Tuesday, March31st, a new juice

This morning, I picked up a sampler pack at Curves and since I didn't bring any breakfast to eat on the way home, I had a couple of things out of the pack.
This juice is delicious and just 10 calories...
Try it....yum, yum...

Monday, March 30th, Some loveliness from our vacation

Today, I did mundane things, including working out, buying fabric for 5 gifts I need to make in the next month or so, working on my Project 365, and good nap before work and I was scratching my head for a picture, so I will share something from our trip:
The story behind this picture is hilarious!!! We tried to go to Fort Sumter on Sunday, but missed the ferry by about 30 minutes, so we went on Thursday instead. We had a hard time finding a parking place and other things delayed our getting to the pier in a timely manner. The girls ran ahead of Chuck and I to tell them we were coming and Catie's pants were about to fall down. Oh, the hilarity!! We were the last people on the boat and there was much huffing and puffing. Then, the naturalist (Catie) had the brochure in her hands and it flew out of the boat and landed in the water.
We laugh so much when we are together. What a great family....I am blessed.

Sunday, March 29th, Is this some kind of a joke?

Last night I was cancelled for the first 4 hours of my shift and when listening to the precipitation hitting the house, I was grateful. A combination of sleet, snow and rain, I knew that driving in it would be treacherous. Well, they called me in at 8:30 and driving was bad, with many cars in the ditch, and very slippery conditions.
This morning, we had flashes of power outages at the hospital, lightening, thunder and almost complete white out conditions outside.
Now you know, I love winter, but on March 29th??? Man, I am ready for full fledged spring, not this mess.
A contrast of beautiful roadways: John's Island, South Carolina
Libertyville, Illinois.


More beauty observed this morning:
Yes, lovely....I'm done with it...bring on the tulips, daffodils, sunshine and warmer temps.

Saturday, March 28th, Coming to terms with reality

I have decided that something needs to be done with my flabby body:
It's easy, it's fast and I drive right past it on my way home from work. I must be patient!!

Friday, March 27th, what a reader

Today, while I ran an errand, I dropped Chuck off at the library. Since he got his Zune a few years ago, he has listened to so many books in his squad car during the day.

This picture has 5 books on CD and he will probably have them all done within a month. I admire such perseverance. I get distracted so easily while reading...

Thursday, March 26th, new playthings

I was cruising the Internet the other day and found this great reduced price stamp set. I am just loving my alphabet stamp sets, especially when I do my 365 project.
These will be just perfect to make monthly dividers. I just love the versatility of them.

Wednesday, March 25th, another cute purse

When working back to back nights, I have a hard time coming up with things to show, but will share with you a purse I finished a couple of weeks ago for my sister in-law Dana. Now that I know she got it in the mail, I can show it. She bought the fabric at the Springfield quilt shop that was closing. I just love it. What you can't see is the great quilting I did on it. Took the picture in the powder room mirror.

Tuesday, March 24th, up to the challenge

The local quilt shop has a challenge underway that ends on Saturday. You get a free fat quarter, which was wrapped in a brown paper bag and you make something with it. After the 28th, she will display everything that was made and there will be a vote, and the winner wins a bunch of fat quarters.
I have had the fabric for quite some time and had several ideas, but when I was in the shop in So. Carolina, I got my inspiration.
This is a four sided place mat. It took me about an hour to make and the other three fabrics were out of my stash and they were fabrics that I got in a mystery grab bag, or was given to me. I bought some fusible interfacing yesterday for 1.00.
This picture is terrible, but you can see the other sides of the place mat. I tried to make it as a four season, or four holiday place mat. Pretty clever, huh?

Monday, March 23rd, Washing dishes for Jesus

Last night our small group again served at the homeless shelter. I've decided that my spiritual gift is washing dishes. I don't mind it and if I start right when the pans start piling up, then I can pretty well keep up with it all night.
There were fewer of us from the group, but we had some husband help and three recruits from the Navy base. We were more organized, but it still took 1/2 hour longer than the last time.
Jean is the one that organizes the whole thing, because she is most familiar with PADS and how it works. She and Angie do all of the shopping and then we assemble when we get there.


