weekly review:

It's hard to believe that just last weekend my beloved Bluffton/Hilton Head Island hometown was hit by a major hurricane. Just days later we are sitting at Bluffton Oyster Factory Park (hit hard here, an
entire forest was wiped out:(...On a good note, there's probably more room for parking!), at our town's sea food fest (the girls and I brought Zoe's;), listening to a great band, watching the sunset over our beautiful May River, dolphins, kayaks, boats, our community. I can't begin to express my gratitude for all who are working so hard to clean up my amazing Lowcountry community!



 
 

So many people were impacted by the hurricane in my community, in so many different ways, it's overwhelming. Even just evacuating can put a huge dent in the finances! (although there were busses and free shelters, but I'm not sure if these options were available for families with animal companions.)
I've made a few smaller donations here and there. This message was in response to a donation I made for someone who took it upon herself to go door to door in one of a Hilton He...ad's harder hit "working" neighborhoods. She knocked on every single door to see what they needed (help cleaning up, money, ride to the grocery store, p/u prescriptions, etc).

A small donation can go a long ways, here's a response I received:
"Dear Friend -
I apologize for the impersonal nature of
this message but I wanted to get right back to you and let you know what you accomplished in the last few days.
With your GENEROUS spirit on Saturday, I was able to get cash into the community quickly. On Sunday the work continued as well and is still being managed today (Wed).
In total - our monies served over 40 people including...
Fast food workers who had not been paid in a week.
Grocery Store workers who were in the same situation.
A guy that worked two jobs landscaping that had pennies to his name.
A woman that washes dishes and has three children that had used her money to evacuate.
A number of peoples homes who's home had been flooded
A woman who had been in a MAJOR car accident and her car was totaled.
Friend of mine who needed minor roof repair on her trailer but couldn't cover the costs (cash and donation from a church was used)
A woman who evacuated animals and spent her money on evacuation."

Finally cashing in our 15 year anniversary gift card from my parents...14 months later  
 
I'm happy to report, that my first-year container garden did survive Hurricane Matthew! I started out with: zucchini (but something would eat the flowers, must be a bug as we have deer fencing), tomatoes (which never flowered, sage (it just died 😳), strawberries (we got like two berries out of the whole $10 plant deal 😥, some flowers (they are well, thank you for asking;), basil (great while it lasted), and bell peppers and and Meyer lemons ... both are flourishing 🌶🍋


 
It's been four years since I created my last business cards...decided to give my new ones a whimsical face-lift: A collage showing My new back and front printed, heavy card stock, business cards! 
 


 
I've headed to the island a few times since Hurricane Matthew, it's still unreal, with all the damage and trees down, everywhere....and it downgraded from a 4 to a cat 2 by the time it reached us...if it would have remained a 4, it's possible most of us would have not had homes to return to...we were VERY fortunate.
 
3rd shift lawn cutting crew!
 
decided to change things up a bit this year....instead of going as a witch, I'm a hippie...my girls asked how that changes from the other 364 days a year :O
 
and you don't see this everyday?
 
I know people were upset that we weren't allowed back into Bluffton and HHI the second the hurricane was over for us ....but this might explain why...I can't imagine the amount of manpower and work that happened, just to get us back to Bluffton two days post Matthew. And Hilton Head was hit much harder. An incredible amount of cleanup has happened, but our beloved island is a mess :(.
So beyond grateful to all who work so hard so the rest of us can get back to normal ...it hasn't even been two weeks yet. And I have never seen so many tree trucks and catastrophe and disaster relief trucks in my entire life

Great day today: celebrated three flawless dental appointments by trick or treating and receiving lots of candy at our town's farmers market, and lunch at the Downtown Deli 
Piper had a great day....he went on a long my golf cart ride! and he saw a HUGE gator (and didn't bark;) 🐊

our weekly in review:

Celebrating 16 years of Marriage:


My parents took the girls for the day, and J and I set out on my absolute favorite adventure....our beloved boat, Little Sea Hunt!  But first, we headed out to Stacks for brunch, so he could have a seafood omelet.  It was nice...a breakfast date with my hubby...I can't remember the last time we did that.  It was definitely BC!  From there we headed to the boat landing preparing to take the boat over to Daufuski Island where we were going to rent a golf cart and spend the day...only we made a slight detour to a different boat landing in Old Town Bluffton...you know, because J wanted to see a seafood recipe book down there (notice a seafood theme so far....the poor guy must be feeling some deprivation being a prisoner to a vegetarian wife and all;)  Anyway, as I mentioned we took a slight detour down the May River to go see his book.  Yes, we easily could have driven or ridden our bikes there, but isn't this fun? And interesting to note, when you arrive via boat, instead of land transportation, you see things from a whole new perspective.  We spent several hours talking to local shop owners, walking around and seeing the sights, some of which have been there since before the Civil War!  And with J's nudge and encouragement, some of my Dragonfly Inspirations Creations may be in a couple of those shops in the very near future!!!!  SO excited!  J and I sat on a patio for awhile and just hung out, and then we headed back to the boat.  We were kind of procrastinating a tad, as the weather was iffy....but as it turns out, the storms stayed west of us..like they missed us by a mile or two, literally.  And trust me when I say you do NOT want to be out on these open waterways during the storms...even if we don't (or rarely) take the boat right on the ocean, we are pretty much almost on the ocean, and it's all connected....been there, done that! Anyway, when we returned to boat, we were slightly hungry, so we sat on the boat for a snack...and then a police officer came down, and we actually just wound up chatting with each other for probably a good hour and a half to two hours!  At that point, we had to leave or we were going to lose daylight and be unable to go out for our anniversary dinner via boat....but we found a restaurant and dock on the way, and stopped at Buffalo's on the very beautiful Palmetto Bluff.


We enjoyed, perfect weather, and breezes, and dolphins, and sunset....amazing and beautiful day together!  Wow time flies, 16 years, 19 together!


 



Fairy Girl making pancakes from scratch:


Perfect night! Good music, good food, good scenery, good people!  Palmetto Bluff!

About a year ago or so, some of you may recall when I applied primer to the dark cave of a tiny half bath (dark wine...was like that when we bought the house five years ago.). The primer was such a relief, I just let it stay as is. But now tired of plain white, and I literally despise painting bathrooms (after two bathrooms in our WI house where I had to tear down wall paper)....so my compromise, a cute inspirational/coastal border. NOW I'm happy 

 

Celebrating 16 Years of Marriage today!

 
   

weekly review:

Picnic and pool night! And as an added bonus, grandma took the girls to their house so J and I could have a date night at the pool...he napped (came straight from work:) and then swam laps and I floated and then hit the hot tub 🤓

And, I bumped into a fellow clarinetist in the pool!

Grateful for another beautiful night in Paradise


 
our beloved hummingbird and fairy garden, midsummer: 


 
Beautiful night at Shelter Cove Park...picnic dinner on the marsh, and great music by The Headliners! 
 Sunday tea with grandma...third generation sipping tea from this set gifted from my mom's Aunt and Uncle, from Japan. Some of the original pieces still survive!
 
pancakes and shoe shopping with grandma and grandpa!
 
sweet backyard visitors!
 
 
Another fabulous Lowcountry night: brought a picnic to Palmetto Bluff to see The Blue Dogs....a fundraising benefit for Family Promise, an organization that helps get families on their feet with jobs and housing and education. My parents do some volunteer work for this through their church.

We started out sitting amidst the crowd, until I suggested (ahem told them 🤓) that we'd like it better by the river, behind the band: much quieter, more breezy, and a great atmosphere... There were big camp fires going too! Great night! 
 
16 years ago today:







 

Happy 49th Anniversary to My Parents!

We celebrated with them....we treated them to The Coast at the Sea Pines Beach Club.  This was our first time there, and wow, what a treat (ok, for the three of the six vegetarians it was more of an atmospheric than a culinary treat, but still!).....we dined...outdoors, with our own personal table top fire pit, ocean front, in 68 degree temps on December 23rd.  Now THAT is cool!

celebrating our 15 year Wedding Anniversary....3.5 months later....no kiddos, lots of dolphins!

so back on August 5th, my hubby and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary.  He had an incredible surprise weekend planned for me, which I blew when I very suddenly had a semi emergency surgery....so he had to tell me about it....and I was bummed:(  But, it turns out that had my surgery/issue not arose, I don't think we would have been able to go because my youngest got sick, and she needs her mommy and daddy on days like those.

