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Boats, SmacNally’s, Music, and Growing

  Another 2 weeks on Ocracoke Island in May-June and I am surely spoiled! We timed this logistically so that our first week covered Memorial Day weekend when our children would only have to sacrifice 4 vacation days instead of 5, and then covered the next week which covered the full weekend of the Ocrafolk Festival, an annual event that we were able to attend for the first time ever! We also hauled Big Fun (the brother-in-law’s boat) down to use for the 2 weeks there. Having a boat at 10 Cuttin Sage really is Big Fun! The men spent a huge portion of the week fishing and catching! I made sure I took a walk every morning to avoid blood clots (yes, I’m still on blood thinners, bummer, see last post). We probably spent an inordinate amount of time at SmacNally’s restaurant on the harbor. It’s just too good, and probably a health hazard, but hopefully the fried stuff is outweighed by the fresh catch in it! Fried oysters, shrimp, mahi, hush puppies, french fries...... and topping it all off
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Peace

We were on the Island (The Doer and I) for 2 weeks at the end of September to beginning of October 2020.    We hauled my brother-in-law’s boat (named Big Fun) down for the 2 weeks and had the kids there the first week and then some good friends of many years there for the second week. There’s no need for details that have already been described in the blog numerous times before: wonderful food, sunsets, fishing, reading, relaxing, laughing, etc. I did a whole lot of sitting on porches (see past posts), reading, and watching scenery. I tried to get a few walks in at least the first week, but mostly sitting. In fact, I did so much sitting and relaxing that by Wednesday after we returned home, I found myself in the Emergency Room at our local hospital with blood clots so large that the doctors couldn’t believed I was still alive and walking around! Evidently, too much sitting still (also spent 2 days in the car traveling back because we took our time in Williamsburg, VA) is not really  a
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Shades of Blue

  My favorite color is blue.       Blue Ridge Mountain blue.               Afternoon sky blue.               Caribbean water blue.               Hydrangea blue.               Periwinkle and Salvia blue.               Verdigris copper blue.               Carbon and hydrogen fire blue. These aren’t Sherwin-Williams colors either. These are things I just thought of when I was thinking of blue. There is a myriad of blue in nature and I love every shade of blue, turquoise, teal, mint, blue/green, etc. Blue is supposedly a calming color so it would make sense that I would love a calming color because I need to be calm. It is in my soul. I cannot live an adrenaline-driven life. Now let me digress to a new topic. We went to Ocracoke, The Doer and I, over New Year’s to get some peace and quiet and to close the house for winter. We were there for 3 nights and were blessed with some beautiful weather, especially New Year’s Eve day. The sun was warm, the skies were blue, and people were donning t-
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Porches

Things have changed a lot during the last couple of years; some good, some not so good (e.g. a daughter’s wedding, a hurricane disaster, the loss of a pet)  but no change has been as dramatic (for me, that is) as the change of the last 5 months. Life, to wit, has been kind of a blur of activity for as long as I can remember where I blissfully involved myself in all kinds of righteous and dutiful and honorable activities so that I could consider myself a “productive member of society” even though I have not worked outside the home for many years. (A plight of the stay-at-home mom!) Volunteering my time in many capacities gave me something to do, made me feel important, and gave me opportunities to help others.  Now that we are in COVID Isolation, even though things have been taken away, something new has been added:  TIME  because volunteer work apparently is "non-essential".   So....... I have now gone from filling my time with meaningful endeavors to doing absolutely meaning
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HOPE

The last time I wrote was on day 6 of COVID-19 Isolation/Social Distancing/Quarantining/Mask Wearing. We had plans to go to Ocracoke for our regular annual Spring cleaning at the end of March like we always do. There was much to be done because we had hurricane repairs in addition to the annual cleaning to ready the house for rental season. We had no dock, no backyard deck, a wonky Boathouse that was knocked off its pilings by the flood, and an outdoor shower leaning against a tree. (See last post for Hurricane Dorian experience).  Well it is now day 135 of COVID; 5 1/2 months of Isolation/Social Distancing/Quarantining/Mask Wearing which I foolishly thought might last a couple of weeks! Since the Outer Banks were closed, we couldn’t go to Ocracoke until the end of May to do clean up and repairs, and then ended up going twice because there was so much work to do (the end of May and then in June). We lost the Fall rental season due to Hurricane Dorian and the Spring rental season due to
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Dorian

It has been 6+ months since Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Outer Banks. I have tried to put words on paper about this experience from our perspective but I seem to fail  time after time. I guess the reason is that I don’t feel worthy of writing about something that I didn’t actually have to live through. There is no way I can give Ocracoke Island what it deserves in the aftermath of this destruction and devastation. Now I’m sitting in Social Isolation because of Covid 19 (Day 6) and I’ve exhausted things to do around the house (at least for today) and maybe it’s time to try to write again, really just for something to do and because I’ve had more time to think lately. Looking back over these blog years, I see that I am strongly inspired by natural beauty in water, sunsets, bird life, marshland, flowers, color, etc. Beauty in nature inspires me to write to help fulfill the longing to reach out to the Source, the Creator of all beauty.  So to put in words what we have witnessed of Dorian
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Watching Water

2019 has been an eventful year so far, no doubt about that. I know there are lessons to be learned in it and I'm trying to figure them out. Our oldest daughter, The Teacher, married The Love of Her Life and we had a celebration that was pretty epic for our family on March 30. Although being surrounded by closest friends and family and having the time of our lives were blessings that don’t come around often in life, I was left totally burned out and exhausted like I never have been before. Maybe because I’m now 61??? I really don’t know. Anyway, it’s led me to have some blood work done and wait for results as well as do some things to work on myself such as seek wise counsel, and give up some activities that were probably adding stress that I don’t need right now, and not feeling guilty if I take naps now and then, and letting go of some perfectionistic tendencies, and practicing quite a bit of self-reflection.  Even though we’ve been “empty nesters” for quite some time and alread
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