the party's over :-(

Vacation is over....back to reality. It has been nice having a few days home before going back to work. The trip home was extra long thanks to a wreck on I-77 which closed north and south lanes. It must have been bad because we saw helicopters, two ambulances, firetrucks, and a hazmat truck. We were in a construction zone and there were concrete barracades blocking us, not to mention all the trucks. We parked on the interstate for over an hour and a half. Finally, state patrolmen started having people back up to the previous exit and gave us detour instructions. Unfortunately, their instructions caused 421 to back up really bad. We didn't take the exit they recommended since it looked to me like we might be waiting to get onto the exit for at least an hour. Since I had an atlas handy, I decided to go another 12 miles up the road and catch another route. It was pretty smooth sailing except we did have a wait on that road where they were working on a bridge, and had only one lane open. We finally made it home around 11:30, rather than 9:00, which was the goal.

I can't show off any vacations pics because I still can't find my camera cable. I did a lot of running and I think I'm ready to try a 10K now. I know I can do a 5K pretty easily, no matter how hilly. The 10K will be an effort, but I think I can make it..as long as there aren't any really big uphills.

We saw Sarah at the Fiddler's Convention in Morehead. She was awesome, and she had Jesse and Matt playing with her. The storm was a major destraction and the fact that tent posts were falling around us and at one point I thought the whole tent top might rip and blow off. Sarah was a bit unnerved too because at one point, she stopped singing and just looked up like "what the??". I promised her I would come back today but I think I've convinced myself to stay here and get some work done. The place is a wreck and I have SO much I'd like to get done before Monday. It looks like the weather is clearing here so hopefully it will be a pleasant night in Morehead tonight.

Jerry made it home from the beach early this afternoon and he unloaded his car and has gone to bed for awhile. A nap sounds tempting. I got up early today and got in a good run. Also went to the farmer's market which is fun. I bought lots of stuff because the deer have been munching on our garden all summer and we don't have much. Old Chewy isn't keeping the deer out like she used to, I think she doesn't hear them anymore. I know she doesn't see as well as she used to.

Vacation Almost over...

Tomorrow is the last day, and this is the first time I can ever say I am sad to be leaving Myrtle Beach. I have really had a good time this year. No golf, and not even one visit to the driving range for me, but I've been getting a good run in every day and playing quite a bit of tennis. The weather has been great and Jerry and the girls are letting me NOT play mini-golf...which I detest.

Miss Sarah will be pleased that I acquired her a gift of her favorite fish stew from Chesapeake House. They sold me a quart of the stuff and it's in the freezer now. The cook told me it freezes wonderfully and will taste even better when it's thawed than if she'd eaten it fresh in the restaurant. I ran 4.8 miles this morning and tomorrow's goal will be to survive 5 miles. The girls want to play MagicQuest in the morning which means another trip to Broadway on the Beach. I will take my iPod and some crackers to feed the fish and ducks, it should be a pleasant morning. I went to the music store and bought 3 new music books. I can't wait to get my hands back on a piano.

I have been playing Sarah's guitar which she kindly loaned me. I like hers way better than my old Harmony. I would sell the thing but it's gone up in value quite a bit so I'm hanging onto it for a bit longer...which is stupid since I don't like playing the thing.

OK, Sarah, if you're reading this, I took your advice and went out today and bought myself some new clothes. I've been thinking about what you told me about my pants looking like clown pants because they're so big. You were right because you know I always like to buy my clothes a bit big in case they shrink, and the new pants and shorts I bought are two sizes smaller than what I'm currently wearing. I didn't buy any skirts or dresses though, which will probably disappoint you. I just can't be that girly for you, sorry. You'll have to settle for your dykey mommy (maybe that should be dikey...I don't know).

Well, time to go check on my laundry and get out on the deck with my guitar. I have just enough turkey left to get through tomorrow night, I think. I think I'll be gobbling in my sleep tonight.

