Solitude

There's something to be said about the peacefulness, the solitude of watching wildlife, calm waters, beautiful flowers, vistas...to me pictures like this express it far better than I am able to do. Ahhh....the peaceful life.

Leaving Camel Lot

Well...drat...today the kids have to return home. We've so enjoyed them being here with us. Last night we went in to Broadway at the Beach and ate at Liberty, sort of another traditional thing we do, there or Twin Lakes, but this time of year both are so crowded, one reason we ate at home most of our meals. We still have so many things we'd like to "do" with the kids, and they have so many things they'd like to "do"...they spent a lot of time enjoying the beach, last night they lamented as we always do about going home, back to work, back to routines...our routines here are just so simple, everyone clean up after yourself, don't forget to lock the door, hang up your wet stuff...guess that's about it. We all notice that food tastes better here...why is that? We've swam, taken bike rides, played Scrabble, read...napped...well about everything anyone does whilst at the beach. This picture was from yesterday mornings swim....we had played a rounding game of Marco Polo in the pool....I was lucky...I was never caught, it's such stupid fun, lots of laughter, lots of memories made on these beach trips.

Camel Lot

This bike makes my heart go pitter pat, I love it so...it's the lovely streamers and the fat butt seat and I had Tom switch the wire basket on to his bike and replace it here with my wicker one, now my bike is simply perfect, and I bought it in a junk shop for $50.00!

This is our peaceful little double wide near the beach, the place we call Camel Lot. Tom has long been fascinated with King Arthur and all the Arthurian tales, plus living and working in the Middle East amongst the camels has allowed us to purchase this land, then the double wide, then the porch screening, cement drive, car port, shed and landscaping so that we can continue our family tradition of fun by the sea. We've been coming down here for 25 years now, and four years ago bought this place so that our tradition might go forward into the future. It is truly our "happy place".

We had this sign made at Madinat Jumeriah four years ago and finally just had it framed. We stood and watched as the man painted it, took him all of five minutes, such a fascinating process he uses. Up close you can barely read it, you just see the camels and the Burj Al Arab, but stand back a bit and you can read it just fine. It's fun, it's a combination of beach and camel. The Burj Al Arab does sit out in the Persian Gulf.

My grandson's first beach trip

Our grandson graduated high school last week, this is his first trip down to the beach without his parents...he did all the driving and brought along his girlfriend. Every year we "pose" for lovely pictures, here's theirs. I think the youngins are having a good time with us, we do a bit together then they take off on their own and are back in time for dinner. Last night we had wonderful steaks and fresh veggies on the grill, took a long bike ride, then we played Scrabble...what else do you do at the beach? I was busy winning when Tom came up with quagmire...he earned a fast 60 points for that one.

Lucious Hydrangeas

These hydrangeas are now two years old and have tripled in size from last year, the blooms are so large, some nearly as big as basketballs. They are supposed to be blue but as you can see they're multicolored and so beautiful. I have found a spot on the internet that tells you how to preserve them saving their color and hope to try that during my stay at our beach digs. Meanwhile I'm pickle making with my neighbor and her sister. Yesterday was wash, cut and soak them in lye, today we pickle them. We also made peach freezer jam yesterday. I'm dragging my camera over there today for pictures of progress!

My first hydrangea of the year, it's not yet reached it's full growth. I'm sitting on my screened in porch looking out towards the fountain and the bird feeder, my my but it is busy today. I put a bowl for the squirrels at the base of the feeder to sort of head them off so I could still watch the birds and my goodness, everybody and their brother and uncle are coming today. I've had Carolina oh phooey, forget their name, will have to look them up again, and cardinals...two males, one female, and a wren! I thought mama wren had moved out after she taught those babies to fly, oh just now there are two cardinals and a squirrel...Mrs Cardinal won out the best spot...ahh yes, it's a Carolina Chickadee....that silly squirrel is just sitting by the feeder stuffing his little self...normally there are three or four of them, today just one. He eats so fast and he's so oblivious to the birds, quite thoughty of me to put the food down below to stop him disturbing the birds. It's like an airport here with birds zooming in and out and I have to keep going to wikapedia for Western North Carolina birds when I see somebody I do not recognize...got some studying to do too!

Rick Rack out of Whack quilt blocks and my kabobs

I made these kabobs for dinner the other night, bought a really nice grass fed piece of beef steak, cut it in chunks and made two meals out of it, this shows only half of it. I bought one skinny zucchini and the mushrooms, the pearl onions and the red pepper, only used a quarter or less of that, used the rest the next day. I just threaded all the stuff on my skewers as you see here then brushed them with Dale's Seasoning, look for it in the grocery store where you find any seasoning stuff, the bottle looks like a vinegar bottle and the contents are very dark nearly black. This was a delicious dinner and I didn't have to add one thing to it, I was full! So easy, only took about 20 minutes total...between washing, slicing, threading and cooking...wallah...ready to eat! All fresh and yummy!

This is what I have accomplished thus far on my Rick Rack out of Whack quilt project...now that I'm into it this far I kinda wish I had rearranged my colors differently...but oh well...this is how you learn how to put them together after all. And it will be pretty anyway, but I do think I could've made it a bit prettier. It's been a fun project thus far and I'm getting kind of anxious to get the rest of those pinwheels made so I can start sewing rows together, the dark ones are made separately and I only have a few sewn together....my project for today.

After the tree trimming

This is the back side of our house, the side that looks towards the mountains, after the trees were trimmed out. It looks so much better, but we still have lots of work to do. One day I want lots more flowers, so that I have flowers always blooming. These bushes are rhododendrons and there is a camelia and a lilac bush in there too, but they've done their thing for this year. They were all gorgeous.