Wishful Wednesday

I ‘wish’ it was wicked…but not too much luck with that today.  At least not yet.

Instead another long, looooong day in the car had me thinking of so many things I wish I could change around here. Wish David was still here…the kids miss him so much.  Wish I could buy him one more banana split at Dairy Grove…and watch the kids giggling over their own ice cream, and how much Dat loved his 😀

Wish I could find a job.  Now that at least can be more than a ‘wish’.  I can change that.  I will change that.

Wish I could find a better ‘home’ for the kids, and me.  Found a wonderful little run-down ‘shack’ of a home driving around last week, the paint long gone, but the porch strong and sturdy, the tin roof needing a good cleaning and mercy! does the whole place need landscaping…a girl can dream.  It would be such a joy to take an old abandoned house like that and bring it back to life.  Make it a ‘home’ once more.  No fancy renovations; just restore it and love it. Put an old wringer washer like Grandma had on the back porch, and a tire swing in the tree out front.

Get a wood burning stove (or gas if the city is picky) like the one we love at writer’s camp.

   My cast iron would be right at home.  

Add a porch swing and a joggling board…

I’d be happy to spend the rest of my life fixing the old place up and making it a little ‘more loved’ every year.

If wishes were horses….

Someday, I’ll gallop away.

 

December Dreams…

It’s Friday, and a new month begins. Already the temperatures are dropping, leaves are falling, and night comes far too soon. First day of the month and already I am looking forward to Winter Solstice and the promise it brings.

But for tonight, this peaceful night, with the room filled with my eclectic mix of music on Spotify, Remy–my Staffordshire Pitbull–curled up beside me and our sweet old chocolate lab, Meg, sleeping on my foot, it is a good winter night.

 There’s a lot of white on her now, but she’s still our baby girl.

I have been pursuing dragons (of my sort) across the pages all day. That is always fun.

Adorable!

Also another reason to get my protagonist to shed his shirt 😉  Water. Dragons.  Heroes.  Yep, it’s been a good day.

 gorgeous photo by Giovanni Allevi… perfectly captures the mood of the sea for the story.

Welcome back December.  Please be good to us this year.

 

 

Marsh Memories

Driving over the Cosgrove tonight and the tide was out and the wonderful scent of pluff mud and coastal marsh swept through the car.  Every year when my grandma came to see us she would tell me how she disliked that smell. To her it smelled like ~something died~ to me it smells like the renewal of life.

These coastal marshes teem with life. Small crustaceans, crabs, shrimp, fish, wading birds, plants, trees, and the teeming abundance of the waters.  The health of the marsh is a good indicator of the health of adjacent ecosystems.

photo by Bob Hider

Driving or strolling the boardwalks along the edges of these wetlands is an unending source of joy, appreciation, and inspiration.

Pluff mud and Lowcountry marsh….smells like home.

 

Loving Eucalyptus

In the front corner of the new yard there is a huge and very old eucalyptus tree. No, not the kind with smiling koalas slowly munching leaves from drowsy perches, but the wonderful, small leaved variety that grows so exuberantly here in the Low Country.

The bark is shaggy, peeling, rough and gorgeous. It makes a statement all on its own.

Couple it with the narrow, fragrant green foliage and it presents a graceful tree for the lawn or border. Ya gotta know though, that gorgeous bark means it is basically self mulching….and there is a lot of bark. Another bonus? That spicy eucalyptus aroma… adored by most people, and repellent to most insect pests.  Thank you, eucalyptus oil.

The big one out front is home to myriad and varied birds, as well as providing strong branches for a handmade birdhouse and bird feeders, and a small platform that serves as a makeshift treehouse for the kids. It weathered the hurricanes this year without issue and has quickly become a family favorite.

Today a friend gifted me with a start from her own big eucalyptus. A few years and it will become a new bird sanctuary in this overly busy bit of urban landscaping, a welcome, gentle respite for our birds and tree frogs, a cool place of dappled shade welcoming all.

Glad you are here, little tree, grow strong. Welcome home.

Daylight Savings…!

So thrilled Daylight Savings has returned.  It really should be the only time, because it makes the best use of daylight hours.  And I LOVE my daylight hours. More time to be in the yard, in the garden, enjoying my azaleas and camellias, more time for the kids and critters to play outdoors. Perfect.

Except…sadly…this year’s change is accompanied by a very NOT usual for this time of year cold snap.  Chilly.  And I do not, as everyone who knows me even casually knows, like to be chilly.  Ever.  So here I am, eating my big ol’ yummy salad with spicy avocado-lime ranch dressing and enough peppers to warm me up, dogs curled up underfoot to keep my feet warm, and working diligently at my four zillionith attempt at a synopsis.  That will keep the brain cells firing.

 

RAIN!

it finally happened… the heat wave broke at last with a DELUGE of Biblical proportion last night followed by more abrupt heavy but short downpours today.  The temperatures are down to a very comfortable 98 and the breeze coming in before the storms is wonderful!

I drove around some today…looking at houses. Trying to wrap my mind and emotions around the idea of selling my much loved little house on the island and getting a regular house half an hour or more inland.  I don’t want to move off the island.  I don’t want to live inland.  I like it where I am.  I love the ocean breezes and the smell of pluff mud along the inlets or when I’m driving.  I love that I can have palm trees and never worry about a cold snap/freeze.  Love my lemon tree and my fig tree.  My enormous magnolia and all my live oaks.

Sure I can get the oaks and the magnolia further away from the beach.  I just don’t want to.  

But I need to.  At least I have finally made my peace with that half.  I need to do this the way the gardens needed that rain.  All the watering I was providing just wasn’t enough.  They needed it to rain….and soak them down to the deepest levels of their being.

My kids need that now.  More than I need my ocean… well, maybe not, LOL.  But they are young and this is their time and I need to provide what they need.  Like that rain.  To fill them to the core of their being and help them grow.

So I looked.  Nothing feels right.  Nothing feels like ‘home’.  I will figure out how to deal with that and pick the place that feels like home to them.  And maybe, someday, when they are grown… I will find my home once more.  And Red Dog and I will run the beach once more.

But for now…. we have RAIN!  Let the dancing commence.