More vacation

Today is day...4.5 of vacation, it's easy to lose track. The bottle of Turkey is more than half gone, I might just have to make another trip to the red dot before I head home to listen to my sweet Sarah sing her lungs out on Friday night. My ear infection is getting worse, dang it, no more wave crashing for me.

Jerry is 50 today and we had a heck of a party for him. I would add some pics but I still have no camera cable...I'm going to have to buy a new one. I have been running every day since we got here and I am now pretty capable of running about 5 miles without stopping, and that's with a hangover! Jerry and I played tennis this morning, I was on today, or maybe he was off. Anyway, I think I could have won a set today...maybe. We just beat the ball, we don't really try to play games very often. I'm starting to get my old serve back...it has taken months of work to get it back to where I can hit a decent serve.

I don't think we'll get to play any golf but maybe we'll go play some more tennis tomorrow. I still want to get out to that big mall and visit the music store. I haven't gotten any decent new music in a long time...I'd love to look and see what they have. The store could be totally different now that they've moved though. The time I was there before, they had file cabinets and racks and racks and RACKS of sheet music and music books. It's so much nicer to thumb through and see what you're buying than buying it blindly off the internet.

I'd better go mingle with the ranks. Kristy and Sherri are drinking Tarrantulas tonight - I think those are something like weird margaritas. As for me, I'm a Kentucky bourbon woman. I think Sarah would have me be a moonshine woman..not that I have anything against moonshine. It's a tad too oily for me, I prefer bourbon.

Vacation

Today is day 4 of the annual Myrtle Beach vacation, Saturday, the day we move into the beach house. This is also girls' day out since Jerry usually plays golf on this day. Erin and Emily are all too happy to spend the day with me at Broadway at the Beach. Today they have planned to play MagicQuest, have nachos and beer at the Liberty (well, the beer is my idea...they can't drink the stuff), go to the dreaded Build-a-Bear, make a tee-shirt, and get some cotton candy. I just go with the flow as the money flows out of my purse.

I think I have a pound of sand and a gallon of Atlantic ocean in my ear so now that I've got a bit of infection brewing in there, I'll call CVS and see if there wasn't a refill on Erin's prescription and see if they'll fill it here for me. That should knock it out before it becomes a misery.

I have gotten up early and had a good run three days so far. It's way too hot to run late. I was running yesterday and my ipod fell out of it's skin. I lost the little plate that protects the screen and I was sad about that but oh well, SHT happens. I was running this morning and behold!!! I found the little clear plastic plate on the sidewalk. In fact, I almost stepped on it. I usually don't even look down while I'm running but it must have been fate - I glanced down and there it was.

I miss Sarah and I haven't been able to work on my laptop - apparently the wireless card in Sarah's PC is much more capable than the one in my laptop. I did find a bunch of websites that offer free repair of shdoclc.dll, which I think is the problem with my piece of junk. The big question is whether or not my machine will be too locked down to do anything about it. I will have to get to a place with FREE wireless (or not wireless) and log in via VPN which means I'll have to use my most managed account, which means our firewall probably won't let me run anything corrective on my piece of junk. But, if I can save something to the desktop and then log off and back on with my least managed account, then I might be able to run it and maybe it will fix something. I have a feeling the problem exists in two places on my PC. Bad news.

weekend reality

OK, well first off, the forecast was wrong. We got a rainstorm Friday night and one on Sunday. Saturday was very nice though, mid 80's and sunny, though a bit windy. I played Sandy Creek and my partner was a bit chatty, but I tried to block him out as best I could. Still I shot an 88, not a great score (45, 43...I think). I lost at least 4 balls. I think I was actually playing better than the previous weekend although the score doesn't show it. I lost no balls at all the previous weekend, so no penalties, but I had a couple of awesome chip shots and putts this past Saturday, which are just so MUCH FUN! The short game is starting to come back a bit. I had a bad case of yips the first few holes.

My goal was to get the van packed for vacation and I failed. Oh well, I guess that means I'll be staying up all night tomorrow night. I hate packing and unpacking. I did gas up and I'm getting laundry done.