This is Angel, a friend of many in our group. He is a former restaurant owner and could make things happen so quickly on the grill and when someone couldn't eat what we were offering.

Today, I am thanking God that I have a safe, warm and dry place to live and plenty of food when I want it. Dear Father, comfort those who don't and thank you for the servants who care for homeless people in our world.

Sunday, March 22nd, to the theater..

Candice and I went to Grayslake High School's production of Peter Pan. This brought back many memories for both of us. Both girls were active in the Theater department at the high school and this production was Mr. Kerr's last before retirement. It was his dream musical and they did a great job. They even rented a fly contraption. The sets were very elaborate (his specialty) and there were two intermissions for set changes.
Due to copyright laws I only snapped a picture of the Darling children's bedroom as we exited the theater. There was also Wendy's house on the outside and inside and the pirate ship. They also painted a large mural for the curtain which was just beautiful.
Candice was able to reconnect with two of the music teachers from high school and she said hi in passing to the theater director, but he was frantic as there were two kids out sick and Smee had a terrible flu. I didn't notice a problem, it went quite well.
This is Paul Nielson, who was both girls band and at times choir director. He is a musical genius and I have always admired him for the ability to pick up any instrument and play it. While the kids were in high school, he was learning the bagpipes!!! Now, he is only directing choir at the new high school and directing the jazz band.
This is Dominic Bertino, the band director at Central High school and the pit band director. He is such a patient man with the kids and the girls adored him.
Unfortunately, Candice had to leave at first intermission because she had to drive back to school and she still hadn't done any laundry from vacation. It was a good thing, because I didn't get home until at least 6 p.m., which would have put her back way past 11. Such a fun day.
I came home, did laundry and caught up on American Idol and the Office. I crashed way before 9:30...

Saturday, March 21st, easy travel day

All of our connections went without a hitch today. No delays, and our flight even got in to O'Hare 45 minutes early. So good to be home, so good to have our king-sized bed again.
It was so hard to say good-bye to Catie. I was a mess....

Friday, March 20th, plans changed

Today, we had plans to go to one of the local plantations. However, we hit a quilt shop in downtown Charleston "People, Places and Quilts" first and then went out for lunch.
The lunch was wonderful and we had sweet potato chips with blue cheese for an appetizer and then I had a crab cake sandwich. Catie had very carefully planned our day so we would then go to a scrap booking store and then we would go to a plantation. The scrap book store had moved and we had to find the new location which took up a whole bunch of time. We spent way too much time driving around.
By the time we found it and saw that what they had was pretty small, we lost all interest in the plantation. There is a stretch as you drive back to camp where it looks like the trees meet over the road. It is rather dark and eerie, but most of the trees have loads of Spanish moss hanging off of them. We headed back to camp to sit on the beach, read and decompress after a busy week.


We went out for dinner with Steve and his parents to "The Mustard Seed". It was just great and I had spinach, artichoke and Parmesan ravioli and key lime pie for dessert.
What a great relaxing day!!

Thursday, March 19th, a bit of history thrown in..

This morning we had a walk in the woods, led by our own personal naturalist. The birds were singing and we walked very softly to hear their various calls.
We walked around the slough, pronounced "slew" and again saw many turtles and a smaller alligator. Do you see his eyes sticking out of the water?

Catie had us do the rope bridge and I did well until about 2/3 from the end, at which time, I couldn't seem to regain my footing.


After cleaning up, we took another drive in to Charleston to go to Fort Sumter. We had to take a ferry to get there, and the last one leaves at 2:30. Oh, the craziness to make it on time. We were the very last passengers on the ferry.

Fort Sumter is where the first shots from the Civil War were fired. As I walked through the museum and saw what our country went through in those 5 years, I was very deeply saddened.

