Finally, that vacation I wanted last year!

I am cozy in bed at a Marriott resort tonight. I can see the ocean from my window. I am finally getting the vacation I needed before I got sick at Christmas.

What a pleasure to relax and just enjoy life for a few days.

I lost an old friend last week. Her birthday was Sunday. She would have been 75. She was full of life and loved people. A massive heart attack struck her down and she was gone within hours.

My friend had a good life and a good marriage. She adored her only child, a daughter, and two grandsons. I'm sure she had no regrets. 

When my friends pass away, I am once again reminded that it can happen to anyone at any time. None of us are promised a tomorrow. So this week I am going to pack as much enjoyment into the days here as I possibly can. 

I want to visit the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beufort, SC. If you are not familiar with the author, look for his books. He wrote The Great Santini which was made into a very popular movie. I have read many of his books and seen most of the movies made from his books. It will be fun to drive around the area, see the marshes he loved and imagine his characters, especially the students he taught on Daufuskie Island. His book The Water is Wide was made into a movie, Conrack. I hope to visit that island while I am in the area.

The temperatures are perfect. Forties and fifties during the day. Not cold like January in the mountains. 

I want to eat good fresh seafood, while looking at the ocean rolling in. I want to watch the sunset on the water. I will also do some writing, I hope.

I plan to take photos to share on my blogs. 

I miss my little Lexie, but she has a baby sitter who is keeping a careful watch over her.

My friends, my readers, please live life fully, and make each day count. Don't waste one minute being resentful, spiteful, jealous, or devious. Find joy and hold on to it with both hands. 

I think you are kind and caring and generous. I love to hear from you and what you are doing with your precious life. 

Finding a Safe Vacation House is not Easy

I am down to the last two days of a vacation - a quiet one with only my sister and brother-in-law with me. Well, I did take Lexie with me. She loves to travel in a car. 

I have to face facts -- taking a trip today is much harder than when I was younger. I had more physical strength and less need for medications and other things that help me sleep, help we walk, help me ride long distances in a car. 

On this trip, I missed Barry. He would have had me laughing more, relaxed more, and we all would have had more fun. I realize that I cannot capture what we had, the four of us, and trips long or short are never going to be the same. Now Gay and Stu help me with luggage and then handle their own. Gay is protective of me. "Don't go up and down those stairs so much," she said. "I'll take these things." The steps were wet and with my bad knee, it was difficult to manage them. 

But we still enjoyed being together. They brought their dogs along so we had lots of dog-walking time. 

The rental house had no Internet service so Stu and I had to go into town a few times to get our email. We found that McDonald's was our best bet until we found a small coffee house with free WiFi. The daily rain altered some of our plans, but we did take a walk on the road to nowhere. Gay and Stu took several walks with their dogs. 

I slept really well in the rental house even though my room was too warm. I opened almost every window in the place because housekeeping didn't honor my request to have a clean place with no sprays or chemicals that would trigger my MCS. When in the house, I felt awful, but if I went outside or stayed in a room with all windows open I felt much better.

 

. 

We were awakened each morning by wild turkeys grazing on the lawn. They were perfectly silent, but Lexie knew they were there, and she woke me with her growling. The setting for our  vacation was in the midst of farm land. Horses were pastured on one side and cows on another. It was quite pretty around us. If only the housekeeper had done what I asked, I would have really liked this farm house with three bedrooms. But, the house is toxic to me. As days passed, I grew worse until we decided we must leave and find another safer house for me. I can't live all the time with a charcoal lined mask over my face

We hope to fill the next two days having a good time even though rain is likely to try to spoil our fun. I enjoy my sister and brother-in-law so much, it doesn't bother me if it rains. I feel such contentment today, relaxed, and happy.


We are taking book orders for Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins. This book is a great Christmas gift.
Visit www.riceandbeall.blogspot.com for more information.

Paid Vacation? Cut short my pity party

I left my calendar blank this week because I had planned to take Rocky, resident dog at Writers Circle, and head north for a few days of vacation before the weather turns too cold.
But vet bills for Rocky and Tiger changed my plans. I went from plan A to plan B.
I would stay home and I would not make appointments. Leave your days free, I told myself. Use this free time to write, to take those ideas prompted by Maureen's class Saturday and create poetry or essays or short fiction. Work on those projects that have been floating around in your head.
As you know, if you are a writer, a home retreat is impossible. It is especially impossible for me at this time.  For weeks I've been working toward making an office upstairs. The painting has been done. The furniture is in place, but the boxes filled with papers, books, and who knows what else, are piled up against my dining room wall. I am determined not to fill my nice neat office with clutter - at least not right now.
Today I handled paper all day. I'm glad I finally opened all those envelopes from the Insurance companies. My first inclination was to toss them because I thought they were just those Explanation of Benefits showing what doctors had been paid.
But, some of them actually contained checks. Wow! I was paid for opening all those envelopes. That helped end my pity party.
So, my vacation has turned into a working week after all. Still have three more loads of laundry, more boxes to go through, blinds to order for the windows, shopping to do and only when it is late at night do I find the time to write a post for this blog.

I am happy however, to hear that Kathryn Byer is posting a poem of mine on her new site, The Mountain Woman. Hop over there and read it. Let me know what you think.