I think I've partaken enough of the Maker's Mark tonight to vent off about Walmart. I HATE THAT PLACE. It's the bane of all America. I know it's great for people who don't have a lot of money, but I HATE THAT PLACE. They never have enough people working and it's always crowded. Even if I go at midnight, it's crowded. I wish I could place my order on-line and drive through and pick it up, then I wouldn't have to deal with the crowd and stocking people blocking the aisles. Not only that, I have to walk miles to get what I need since they spread everything out (so I'll have to walk for miles and pick up stuff I don't need..which is their master plan). Their produce has been on a truck for a month and I don't want to see 44 brands of bread on their F'ing shelves...I just want a F'ing loaf of F'ing bread... Maybe I just hate shopping in the first place. To me, a store is like a war zone - get in and get out - get 'er done. Lord knows I can't take Emily in there...she would have me empty my bank account in there! I think Sarah hates that place even more than I do.

We saw the new Harry Potter movie this weekend and one of my favorites things about it was the decore in Umbridge's office, the cat plates hanging on the wall. The plates had images of cats that seemed to be alive (like all newspapers and pictures at Hogwarts). Sarah made an interesting comment about what wether or not you could put those plates in the microwave. Well, you can imagine what the cats would do. The potter movie was really good, but I hate it about the person who was killed off (I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it). I do hope he's not really dead.

I must get back to packing....did I mention how much I hate packing?

no camping

God saw fit to rain on our proposed camping trip, no matter, I really didn't have time. We are leaving for the beach Tuesday night, as soon as I get off work if at all possible, and I have nothing ready for this vacation yet. I need to get it in gear and start organizing and getting our SHT together.

My sweet Erin started her blog this evening. She is an extremely capable authoress. I think someday that girl is going to write a best seller. I hope it's a scary story because I really like that kind of book. Stephen King is still my favorite author. John Alexander Thom writes totally differently, and I like his books, but King is king for me.

I think I'm playing golf tomorrow...I hope so anyway. Also, I think we're going to go see the new Harry Potter movie. A busy weekend, but it should be fun!

camping?

I do believe we have a decent weekend in the forecast. I promised the kids we'd go camping and we're running out of weekends before school starts. I think I'll commit to a campsite at Grayson for the weekend. We'll have to get up early saturday and drive back for Emi's dance lessons, but then we can go back out for the rest of the weekend. We'll swim, ride bikes, PLAY IN THE FIRE (my favorite part of camping), and tell ghost stories. I'm sure Erin has a bunch of new ones for us.

Sandy Creek

Yesterday was a great day. The girls were wiped out from a sleep over they went to and they didn't want to do anything, so the "old man" and I went out to Sandy Creek (aka The Creek) and got a round in. It was a gloriously beautiful day, sunny, humid, and hot, just the way I like it. Jerry is getting a tad too comfortable in having me back on the golf course with him and he's falling back into that bad habit of his - giving unsolicited advice. I didn't assess him the appropriate penalties, but next time I might have to. When I want advice from a person who swings the club like a gorilla, I'll ask for it. Jerry is easy to play head games with though, he always has his head in the game. When he's getting on my last nerve too much, I'll make some innocent little comment about the road (OB) or the creek (lateral hazard) or the railroad tracks and sure as heck, his ball goes there. Then he's off hunting for his ball and I have quiet again. I often wonder why some men ever play golf. It's as if every shot is a test of their manhood.

I was having some trouble getting my mid-iron shots lined up yesterday, I kept pushing everything right, probably where I've been working so hard on my draw. Finally, by the back 9, I was getting things turned around. I did have a couple of amazing putts on the front and one awesome 3-wood shot (on the par 5, #4 hole). I had a couple of birdie putts but I missed both of them. On the back 9, I was finally able to get the fade out of my drive and getting better distance. I think I hit my most perfect, magnificent drive ever on the par 4, #17 hole. I played from the reds yesterday and I'm not sure of the yardage, but the ball went dead straight and stopped maybe 15 yards from the front of the green. The sound of the club hitting the ball was music to my ears (clink) and there was like zero vibration on the club. I must have hit that sweetest part of the sweet spot on face of that driver.

