Return from Camp Lejeune

Dorothy was right, there is 'no place like home'. We were only gone from Thursday to Sunday, but I am so glad to be back home. The drive home was uneventful save from encountering two HUGE thunderstorms that all but prevented a driver from seeing the car directly in front of him. We left Jacksonville, N.C., around 1:00 pm and got home close to 9:00 pm. We only stopped a couple of times for the restroom, one tank of gas, a Waffle House dinner, and some fresh S.C. peaches. (They are so much better than the kind you get at the grocery store, and so much cheaper!). Thankfully, Courage drove at least 3 hours of it so I had some reprieve from the boredom and tedium.

Trek to Camp Lejeune - Day 3

It rained most of the day today. Not pouring, just drizzly. But enough to make outdoor activities no fun and driving treacherous. We spent most of the day indoors. But that is okay, me and Courage both have lots of studying to do. As long as the BF is close by, she is happy, so all is well.

At about 7:30am this morning, the electricity went off at the hotel. A few minutes after that an argument broke out between the couple across the hall. The place was dead quiet with no air conditioners humming, no hairdryers, no t.v.s. I could hear every word the woman yelled at her husband (boyfriend???). He had done something that really ticked her off and she was letting him have it! At first, I thought she had caught him having an affair. But as the words and threats kept coming, it was obvious he had gambled and evidently he had promised NOT to gamble on this trip. Whew! Finally, after about 15 minutes, the electricity came back on and drowned them out. We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse and the food there was delicious and priced very affordable! We had ribs, grilled shrimp, steak and pork chops. Yum! Yum! I highly recommend this restaurant.

We went to the movies (yes, again. There really isn't much to do in Jacksonville, N.C.). We saw The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan's latest endeavor. I advise you, do not waste your money on seeing this movie at the theater. Wait until it comes to your local 'Dollar Movie' theater or wait until it shows up in the REDBOX machine at Walmart where you can rent it for $.99. Sorry, Mr. Shyamalan, your new movie get a thumbs down.

Trek to Camp Lejeune - Day 2

(This blog is for the day of Friday, 6-20-08, but as you can see I am up so late, it is already Saturday) I have been up since 7:30am...I think I woke myself up snoring because when I woke I was sleeping on my back and my mouth was very dry. Of course, the sunlight streaming in through the cracks of the drapes didn't help. I could have slept at least another hour, but as soon as my eyes popped open, my stomach started grumbling. Story of my life. Anyways, I went to gather food from the continental breakfast - that was a joke. I came back with two blueberry muffins and orange juice. Courage actually liked the bb muffin! We ate and got ready to go to the beach. After a few false starts we finally found our way to North Topsail Beach about 25 miles away. We had to cross over a bridge (I have such a fear of bridges!) to get to the beach area, and it was so beautiful when we crested the bridge and saw all the gorgeous houses along the coast and the ocean beyond. The beach itself wasn't all that impressive. The beach was littered with ocean debris - shells, stones, bits of driftwood and of course some bits of trash. The shells were neat and I found some really cool wave-smoothed rocks that I might paint. There were little crabs scurrying all about. We found one rather large dead jellyfish of some sort. Man-o-war maybe? We walked down the beach as we found that laying on it attracted bumblebees. Yep, bumblebees on the beach! I never heard of such a thing! But they kept at us so we walked from our spot on the sand all the way down almost to a pier and then walked back. When we returned to our towels the bees came back, so we packed it up and left. The 'OFF' just wasn't deterring the bees.

