A New Year…a new Beginning

An exciting year is before of us….filled with new wonders, new trials, portents, and changes.  And what a way to start things off but with the first Full Moon…a SuperMoon at that…and the thrill of the first corresponding King Tide!

I happen to love high tide…and King Tides are even more magical.

This is Charleston…amazing isn’t it?  And this street isn’t even very close to the beach, because the entire city is low, the water not only rolls in with the tide, it comes UP through the ground, the storm drains…

And it all began with the gorgeous Wolf Moon.

Shine on!  Examine the possibilities for greatness in your life this year.  For becoming the change you wish to see in the world.  Finding yourself, your voice, your passion… and shining before the world.

It’s a new year.  We can make it one to remember.

Finding Beauty

I am, by my very nature, someone who seeks ‘connection’ in the world around me. I revel in time spent swinging in the hammock swing under the ancient live oak in my backyard.  Staring at the leaves, noting how much the spanish moss has grown since I first ‘introduced’ it to the oak tree five years ago, listening to the vast array of bird songs.

I thrive on walks on the beach, the feel of warm sand under my bare feet, the scent of the ocean, unexpected treasures to be gathered, or moments of wonderment in the sea and coastal critters we share these beaches and tidal marshes with.

  Endangered Wood storks have returned to the coast after a long absence.

And the easily missed, once common and now making a slow comeback, Sea-beach amaranth can be found if you know what you are looking for…and are open to the tiny humble details to be found in nature.

Today I didn’t go anywhere unusual. I puttered about the house and yard. As I was clearing small downed branches from the week’s storms I spotted this lovely hiding near the bushes.  An Island glass lizard, I see them every once in awhile about the yard and love seeing the tiny babies when they hatch in the summer.

Always something beautiful to see here.  The white azaleas are in bloom in the yard, saved by their later bloom time from the late season frost which decimated most of our early bloomers.  The camellias are still heavy in flowers and the wisteria has joined in.  By the time the magnolia blooms, it will be swathed in soft purple wisteria blossoms.

Everyday miracles.  Every day…wonder.

 

 

 

Lovin’ the life I live

RAINING~  huge storm moved in in the wee hours of morning.  Not so much thunder and lightning as an abrupt and long lasting deluge.

Wonderful to sleep to the rain pounding on the roof (although I did have  few concerns for the trees out front)  Today, more rain.  Some heavy.  Some light, with very few breaks between the fronts.  Streets are flooded  (of course, this is the LowCountry)  Everything is fresh and green and the dang morning glories have gone nuts literally overnight and completely COVER the entire side fence!

Welcome August

August has come.  I shall miss July.  It was a wonderful month, the heart of my favorite season…summer!  But I look forward to what August will bring with both joy and trepidation.  I love that August here in the Lowcountry is still summer…with a capital S!  

Hot… still in the triple digits and no sign of that changing this week.  Sunny….actually a little more rain would be helpful with this heat, but I do love my sunshine.  And, of course, the joy of long long days and clear nights with star-filled skies.

Downside?  Back to school.  Oh how I hate back to school down here.  This is one of my biggest disappointments with being home in South Carolina.  The school systems bite.  And the worst part is….they don’t even know how bad they are!  It is terrifying and disheartening and…sad.  Especially for my son who is bright, and talented, works hard, and such a wonderful kid to work with (all his teachers agree) and has dyslexia.  So the lovely schools will shove him to the side…off the main track… where he won’t make them actually teach in the way he learns and won’t mess up their illusory competence records.  He is disappointed.  I am disappointed for him.

This isn’t the end.  We have just begun to fight.

Meanwhile, there are school supplies to buy….both for him and for my Little A.  Even more for the Little A as kindergarten requires a lot more supplies than high school.  So this weekend we will begin the shopping.  Uniforms for the Little A… khaki pants and shorts, polo shirts, some play clothes for after school.  Fill a long list of supplies needed.  And clothes for my AJ…shorts, t shirts, cargo pants, sox, underwear, jeans and new tennis shoes.  He grew over the summer!  Nothing fits.

More writing.  More editing.  More days and nights of missing our A and wishing he was home once more with us where he belongs.  THIS is his home.  Nowhere else ever can be.

And more work.  More landscaping, and cleaning.  More gardens and flowers.

More blessings.  More life.   Welcome August.

Everyday miracles

It was another gorgeous day.  If that sounds repetitive…it is.  I am so blessed to live in a place I love and enjoy this much.  I love the sunshine.  The heat.  The sun.  The breeze off the ocean.  The sudden summer rains.  The long summer squalls.

I love wild masses of color from summer flowers and crepe myrtles, the whisper of the breeze in salt grass and pampas mounds.  The hawks that sit atop the posts and watch us below.  The mockingbirds with their myriad of stolen songs.  Peppers in the trees, and anoles on the house.  Everything is bright and blessed here this time of year.

No, we don’t have any money for a ‘vacation’ like normal folks do in the summer.  Someday I want to take AJ on a ‘real’ vacation… he was so young when his dad got sick and died, he doesn’t even remember ever having taken one…  but here we have our own little backyard vacation every day.  We have the ocean.  We have the Angel Oak, the cobbled streets of downtown Charleston, palm trees, and sailboats passing beneath the bridges.

Before he heads back to school we’ll go to the Battery.  We’ll walk around down town.  I’ll even save the money to take him someplace fun and “Carolina” for a special treat.  We will make the memories.

Life is too precious to miss just because you don’t have much.  Every moment we have is a miracle.

Looks like rain

… today didn’t go as planned.  Instead it rained.

Now here in the Lowcountry there is ‘rain’….as in the lovely summer showers which pour for 5 minutes and are gone, and then there is RAIN… which lasts for hours, pours like the someone pulled the stopper on heaven’s bathtub, and floods everything.

Yep.  Today was the latter.  It began overnight, which pleased me no end as my gardens were begging for water and I prefer nature handle that chore as often as possible.  Then it stayed.  And rained.  The streets filled…as streets here do when we have this kind of RAIN.  

Downtown flooded… it always does.  Sometimes worse than others.  At least folks down here know to just roll with it, and enjoy life in the Lowcountry.   

Unfortunately my planned and much anticipated appointment for this morning was also downtown.  And couldn’t get to me because of … oh yeah… the rain.  And the flooding.  And the closed roads.

You know.  The usual.

Maybe next week?  Hope it is sunny.