For Janie

Welcome!  As always, I'm glad you are here.

Today started with a phone call to Florida to wish a long time friend a happy birthday. She too is a Buckeye who got cold. If you're reading this, OLD friend, I hope you had the best birthday ever. It's hard to believe we're #%*% years old!  Wonder why we still feel sixteen inside our  heads?  Knees that squeak, fingers that stick and our mom's hands coming out of our shirts tell a different story.

  

Next on my check list today was a trip to the beach.  It was a beautiful sunny day with a seventy six degree temp.  The video that follows is for my beach loving friends.   If you're not in that category, you'll find the dolphins, sea gulls, pelicans and surf sound, recorded especially for Janie,  pretty boring.  To see the video full screen, double click.  To go back to smaller size, hit escape. 

The refrigerator is cleaned out, last minute laundry done and six pounds of Gay's shrimp iced and in the cooler.  Prescriptions have been picked up and Grace's blankey washed. Packing is not quite finished but hopefully it will be before the 5:00 a.m. ETD.  The CCU essentials (camera, computer and underwear) are in the bag.  The Buckeye State beckons.  A supervisor is required.  Number two daughter and son-in-law are moving and I volunteered to boss the process.  Granddaughter number two just presented us with a new great-granddog.  She would like him to be as well mannered as Grace, therefore, I need to boss the training.  Grace graduated number one in her obedience class.  It really doesn't matter she was the only one in the class.  Thanksgiving is on the horizon and no, I'm not supervising it but I am looking forward to visiting with family and friends.  I hear there's an exciting Tupperware party planned and a girls night out at the Chat.  Chat, short for Chatterbox, hometown's version of Cheers and home of the world's best carrot cake for two.   

"Dancing" is on as I'm writing this and waiting on the video to finish processing  Can someone please tell me how any fifty year old can look as good and move as well as Jennifer Grey?  I just hope when I'm her age, I can do that.  One good thing about blogging....I didn't have to sign anywhere to tell the truth and nothin' but the truth.

Thanks for stopping by.   I'll see you soon and until then, enjoy your days!

Welcome!  I'm glad you're here.  We had a lot going on this weekend and I can't wait to tell you about it.


The fun started when we decided to go Christmas shopping Friday morning.  Actually, I decided to shop, Jers agreed to go along.  I thought I was way ahead of the season but I couldn't have been more wrong. The Hilton Head Tanger Outlet is already decorated for Christmas.  No fall or Thanksgiving decorations anywhere.  Whodathunkit?  We ate our lunch beside a beautifully decorated Christmas tree sheltering a collection of snowmen.  Cute...but...what happened to fall?  Not even one leaf or pumpkin!  I took my camera along and not only forgot to take pictures, I forgot the camera at the restaurant.  Thanks to Jerry, the keeper of my mind and my camera, it was missed  hours later and retrieved.  Taking pictures never entered my mind.  My one track brain was shouting "SHOP" all afternoon. By the time we got close to home it was dark and as we wound our way through people the last mile, it was obvious there was a par-ta goin' on!

Our little island was transformed.  Usual serenity drifted away with the tide and this place rocked!  Sounds of music drifted down the road and the air was full of mouth watering aromas. The fact we'd had a late lunch was forgotten. Cooking of the worlds best deep fried shrimp, fish, oysters, crab and low country stew had our senses working overtime and we had to investigate.  Our noses didn't steer us wrong.  All the seafood was local and delicious!  I'd tell you we went back for seconds if I wasn't embarrassed.
Saturday brought more of the same along with tons of homemade goodies and the usual vendor food that was soooo tempting.  Heritage Days Celebration was the reason for the festivities which is a once a year weekend long celebration of the Gullah culture.  The Gullah's are African American descendants of slaves from South Carolina's low country.  Thousands of people converged on Penn Center, here on the island,  from everywhere.  Now a historical site and museum, Penn Center was the first school for freed slaves. It also happens to be where Martin Luther King, Jr. drafted his "I have a Dream" speech in a little cottage on the campus.   The Penn Center web site http://www.penncenter.com/ is a great place to spend some time.