Around 4pm we met the reason we came to Camp Lejeune, Courages BF (boyfriend) at Jacksonville Mall. What a reunion that was,! About 20 minutes before he arrived Courage started grinning from ear to ear and couldn't stop. When we finally saw him in front of the Great American Cookie stand and into his arms she goes. I couldn't help it, I had tears in my eyes. I hate being so emotional! Must be the hormonal stage of a woman's life I am surely entering. But we all gained our composure quickly and off we went in search of some good seafood! We drove all the way back out to North Topsail Beach, but no restaurants there. Finally, we found a place in Surf City called Mainsail. The food was so-so. The high-light of the meal was the lovely fire display one of the young male waiters presented. He sit a basket of bread on the table and the paper napkin covering the bread promptly fell across the candle that was in the center of the table and caught fire. After BF threw what bit of coke he had left in his glass over it and the waiter slapped at it with his hand, the flames were still raging, so finally the waiter placed his tray over it and it was extinguished. No one was hurt and we all had a good laugh. The waitress came over to check on us and exclaimed how 'that happens all the time! I don't know why we have candles!'. I then noticed how the restaurant did not have a sprinkler system. How strange! I am pretty sure in GA almost any building these days are required by code to have a sprinkler system.

We rounded out the evening with another trip to the mall and then to the movies to see Ironman. Wow! Robert Downey, Jr. is BACK in all his glory! God is good!

Trek to Camp Lejeune - Day 1

Whew! After 8 1/2 hours of driving, me and Courage are finally at our hotel in Jacksonville, NC. We are so tired. Our room smells funny, but it's roomy enough and clean. We are going to watch t.v. awhile and then hit the hay. We did see something interesting about 1/2 way here. A little town called Pedro Town, South of the Border - I think it was called. A little Mexican themed village. But it was dead. So many cute restaurants, motels, and tiny amusements, but no people. Very sad. Maybe it comes alive at nighttime???? We drove and drove and drove, through the corn farms and cabbage farms, and the chicken houses (peee-yuuuuu!!!!) and couldn't find any place to eat. Finally, a little town was having their grand opening for a new McDonald's and that is where we stopped to eat. The little town before Chinquapin. At least it was brand new and clean. And they had plasma t.v.s inside! How cool is that? Okay, I am tired. I am going to bed to watch t.v.

Do you beleive in ghosts?

Since I was about ten or eleven, I have pondered about ghosts. Do they exist or are they the imaginings of some creative minds? Since I was a teenager I have felt I have been visited by some 'other-worldly' beings. Nothing dramatic like the things you have seen in Poltergeist or Amityville Horror (Thank God!). Just gentle, wondering, soft things that maybe unwittingly, have revealed they are nearby. A word spoken, a touch on the shoulder, a brush against the back of my legs. A lamp that turned itself off and on. Most of these experiences were preceded by the smell of burnt oranges - or that is the smell I perceived it to be. In the picture above you will see the Strickland House. It is located on Buford Hwy in Duluth, GA. This shot was taken from the parking lot which is located on the left if you were facing the front door of the house. A little history about the house itself...The house was built in 1898 by Henry Strickland, Jr for himself and his wife Alice. Henry died in 1915 and his wife, Alice, continued to live in the house until she died in 1947. Alice eventually became the first female mayor of Georgia when she became mayor of Duluth in 1921. In a little booklet published by the current owner of the house, Alice Ziegler (great granddaughter of Alice Strickland), it states that at one time the house served as a children's hospital. The current overseers are the son of Alice Ziegler and his wife. According to the son, the night they moved into the house to manage the property, he placed his great-great grandfather's clock on the mantel and left it there. It was for looks only, as the clock had not worked at all in all the twenty something years it had been in possession. According to his story, the clock began chiming the hour in the wee hours of the morning that night. Now, take a look back at the picture shown above. If you look at the bottom floor, you will see a glassed in porch, a modern addition to the house when it was being used as an antiques store. If you start with the window on the left of the porch, the one which a light post partially conceals, and count over to the 3rd window, you will see someone standing and looking out towards the backyard of the house. I took this picture from my car one Friday afternoon when I was alone at the office. No one besides me was at the house that day. No one but me, and Alice? Do I believe in ghosts? Maybe...

