A sentimental Name That Silver finale.

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This last entry will be an easy guess, but it comes with a story.

These aren’t old family pieces, but they’ll always hold a special place in my heart.

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Many moons ago when my husband retired from the Marine Corps, money was tight. He’d bounced around from job to job but couldn’t really find anything he enjoyed. I was working part time for a property management company but it didn’t pay well.

He’d sent out a lot of resumes but until something panned out he was driving truck. Big rig, long distance hauling. I hated it as he was gone all week, but it kept us afloat.

On one of his weekends home we went to a lovely antique store where I saw the above items. They’re chickens, so my eye was immediately drawn to them. If I remember correctly they were about $125, which 30 years ago… we didn’t have to waste.

But my amazing husband scrounged the money somewhere, put them on layaway and drove back to the store every week until he paid them off so he could give them to me for my birthday that year. The poor man probably skipped a meal every day while he was on the road in order to buy me that gift… so to me they’re priceless.

💕

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Boneyard Beach at Botany Bay

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The sun was going down as we took our first steps onto Boneyard Beach.

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To say I was blown away is an understatement..

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Boneyard Beach is a weird and wonderful place littered with the skeletons of trees.

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And while the severe erosion that’s responsible for this crazy display is an environmental nightmare…

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I have to say it was jaw dropping in its grandeur.

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Unfortunately we’d arrived at high tide so our exploring was limited to the shoreline.

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But the light was fabulous and made what we could access all the more eerie.

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Having the entire place to ourselves made it feel otherworldly.

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The required selfie.

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❤️

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Walking to Botany Bay beach at sunset.

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Since we still had a little daylight when we got back from Charleston, we decided to go back to the Botany Bay Preserve and check out the beach we didn’t have time to explore on our first trip there.

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It’s a half mile walk from the parking lot…

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Through marsh land with some pretty funky driftwood.

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The required selfie.

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Turn to your right and the sun was setting.

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Turn to your left there was still blue sky.

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Right.

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Left.

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Right.

Okay, you get my point.

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It was a lovely stroll.

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And the driftwood made for some nice shots.

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Just as the sun was going down….

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We found the beach.

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A very special beach as it turns out.

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We’d found Boneyard Beach…

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To be continued…

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On Southern Living’s advice….

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After our walking tour of Charleston we realized we’d skipped lunch and were starving. As it was too early for dinner, I did a little phone research and found a seafood place highly recommended by Southern Living magazine. They said the food was superb and to ignore the fact that the restaurant itself was a “dive”.

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Clearly their idea of “dive” and mine differ greatly because while admittedly this place wasn’t the Ritz Carlton, I’ve been in a helluva lot worse.

😉

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Naturally my husband wanted to sit at the bar.

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I’ve never had a strawberry daiquiri served in a mason jar before, but maybe that’s part of their dive-y charm.

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The hushpuppies? Meh.

Not great, not awful.

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My she crab soup?

Mama mia! It may not have photographed well but it was thickest, richest, creamiest crab filled thing I’ve ever had.

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To be honest I was pretty full after just that, but I was on vacation in the low country and couldn’t pass up an opportunity for shrimp and grits.

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I couldn’t…. but I should have, because it was awful. Yes, the shrimp were large and flavorful but the rest was simply a big bowl of slop. Too much pasty gravy, too soupy a consistency… blech.

I ate the shrimp and left the rest.

The husband? He had some type of inferior fish which was dry as a bone.

So much for taking Southern Living’s advice.

Aside from the soup the only thing that made me smile at this place was the poster in the rest room.

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😉

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Name That Silver and outdated furniture.

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I asked friends.

I asked family.

I even asked people on our town’s FB page….

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And while everyone thinks it’s lovely, no one wants/needs/has room for a free china cabinet.

It’s in great shape…. mahogany with glass shelves and interior lighting. It has dovetail drawers.

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But it’s an old fashioned style, not trendy.

My husband wanted to sell it, but I can’t give it away for free.

Our contractor wants it, but his dining room is too small.

My girlfriend saw this:

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And while I think that’s close to sacrilege, at this point we need it gone and don’t care what someone does with it.

(Before you say ‘give it to charity’, I tried. Called 5 places and was told no by all of them)

At this point it may end up in the worker’s cabin at the farm across the street. Maybe they can use it to store fertilizer…

🥴

In other news I’ve been polishing my *ss off.

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And if you don’t think that’s hard, tiresome work you’ve never cream polished Victorian sterling silver.

A lot of my beautiful older pieces come from my father’s family in England. If there’s one thing the Victorian’s knew how to do it was set an elaborate table.

So in a more elitist version of my Name That Crap game, let’s play Name That Silver.

I’ll post pictures…

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You guess what the items are.

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Go!

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Hint: These two are marginally related.

😊

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News you can’t use.

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Because news you can use is so boring.

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Sure.

Nothing will go wrong there…

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Now that’s a bizarre headline if ever I saw one.

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My nipples have never felt imprisoned, but maybe that’s just me.

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There’s an article I am not going to explore further.

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What is this ongoing obsession with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce? A singer is dating a football player and I couldn’t care less…. but a good number of Americans think it’s a deep state conspiracy. I simply don’t get it.

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Yeah, I hate when that happens. If only he’d befriended a wombat instead..

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Oh, the things you find….

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Since work will be starting in the living/dining room and we have a new dining room set on order… it was time to clean out the old china hutch and get rid of the old table and chairs.

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Our contractor wanted the chairs, so out they went.

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The table, which was so horribly faded I thought no one would want it…. went to the farm across the street. With a brand new tablecloth to cover the discoloration.

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That left cleaning out the hutch which hadn’t been done in at least a decade.

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Lord Dudley wanted to help…. but didn’t.

Aside from dozens of candles, placemats, dishes, cups, saucers, platters, chargers, crystal decanters, napkin rings, extra cutlery, knives, holiday tablecloths and a soup tureen …. I discovered the family silver.

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Which all needed to be needed polished.

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And of course…. because this my china hutch?

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There was alcohol.

😉

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So…

Does anyone want a china cabinet?

🥴

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The dark heart of Charleston.

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Our next stop in Charleston was a hard one but I’m glad we went.

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An innocuous looking building, no?

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Perhaps from the outside .

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But its history was written in blood.

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It’s a small museum, but haunting.

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The building exists because this genteel city had to move its shameful business inside.

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There are disturbing artifacts…

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Each one worse than the last.

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And a few eye opening facts.

What are you worth?

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A guest speaker was upstairs when we were there and we sat in on her fascinating lecture.

I wish I’d thought to video it because though most of it made my jaw drop in horror, it’s our country’s history and we should all be made aware that slavery was more than the dehumanizing of a people and forced labor.

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It was a profitable business and the vast array of people who reaped the economic rewards surprised even me.

😰

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