Jerry and I were honored to have the opportunity to meet Mr. Jonathan Green, well known local artist.  His beautiful work is a history lesson to island life at an earlier time.  Google him too!  Mr. Green illustrated the children's book  "Amadeus : The Leghorn Rooster" written by our neighbor, Delores B. Nevils.  The story is true and she really does live in the quaint little cottage with 26 windows and a red roof depicted in her book.  Ms. Nevils was kind enough to invite us to go to the Saturday morning parade with she and Mr.Green.  He is as delightful and pleasant as he is talented.  He was recognized often and was most accommodating to everyone who came up to talk to him or ask for pictures.  Thousands of people lined the street for the parade and afterwards formed huge lines of polite, laughing, patient people.  They waited for tickets, food and rides for the children.  Martin Luther King, Jr. must have had a vision of such a day when he drafted his speech in little Gantt cottage across the road. 

After we watched the parade and some great talent on the outdoor center stage, Jers found HUGE brats smothered in peppers and onions.  My calorie booster was bar-b-qued ribs.  YUM-ME!  Feeling fat and happy, we left the party early to cheer on our Buckeyes.  Good thing we did as they started a little slow.  Well, no, that's not exactly true.  They started WAY slow!  Once the Buckeye flag was flying on the porch, the "whirlie" was out and we were settled in front of the TV with our OSU shirts on....things started to shape up and they finished up winners. It was a nice end to a beautiful day. 

Jerry grilled after church today and took Grace for a run with the bike.  I had the hard job of taking a nap. We spent the day watching football and being lazy after a weekend that made my heart happy.  The one flaw was Sunday's Steelers game.  Perfection 3 days in a row is hard to achieve.....just sayin'!


Thanks for stopping by and until I see you again, enjoy your days!

SHIbuckeye

Welcome!   Thanks for dropping by SHIbuckeye!  Recently, my husband Jerry and I moved from Ohio to South Carolina's low country.  Seven generations of my family including me, our daughters and grandchildren have lived in that little corner of the world.  We left our comfort zone of friends, most of them from childhood, and our family.  We sold our home of 35 years, reduced our ownership of  "stuff" considerably and opted for new experiences.  Simply put, we endured one too many cold winters!   This  blog will be a way of keeping in touch with the "Buckeyes" in our lives and a love letter to both our old and new homes.

I love Ohio!  I love the beauty of spring, lazy days of summer, the smells, colors and crisp days of fall.  A white Christmas with all the trimmings, friends dropping by with homemade goodies and gifts, a crackling fire, decorating our small church, Christmas Eve services, our family and church family are only a few of the things we'll miss.  There's nothing like the company of longtime friends and family sitting around a campfire roasting hot dogs and sipping the world's best cider made at the apple orchard down the road. 

Since moving, I better understand how someone can say they love two people at the same time!  I am falling in love with our new home more every day while still loving and missing Ohio.  South Carolina low country is a breathtakingly beautiful, unique place.  We live on St. Helena Island, one of South Carolina's sea islands.  St. Helena is seven miles from Beaufort and across the bay from Hilton Head.  Savannah, Ga. and Charleston, SC are only an hours drive.  It is a rural area with tomato and watermelon farms, shrimping, a half dozen gift and art shops and a few restaurants.  We are 10 minutes from Hunting Island and the Atlantic Ocean.  We live in the middle of a history book and can't turn the pages fast enough.  My camera stays red hot!  

Live oaks covered with Spanish moss, sweet tea, hush puppies and thrift stores filled to the brim with wonderful treasures are things I instantly loved.  I am learning about tides, pluff mud, sea turtles and Frogmore stew.  Island traditions, haint blue, blue bottle trees and the Lands End light are things I am looking at from a distance........and will explore with you in another post.  

 Until then,  thanks again for dropping by and enjoy today!