Flashback...to Summer 1980

Ahhhh, the waves lapping at my feet, the breeze on my face, and the sun in my eyes! It was the summer of 1980, and I was 19 years old and had been married for one year. This was my first vacation as an 'adult', as we didn't have a real honeymoon - other than spending the night at the Day's Inn in Suwanee, GA. So, with very little money and not much else we drove during the night (to stay cool) to Tybee Island, GA. My young husband's family had always vacationed on Tybee Island and they always stayed at the Royal Palm Motel, so we were following tradition. We pulled up in our Firebird and checked in. We only stayed two nights the best I can remember. I am sure we ate at the only fast-food place on the Island, Arby's, and probably the Sugar Shack, but my memory fails me. I am pretty sure we didn't eat at any sit-down, leave-a-tip kind of place. I can't remember much at all from that trip, other than dropping ice cubes down our shirts to keep us awake while driving, One thing is for sure though...I fell head over heels for Tybee Island.

At that time, Tybee was still a sleepy, quiet, little coastal town with not much more than a few cheap motels, cheesy souvenir shops, and an ice cream stand. I learned that summer what sand spurs were and that not all beaches have white sand. I guess I grew up a little that summer. I had always only been on vacation as a little girl, either to Panama City Beach, FL, with my dad or to Jacksonville, FL, with my aunt and uncle. But now I was 'all grown up' and me and my husband were on vacation, such as it was. We were young and poor. But look at me! Smiling in my Daisy Dukes!

Eleven months later

Wow! I started my blog in July 2007, then got busy and basically forgot about it! But oh! How things have changed in eleven months! On October 1st, the company I worked for moved from an old, historical, turn of the century, rat infested office in down-town Duluth, to a modern, spacious, beautiful office suite in Suwanee. By January 2008, the bad housing market (and all that came with it) trickled down to our business (land design) and it started out with laying off a person here, cutting salaries there, and so by April 1st, I was jobless. (Happy April's Fool Day!!!!) I joined the ranks of the unemployed of the U.S., getting an unemployment check 1/4 the size of my earned income. The layoff didn't come as a shock, and forgive me, but, I am enjoying the time off! I get to do things I haven't been able to do...stay up super late and watch late-night T.V. stuff. Sleep late (yeah, 7:00am is late to me) and do home repair/improvement projects with leisure, take day trips with my daughter and almost daughter, and various other things I typically haven't time to do. I am still taking on-line classes at Georgia Perimeter College and I am about 1/2 way to earning my associates degree in business admin. I am so excited! I am an A/B student and I love the learning! My youngest daughter is a freshman in college this year and it is fun to compare notes and compare the on campus experience to the on line experience. My oldest daughter (known as Arthur for this Blog) just bought her first home, by herself, and I am so proud of her. You will soon learn, I adore my kids and I will make you sick of hearing about them. I try not to live my life through my kids, but it's hard not to sometimes. Even though I have a blessed life and wouldn't trade it for anything, I also love sharing in theirs and being a part of theirs. Their lives and their experiences enrich mine because they include me in most everything and I am especially blessed to have such a close relationship with each of them.

Other things going on in my life...spending more time with the Hubster. He works late and therefore, sleeps late. I tip-toe around the house till he gets up and then I can really get moving! I think he enjoys having me home because I've been painting, cleaning more and better, helping organize the basement, and I am a spare pair of hands when he needs help lifting, carrying, etc. He has a lot of stress on him because he is caring for his elderly father, who is 90 this year and still lives home alone! His mind is still going strong, but his body is small and frail. Hubster goes over everyday to make sure he eats and is up and about, then goes back in the evenings to 'tuck him in bed'...really I think to make sure he gets to bed and to help alleviate the loneliness his dad must feel after losing his wife 16 months ago. Hubster is ever so gentle with him. As he is with everyone, unless you cross him. He is the most generous man I've ever known in my life.

I need to pack for a trip me and the youngest daughter (known as Courage for this blog) are taking...we are driving to Jacksonville, NC, to see her boyfriend who is stationed at Fort Lajeune. We are hoping it is a few degrees cooler there, and hoping to see some beach/ocean. Keep us in prayer for travel mercies!