Florida

I'm in Florida! Having so much fun visiting my cousin. June has been packed, I feel like I've hardly seen my family and I'm sort of starting to miss them! Thankfully we'll all be together again soon...
My cousin has a beautiful new baby girl whom I am positively in love with. She was a week old and making eye contact with me - just studying the world. I have never seen anything quite like it. She's so tiny and delicate, like a little porcelain doll. She has the most wise eyes and amazing, smooth skin. It's really unreal. She hardly ever cries. She's just so content. She loves watching the colorful fish in her daddy's aquarium - she just stares and wonders. She just looks intelligent, like she's really pondering all she sees.
Also there is my cousin's little two-year-old boy - he is such a sweetie, so helpful and sweet! He's such a good child. He's going to be the most wonderful big brother, I'm sure they'll be best friends when they get a little older. I feel so privileged to have had this time to watch them. These early days are so precious and formative and wonderful. I have had such a wonderful time visiting with my cousin, and experiencing her young family in a way I never have before. I hope they can all come up and visit us sometime!
Also, I love Florida. I just miss it sometimes. It's nice to see a lot of palm trees, tan people, and chickens running all over downtown like they own the place. (Okay, so that's not a widespread Floridian trait - I'm pretty sure that's just concentrated to our little area).
Also, it's been really interesting to do stuff until you feel it's done - and then have a lot of terribly quiet free time! So different after coming from a big house and a big family. Not quite sure how I feel about it...but I love having uninterrupted time to write, read my bible, and read a little fiction - all in one sitting, uninterrupted! It's wonderful.
I've been reading mainly two things, one of them being Saki's short stories. I got a 'complete works' in Boiling Springs back home. I was at Gardner-Webb University for the Charlotte Mason conference, which I hope to write more about later, and picked up a lot of wonderful books there.
Also I've been reading The Lovely Bones, which my cousin loaned me. I heard a little about the book before the movie came out, but I just wasn't sure if I was into the heavy plot line. Due to my penchant for depressing literature of late, I thought it was very appropriate to have Saki's terse, laugh-inducing short works to counterbalance.
The Lovely Bones starts off intense. I'd compare it to a punch in the gut. It made me feel so entirely unhappy that I put it down, intending to stop reading. (Which is a big thing for me. I'm sort of obsessive about finishing books). However, predictably, I have continued. Because I want to know how it ends! And it better be good.
But wait! Intense books really have no relation to Florida, I just do that anyway. But what is associated with Florida? The beach! I went with my cousins last week. I got a wonderful sunburn, which left me at first a deep, rich red, giving the vague impression of someone in a spandex Santa suit. It then faded off to a dull cherry glow - it was an inspiring color, really - and now I have a light tan.
I prided myself on not peeling. Until this afternoon I looked in the mirror and thought I had dandruff. No. My hairline sunburned, and is now peeling. And managing to pollute much of the surrounding area.
Then I realized my back is a little too. And just now I itched my shoulder. And started flaking. But despite my brash words of before, I've realized that Summer wouldn't be Summer without me flaking like a diseased reptile.
All that aside, the beach was wonderful. The water was unbelievably clear and beautiful, I could see all around me at all times, even when I went in up to my chest. (And this is the part where I do not comment on the oil spill). So anyways, I felt pretty sure I would at least not be surprised if a shark decided to maul me.
And of course we brought the little man with us, and he is a beach loving fiend! He spoke of nothing else for several days, and formed his own sentence around that theme: my cousin and I were talking, and I mentioned that I loved something or other. He suddenly looked up from his toys and said, "I love the beach." You could tell he was surprised and delighted to make the connection. It was adorable!
Okay, enough random post for tonight. My plan of one hour ago was to be asleep by this time.

Charleston

In Charleston. With the breeze coming off the water to cool you down under the warm Southern sun. With the flowers, the ones not yet in bloom, buds close to cracking, just as beautiful as those that are. There are small shops everywhere, eccentric and unique to themselves - here, downtown, there are no McDonald's or Super Wal-Mart's in sight.
There are birds of all sort, many of them seabirds - pelicans swoop low by the docks, an anhinga sits low on the surface with the water up to its neck.
The streets in between the buildings are full of the personality and beauty that only time and history can bring. Some are cobblestone or brick. Here I can pass a lawyer's office that was a store in the 18'th century. There are countless monuments - to soldiers from all our wars, to local heroes, to brave politicians, to symbols of honesty and virtue.
I suppose it's obvious that I love Charleston. Even the crowded, too-touristy market is bearable and not as obnoxious as tourist traps are in other places. Because even here the unmistakable flavor of Charleston seeps in.
Today I spoke to a woman weaving baskets. She is nearly fifty and began learning to work the sweetgrass from her mother and grandmother when she was four years old. She says she is still learning, in an art, you are always learning. Her creations were beautiful and artistic, but functional and hardy. We spoke of the ancient art of her craft - she mentioned how even in the Bible it is mentioned, far off from us in ancient Egypt, in the story of Moses in the basket of bulrushes.
Charleston is much younger than Egypt, of course. At least, Charleston as we know it. But here we are all, carrying our ancient ways and crafts to this one place to make it what it is. It is beautiful. Like the baskets, and the men and women who weave them, I suppose Charleston will last forever, in varying degrees and shades of beauty, grace, and transition.

Birthday

I got the most beautiful camera for my birthday! It's a Nikon, absolutely gorgeous (as you can see), with two zoom lenses--one is quite long-rage, I just want a bird to sit still long enough for me to get a nice close-up!

The clarity of the pictures it takes is absolutely amazing. The blogger posting doesn't even do it justice. I included this picture of Ben--it picks up his beautiful blue eyes in a way no other camera does!

The picture isn't centred, that's my only problem with it.

And of course, Josiah. Once again, it focuses marvelously and picks up vibrant color and detail.

And finally, my true pride and joy: my nature photography!

This is a cicada that Ben found, actually. The detail on this is amazing. The cicada is a very beautiful, intricate insect, and the camera actually picked all of that up.

The sheen on the wings is perfect, especially how it fades from green to peach towards the end, and I love the patterns on its head and back. And of course his expressive little eyes! They remind me of a praying mantis', actually.

A rose of Sharon that has spread from the backyard to the side of the house...

And these beautiful creatures, I believe they're narrow-waisted paper wasps. You can see the uncapped larva in some of the cells. They're building a nest outside our living room window.

This is some sort of polypore shelf fungi I got a picture of today.

The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog