Florida. I love Florida, can you tell?
These three personable palm trees I photographed at St. Augustine.



Even though this is an osprey, he kept making me think of the song 'Hej Sokoły.' (Polish national song...it means 'Hey, falcon.' Don't listen to it. It's catchy). Anyhow, I took a lot of pictures to get this one.



This lovely gator is technically "the one that got away." I had forgotten my zoom in the house, and subsequently, missed out on a photograph that could have appeared to have been taken from only a few feet away. And I couldn't get a picture of his fascinating tail.

Dragonfly larvae. (I believe).




This is one of my favorites. A boat came through and made these wonderful ripples.
Mist in the early morning.

Here I become rather obsessed with reflection. When I was younger I thought it was bad luck to see my reflection in the lake, so I wouldn't look. It's actually sort of cool. The water was, one evening in particular, just like a looking glass.
Snail eggs. They were a delicate pink color that doesn't even show up as nicely as it did in person.



More reflections...

This is also one of my most mourned photographs. If it had been more centered, the heron and his reflection would have been frame-worthy.





I like this island a lot, as you can probably tell. It has a lot of character. One day I'm going to buy a canoe and go chasing alligators all over it. (It's too swampy to really walk across, though).

So, that is my Florida trip, summed up in pictures. Maybe I'll add my St. Augustine photographs later.

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.

New York Pictures

I had cannoli ice cream.
I will never be the same. . .

Enjoying delicious ice cream at Lugia's in New York State!

Jaden's big brother, Jack, on the right.

Here is my new baby cousin, Jaden.

This Summer (so far)

Well, here I am, back again, trying to write something after a very interesting summer, and despite the fact that my computer seems intent on translating my posts into Hindi. Which is strange, because I don't even read Hindi.
Like I said, we've had an interesting summer. Went to see some relatives in New York--I tried to post from there, actually, but the computer and I just weren't working well together so I decided to wait until I got home.
The day we came home I was rather sick, and the next day was a bit sicker, but felt better after that. Unfortunately Josiah and Maura, who are four and two, got sick as well. They both had it pretty bad. But Josiah got better and Maura didn't. She was up all night for days with agonizing stomach cramps that kept she and my parents from sleeping. They were all very exhausted. It was so painful she never wanted me to even help her--she always wanted my mom.
Finally it all culminated rather dramatically, and my sister was taken to the urgent care. . . and then the ER. . . her blood sugar was amazingly high.
So she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and taken to Levine Children's Hospital. The staff was spectacular there, very kind and understanding. I think she was there for three days.
Initially she hated the idea of shots, but has adapted to the idea rather quickly. Although she still hates having to have two shots at bedtime. . . altogether she has five shots a day. She's going to get an insulin pump eventually. Diabetic people with pumps generally live longer, healthier lives. It makes it easy to closely monitor your body and therefore respond more accurately to one's own specific needs.
So that's that. We've all been eating much more healthily, which has been very good for all of us. It would appear that Maura also has Celiac's Disease, so she can't have wheat, and while the rest of us had been doing so (although much less than we used to) but we've all stopped eating sugary foods. Although my parents and I still have sugar in our coffee and I frantically scrounge up sweets whenever given the opportunity, because I am an addict.
However, I've been jogging (almost!) every evening. At least I think I'm jogging. . . maybe I'm running. I don't know what I do. But anyways, I do it. And I've been drinking the proper amount of water, which makes all the difference.
My mom is getting on in her pregnancy. She has a beautiful round belly, and we've actually started making baby-coming preparations--getting clothes out for it and things like that. I'd sort of like another brother, but I won't mind if it's a girl, either. A girl would balance things out!
So that's our summer so far. . .