Fast forward 3.5 months....he was able to rebook his surprise mini getaway for us, without losing the money he had paid...except September was impossible, as we went to Cleveland, and to the Smokeys.....October was impossible because, I honestly can't even remember why at this point.  So here we are, mid November, and we were running out of warm weather to do this......oh, and we had to revamp the the plans a tad, because we were also running out of daylight :D

now, onto this fabulous mini getaway:

bet you wonder where we're headed?

We went to Daufuski Island, which is an offshore island, completely surrounded by water (wide rivers on  parts of it, and the Atlantic on another part of it).  The only way to get back and fourth to the island is by boat or ferry....and since we have our own wheels, we took full advantage of our own transporatation.

We got a later start in the day, but it was so worth the wait, because this is what greeted us upon our arrival:
 
We're glowing :D

which also means darkness was about to hit; quickly, and although Daufuski is not a huge island, we weren't familiar with most of it.  Thankfully, at the last minute, I was able to convince my hubby that bringing our bikes along for our land transport was probably not the wisest choice, given the approaching darkness and all...and I suggested that maybe we need to rent a golf cart...which we did
 
....which is a really good thing because it was dark by the time we got our luggage loaded.  And the gal who rented us the cart was kind enough to drive us to our little cabin in the woods.

see, it's little, it's in the woods, and it was perfect for us!  (photo taken the next morning, because as I was saying, it was dark and all when we arrived:)

.....so the next morning, first thing in the morning (you know, after arriving late) we received a distress call, to please come home....said child was sick again:(  So, we were told that it was ok to enjoy our day, but that we'd need to be back (not staying over night for the second night), which we did, and we were.   So, here's our daytime adventure, which we thoroughly enjoyed!  (good thing we rented that golf cart!)

 we hit the beach!


and we had it ALL to ourselves....(I admit I was just longing to sit on that beach with a book...all day long)

....but we took a long walk on the beach, which we had all to ourselves, and collected lots of seashells and stones, gifted from the Sea....the neat thing about a "remote" island, as opposed to the big-time tourist destination just across the water, the seashells are not picked over, and we collected some real treasures!


and, as luck would have it, we one the cutest couple on the beach awared, that day....granted we were completely unopposed, but still :D

And, Daufuski wins the awared for the cutest-ever beach houses.
 
and our little adventure continued...you wouldn't believe how much island we covered where we saw nobody, being somebody who thrives on my solitude and all, this would probably be a really good place for me to live :D

we saw history, a museum, and original Gullah (a strong heritage which is very much still present in the culture of my neck of the woods).  If you're interested in learning more about the Gullah, follow this link: http://www.dau-fus-kie-island.com/2010/11/gullah-people-and-their-connection-to.html 
As I was saying, we did a self tour, saw a museum and old school house, which is built next to the new school....servicing all 17 elementary students on the island.  Once they reach age 12, they need to hop on the ferry everyday and go to Hilton Head to continue their education.  How fun is that!

Then we headed to another part of the island, Freeport Marina, which is the area we were most familiar, as we stop here for day trips, and we had lunch, outside to the accompanianment of a really good singer/guitarist:


But alas, it was time to be good parents and go tend to our little girl (who is doing much better today, by the way).  But first, we needed to make a quick little stop at Harbortown, to pick up a stuffy for our sweet sickie (it's kind of a tradition, as it is proven that sick children recover faster when they receive stuffies :)
 
 And, because we actually radioed in our arrival, they let us park REALLY close....

.....any guesses on which boat is ours :D

side note: I like pelicans :D 

But alas, the sun was beginning to set, and it's not too smart to be on a small water craft on the semi open seas after dark, so homeward bound; and we were surrounded by dolphins!
 
and we made it back safe and sound, and a great mini getaway was had by all!


sweet dreams