A Week With My Man!

Tomorrow both of my girls are leaving for a week of camp with their youth group. It is the first time that Carson has been old enough to go, so that means that John and I will be without both girls for the week. The camp is only ten minutes away from my parents' beach house and we have decided to spend the week together there.



This means that while our girls are having tons of fun with their friends, John and I will be having tons of fun with each other. This will be the first time that we have ever been to the beach house alone. I think we will try out some new restaurants, shop for antiques in beautiful Southport, and enjoy some quiet time on the beach. The best part of the whole trip is knowing that if our girls need us for anything, we will only be ten minutes away. I'm a little attached to them. Can you tell?

Oh well, I'll catch up with you all when I get back. I hope everyone has a blessed week! Try to stay cool!

Summer Cool?

Summer cool? Wow, now that is an oxymoron! The heat is almost unbearable today. The girls and I spent the morning in Monroe at the doctor's office. They are both heading off to camp on Monday and Catie has been complaining of an earache. I wanted to have her checked out before she left to make sure everything was okay. Thankfully, the doctor was able to correct her problem and she is good to go!

When we returned home the heat and humidity was so high that I decided that the animals needed some fresh water. After about thirty minutes of watering the animals and the tomato and basil plants, I was dripping with sweat. I came directly into the house and slipped into something dry and cooler; and I have not been worth anything since. I don't know about you, but it seems that if I ever leave the house to run errands (especially in extreme heat), I am no good for the rest of the day.

I spotted the new Southern Living (a must read for any southern gal) and was intrigued by one of the cover titles. Summer cool.



I think I'll spend the rest of the afternoon in my artificially cool house reading it.



Although I love nature and the outdoors, today I am content to see it from here in my comfy sunroom.



Thankfully, it is shaded by several huge oak trees in the summer and the sun doesn't overpower it. Maybe in the summer I should call it the shaderoom. What do you think?
Do you find that out of the ordinary errands can disrupt your day and cause you to get sidetracked? Or am I the only one that has a problem with that?

Dog Days

Do you ever have days when you feel tired and uninspired? Well, I have been having quite a few of them lately. It has been such a long, hot summer that my energy seems to have been zapped right out of me. I don't ever remember a summer quite like this one. Our hottest days actually started in early June, a month that is usually mild here in North Carolina. My garden didn't know how to respond to the early heat and dry weather. Pretty much all I have growing right now is tomatoes and basil.

Even the animals are getting tired of this heat. Our horses, goats, dogs, and cats seem to only want to find a cool spot to rest.

Freckles, our oldest and wisest dog, did manage to gather up the strength to try to catch a fly that buzzed around his head pestering him to death.



It was quite a funny sight.



If one didn't know better, he might think the dog was insane.



At times he even looked a little rabid. Good thing he has had all of his shots.



Eventually, he gave in to the heat and the fly and called it a day.



"It's too hot out here to even care," said Freckles.
"I know exactly what you mean, little buddy," said I.

Productive Evening?

Tonight John took the girls to a John Mayer concert and I spent the evening alone. I should have spent the time working in the storage room; instead, I spent the evening in the garden gathering tomatoes and basil, in the kitchen making pasta with pesto and tomatoes, and watching the cooking channel. I didn't get much accomplished, but I did have a great time!



I guess that's all that matters in the long run! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Procrastination

Some of you out there in blog land may wonder why I have been missing-in-action lately. I wish I had some great excuse for my being absent from blogging for almost a week, but I don't. I have not been sick or on some wonderful exotic vacation. I have not even been really busy doing a lot of productive things. To tell the truth (and keep it real), I have just been procrastinating. There...now you know my dirty little secret. I am a terrible procrastinator!! I hate to admit it. I am even ashamed of it, however, it is the real me.

Last week, I went to take a picture for my blog and my camera card was full. Although I have been to the store a couple of times, I kept putting off buying a new card because I thought I had one already. The problem with that was that I could not, for the life of me, find the one that I thought I had. Has that ever happened to you? I searched for several days and could not find it. This little event actually brought another larger problem to the surface...my procrastination. Procrastination can be defined as the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Yep, that's me!

If you have been following my blog for any length of time you may remember some of my previous posts that show a house that is fairly neat.

For example...the post about my sunroom,


...or my bedroom.


And although my house is presentable most of the time, I have a couple of rooms that I would rather that no one see. One of those rooms is my storage room.


Several years ago when my husband built an addition on our home, he added a beautiful storage room. It was the perfect room. I loved it because he gave it plenty of shelves and it was big enough to house a Christmas tree fully decorated! It was the room of my dreams.


However, due to my procrastination, it has become a junk hole. It has even overflowed into the office that is adjacent to it.


I am so ashamed to show you this, but I do feel that it is necessary in order to be held accountable to someone for what I am about to do. I am going to put an end to this terrible procrastination and do something about this area of my house. I have been challenged by Maggie at The White Farmhouse to clean up my storage area. So here it goes...I am going to try the Flylady's technique of devoting a set time to work on it each day. I will set the timer for thirty minutes and work nonstop for that amount of time every day. I don't know how many days it will take, but I'll keep you posted! Hold me accountable! Don't let me give up!

"I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

Even overcome procrastination!!

Too Hot to Cook!

I don't know how hot it may be where you are, but we reached the 100 degree mark today. It has been miserably hot here in the southeast this summer. I have all but given up on gardening and outdoor work because it is just too hot. We do still have some tomatoes, basil, and corn growing; but that is about all. It is too hot to do almost anything outside. I have also avoided cooking big meals since that just heats up the kitchen and makes the air conditioning run too much. Luckily, John loves to grill no matter what the weather. It doesn't matter if it is 10 degrees or 100 degrees, he will still fire up the grill.

With the yummy tomatoes and basil, I stir up a little bruschetta. Just add a little olive oil, garlic, mozzarella, salt and pepper, and voila! No cooking necessary!



Doesn't it look good?



John grills up some steak, fresh corn, and of course, the bread, and we are good to go!



What do you have for supper when the temperatures soar?

Beach Fun and Back to Reality

Last night I returned home after a wonderful long weekend at Oak Island. Coming home from a trip to the beach is always a little bittersweet. Although I love my home here in the country, there is something special about the time that our family spends at the coast. It seems as though life is a little sweeter when we all leave behind our everyday distractions to take a vacation.

Our time spent at the coast is relaxed and very unstructured. Most of our time is spent on the beach with friends that we have made on the island over the years. We were very fortunate to have some of the most beautiful weather I can ever remember having at the beach. The high pressure that was bringing North Carolina such hot weather finally moved out and left us with very comfortable breezy days.

Our Fourth of July weekend brought us everything that we hoped it would.

It brought us...


...an evening on the beach watching the crowd getting ready for the fireworks.


...ladderball games on the beach with friends.


...teenagers having fun without ipods, cell phones, computers, or TV!


...beautiful sunsets to enjoy on the beach.


Doesn't the water and sky look magical while the sun is setting?





Who knew teenagers could have so much fun without cell phones, ipods, computers, or TVs?



Of course, what would the fourth of July be without a little fireworks?


I hope everyone was able to enjoy some of their own.




But as they say, "All good things must come to an end." Today I am back to a reality of unpacking, loads of laundry, grocery shopping, and according to the weatherman, another high pressure. But even with all of those chores to do and hot days coming...it is still good to be home!