I am so thankful that it was resolved. In a rapid turn of events, South Carolina seceded from the union on December 20, 1860, then 9 other states soon joined them. Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Confederacy in February, 1861. Abraham Lincoln gave his inaugural address in March, 1861. Then the Civil War started in April 1861 and lasted until February 1865. It had been brewing for over 50 years, but came to an explosive beginning at Fort Sumter as the Union Armies did not want to relinquish control of the Fort to the Confederacy.
We did a little necessity shopping at Target after this and then dropped Catie off for dinner with Steve and his parents.
The three of us dined at the Wild Olive here in Johns Island. Just delicious!!!

Wednesday, March 18th, another day at the beach

Again, the Tindells slept super late and we took our time getting around. We met another of the naturalist's parents who are also spending spring break here.

Catie rounded up 4 kayaks and we took about 2 1/2 hours to kayak to the estuary and to crab dock.

It was a bit chilly, but we got used to it and just loved watching the dolphins and birds. It was our first completely sunny day.

We then showered and took a drive to Angel Oak. It is one of the largest oak trees in the nation and some estimate it to be 1400 years old. It is so huge and so heavy that many parts of it are supported.We went out for Chinese food tonight.
Catie is birthday gifting Steve and then we will get together again sometime to do taxes!!!
This is the beauty we see from the deck....just incredible.

Tuesday, March 17th, Lazy day at camp

Today, we slept super late and then went to the shopping center that is closest to camp.
It obviously caters to resort visitors, but we still enjoyed the clearing skies.... and poked around in the bookstore and pottery shop, etc. Candice fell head over heels in love with this little terrier.

We ate lunch at Ladles, which specializes in soups and sandwiches. I got the endless bowl of soup, so sampled 5 different soups. It was wonderful.
We had Ice Cream at Marble Slab and then headed back to camp.
Chuck and I observed Catie teaching a class "Pond"ering life and saw the local alligator, turtles and some lizards while listening to her teach squirmy 6th grade girls.

Candice and I took a walk on the beach


We took Steve out for an early birthday celebration, which is Wednesday to a local restaurant which both Catie and Steve had heard of, but had never been to.
It actually also came recommended by a passenger sitting next to Chuck on the plane from New York.
Well, people, we all can personally recommend this eatery. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it was absolutely wonderful.

Again, I had flounder which was on a bed of cheese grits with tomato, olives and capers. Oh, so yummy!!! We all ordered something different and everyone just raved about their food.
Back at camp, Catie and Steve wanted to take us to the Crab Dock, which was totally dark and we looked at the stars, listened to the sounds of the marsh at night and got a little astronomy lesson.
The kids played Killer Bunnies til almost midnight and us old folks crashed with our books. I am about halfway through "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood" and really am loving it.
Tomorrow, we get Catie all to ourselves and she has a full schedule planned.

Monday, March 16th, Savannah

I was up way before everyone else, and I sat out on the deck watching the morning light:






Catie is taking half of this week off to spend with us, but crammed all of her work hours in to two days. So today, she is working all day. That left us to our own devices. We bought some breakfast goods on Sunday, and slept in until about 8 or so, ate a small breakfast and headed out to Savannah. Catie wasn't crazy about going and we figured it would take nearly all day.

We got there at about 11:30 and immediately went to "Lady and Sons" restaurant to get our name on a list. The first seating that was available was 2:45, which was fine with us.
Then we took about 30 minutes to find a parking space.

St. Patrick's Day is to Savannah as Mardi Gras is to New Orleans and it had started to ramp up today. Every one in town was "wearing the green"
(Candice said these ladies are her and her friend in 50 years, "Trixie and Bubbles"

and starting to party....at noon on a Monday.
We walked around looking at some of the historical sites and enjoying the "squares" that the town is built around. We stepped in to a beautiful Lutheran church and did a little antiquing.

Then, the pinnacle of the day was eating the buffet at Paula Deen's restaurant. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, black eyed peas, lima beans, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes...dare I go on. It was just fabulous. I was so full for the rest of the day.

We also had chocolate mousse pie and three other desserts.

Right as we were driving out of town it started raining. So far, when it has rained, it hasn't spoiled our plans in the least.
Back at camp, we met up with Catie for snack time, which she was in charge of and then she and Steve came to our room to play cribbage until about 11:30 or so.
Another wonderful day....