do so without impairment to them. Women are encouraged to develop their full potential as women, and the Church affords abundant opportunity for them to do so. Well-directed compassionate service, which is according to the nature of women, is but the law of brotherhood in action. It is Latter-day Saint doctrine. "
- Belle S. Spafford
Now, I'm not by any means saying that all women need to/should/have to/whatever work. Just that I really wish that when it comes up that it's ME in school, not Ben, the missionaries we've invited over for dinner don't go. "OH! YOU'RE in school? What do you study? What are you going to do with that?" And when I say teach, they assume high school. Not college.
Anyway. I'm not up for a full-out rant. Just wanted to say that I think it's cool that Sis. Spafford thinks it's allright for me to be a professor, even if the missionaries don't. :-)
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