My final score was nothing to be proud of, 86, 45 on the front and 41 on the back. Still, it was below 90 which was my goal for the day. It's going to take time to get back to the shooting in the mid to low 70's. For now, I'm just delighted to have a chance to get out and play. When I start scoring in the low 80's, I'll move back to the white tees. Actually, if I do that now, that would probably be good but not as much fun. The Creek is a fairly short course so if I hit a good drive, I only have a short iron to the green. I need to get better with my long irons.

I don't think I'll be playing any golf today - got other irons in the fire.

River Hole

This is view of #7 green at Shawnee - my most favorite hole on my most favorite golf course on this entire planet. To me, this is not the most attractive angle, the shot is taken from the rough on the par 3, #8 hole. I like the view from about 120 yards back from the green in the fairway on #7 - you can really get a good look at how the river makes a bend there.

Could it be any better of a day than today? It is cloudless, the birds are singing, and it's supposed to get really, REALLY hot. Perfect day for golfing, but I doubt I'll be playing any today. I probably will go to the driving range though. I've been working on the draw at the range and I'm getting some of my old distances back. But really, I'd take accuracy over distance any day of the week. I pitched quite a few balls at the 40 and 75 markers last night, and I'm still struggling with that dang 3-iron. I'm almost thinking about switching that bad boy to graphite, the steel just isn't doing anything for me. I have the same yardage with the 3-iron as the 4, and I'm a whole lot more consistent with the 4. I guess I'll just give it some more time (and more work).

Lies

I was reading an old post and saw where my lovely daughter, Sarah, mentioned building a glorious bonfire with little girl toys. It reminded me of how I use to get her to clean her room. I would explain to her how when her toys piled up in the floor, there was this thing called spontaneous combustion and they would just burst into flames, and it could burn our whole house down and we might die in our sleep. She bought into it and she would pick her toys up and put them back on the shelf. Nevermind that she still has screaming nightmares everynight, at least the toys were put away.

And how does one get their children to brush their teeth before bed? All my kids believed me when I told them bugs would grow on their teeth at night. Never once did I say insects, but I'm pretty sure that is what was running through each kids' little brain. I could usually see the wheels turning when Sarah was thinking on something real hard. She was only about 2 the first time she put up a fight about brushing her teeth. I didn't think she'd understand about bacteria rotting her teeth so I told her that SOMETIMES people who don't brush get bugs growing on their teeth. She looked concerned and asked me what kind of bugs. I was vague, I said "Oh, like spiders and cockroaches." She looked horrified and quite scared. I told her she wouldn't ever have to worry about it if she brushed her teeth and she jumped right up and took care of business. Erin and Emily didn't even question it. Akiko even told them the bugs ate their pacifiers when it was time to get rid of them. I still remember the sad look on Erin's face when she told me about her pacifier. She said "No more bobble. Bug eat" and looked like she might cry. I wasn't sure I understood what she said and I looked at Akiko and she had that SHT-eating grin on her face. When the girls were out of ear-shot, she told me that she told them the bugs ate their bottles and pacifiers, and they totally accepted it.

Sorry, I can't provide a link to Erin's blog since she won't start one. it's a pity, she is an excellent writer. I do have a lovely picture of her though. She is the little girl in the middle wearing the black dress.

Flame ON

Look at this magnificent shot - another compliments of Terry Spears. He knows that there are two things I really appreciate in this life - fire and water. Gosh, some guys get to have all the fun. What I wouldn't give to be right there at that grill, grease fires are really hot. You can almost smell those babies burning can't you? That flame is at least a foot tall.

lovely

I just had to add this shot to my blog - isn't it beautiful? The best photographer I know personally sent this to me and it is AWESOME! It was taken after the freak storm we had last spring (the one that wiped out the cherry trees this year). The photographer is Terry Spears who has some of his best work out on flickr. These beauties are bleeding hearts, one of my most favorite flowers in the world, right up there with violets, daisies, and lily of the valley.