What's New?

Well, here comes 2010. It's been an interesting year. We have two girls homeschooling now, so THAT'S a challenge. Rosa is helping with that a lot, Thank God. I love doing history with Molly!
Speaking of God, about a year ago we started attending a church with friends. Like so many things in my life, I loved it and now I'm rather ambivilent.
I feel like I'm just floating along with not much direction. It's sort of disturbing. I'd like to learn how to upholster furniture. Because I see really cool furniture and it costs so MUCH! I figure I could do it myself. Hard to find a school though.
I love to bake but then I EAT IT! And it's goooooooooood for my taste buds but not so much for my waist. BTW, I made gorgeous blueberry muffins this afternoon. Mmmmmmmmmm...
Been studying the Bible a fair bit. Found a good site to help me out with that. Interesting stuff... And a bit on the outside of tradition, which I like.
It's been too ugly to exercise outside. Fortunately our school system opened a fitness place for employees (that includes me!) and we got a Wii Fit Plus for Christmas. I love it!
So just stuff and stuff!
What's a girl to do?

Thought she'd disappeared...

I just got back from a day trip to Ellijay. Very nice, but I fergot m'dern camera. The Apple Festival is happening this weekend and next there. Our first time going. Turns out, it's a big deal. Bigger than we wanted to invest in. So we went looking for orchards. Found lots! Where you could pick your own apples (or not), buy fresh honey (not that it goes bad...), pet small animals, go on hay rides, sample cider, people watch and relax. We wanted to pick, but it started to rain... So we bought pre-picked! We found apple 1/2 as big as my head! HUGE!
Then we went into the downtown square. We found cute shops! We found a GREAT bbq place (Wolf Creek) and a much smaller version of THE APPLE FESTIVAL. We also found out that we need to bring cash. Great buys gone forever... sigh.
I love riding in the mountains. Alone. With my husband. With my kids. With my husband and my kids. Singing with the radio. Listening to a book. Listening to the wind with the windows down. It makes me happy!

What's new.

O.k. Here's what's new...
We got a puppy. (Cute, but she's a puppy.)
I've taken up trying to jog. (Brutal.)
I'm back to work.
My mom thinks that my youngest daughter lives in Florida. (We're in Georgia.)
I want to find an apartment. (Looooooooooooooooong story.)
My hair is about an inch long.
I have a new friend.

So, there it is. Hopefully, I'll find some time in my life when I can expound on all of these mysterious sounding circumstances.
But, for now, I'm going to try some jogging with our puppy.

Internet?

Hey! I spent the summer ignoring my internet and it actually felt quite good! So, now comes the challenge of trying to get back in the swing...
Wait... I think I need more coffee...

At the end of the day...

Some sunset pictures taken from behind our campsite.

Crooked River

While we were in North Georgia (Talullah Falls), we picked up a book called The Best Tent Camping in Georgia. It occured to me while on our recent venture to Kingland, that not everyone's idea of a great camp spot will coinside. We spent fout nights at a beautiful little state park called Crooked River. It had nice fishing and picnicking places, very helpful folks at the office, some nice piney woods hiking with lots of birds and critters around. It was very clean and the campground was flat and easy to see around. Some spots were better than others, ofcourse. But we found this great site under lots of long leaf pines with lots of space to run around behind the tent. It backed up to the Crooked River and the sunset right over the river and the marsh. Really clean bathroom, too...

I tend to wake up earlier than the rest of the family, so I was up at 6-6:30 everyday. Songbirds just going to town. I'd get up, make some coffee, grab my book, watch the sun come up and relax. Once the sun got high enough to be considered "day", the crows came out. Nature's alarm clock. My spouse wished more than once for a bb gun. These crows like to start their day with a game of tag in the trees and they seemed to take a particular shine to us. So I never had to be the bad guy waking everyone up! We saw racoon, fox, a bunny, armadillo (lumbered right through our camp!), and a 6' gopher snake. One night something tried to burrow under the tent. The box spouse was using as a side table started bouncing around. He woke and gave the box a swift bonkbonk and whatever it was ran off. Just not cool to upset a sleeping man's side table...
We really like this park. We'll be back...

Cumberland

We returned last night from a trip to southeat GA. The girls were glad to be back after being gone for a week. While Bruce was working in Alabama last year, he signed up for a program with the hotel he was using and he ended up with enough points to stay for 1 night in Savannah or 3 nights in Kingsland. We hied us hence to Kingsland! It is just in land from St. Marys. Cute place and the launch for Cumberland Island. I've heard so much about Cumberland and was quite excited to see it. Honestly, it's a lot of walking. However, if this doesn't deter you, you really must see this place. To get a concise history of the island, go here: http://www.ameliamaritime.com/tour/cumberland2.html
We left as early as we could. At the first stop are the Carnegie houses. Thomas Carnegie (younger brother of Andrew) and Lucy (Thomas' wife) raised their family on this little island. It seemed so bizarre to me to picutre the island with almost no live oaks, but the plantation owners had just about cleared the island for crops at one time. It was also amazing to think that the ladies who lived on the island wore all those clothes. It was HOT!
Around lunch, we caught the second ferry to the second dock for our visit to the beach. The second dock is at the narrowest part of the island-only 1/2 mile to the beach. It is also where you can camp, which we plan to do one day...
The walk between the dock and the beach is one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. Rather like walking through a fairy tale with all the wonder and just enough menace if you let your self think about it. The dunes are very wide and high. What dunes on this coast should look like were it not for all the development. The beach was astonishingly wide and shallow. We got there at low tide so it seemed even more so. Bruce and I had a blast throwing the baseball and he and the girls ahad a great time in the water. I neglected to wear my bathing suit. THAT won't happen again.
We made it back to the dock early to catch the boat back to St. Marys. On our way back a buttfly/fairy led us along the path all the way to the dock. It was a bit strange. Because it was low tide, the river side of the island water was low and there were thousands of small fiddler crabs on the banks. Ysabel figures she could herd them around and began to use then to chase Molly. Hysterical!
When we got back to St. Marys, we were starving, so we stopped at a quaint (I hate that word but it WAS!) hotel restaurant and I had the best shrimp and grits! They tossed in some spicy andouille sausage, too. YUMMO!
We got back to the hotel for a swim and serious sleep.
I can't really describe what Cumberland did to my senses. All fairytale and all history and all nature and how does one make all of this combine.