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I always get a kick out of these computer generated suggestions and wonder what the hell I’ve done to deserve them.
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Do I need to push a snail shell when I want soap?
I do not.
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Why are they still making these things? And does anyone still buy them…
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Again with the pickles.
🥴
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Okay, those could actually come in handy.
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Clearly their idea of magic mushrooms and mine differ considerably.
🤣
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This first picture is what I call porn for women.
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A man, using a shop vac to clean.
And boy do we need cleaning.
Dust?
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It’s everywhere.
And since my husband is retired again … (did I mention that? He went back to work for 6 months but decided to call it quits for good this time. Or so he says)… our contractor has put him to work with the time consuming annoying jobs.
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Like pulling out all the little pieces of old carpet trapped under the frame of the brickwork.
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So many little pieces.
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Of that horrible dusty rose crap that’s still in our bedroom.
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Its removal will be the next project we tackle after this one.
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If this one is ever finished that is.
And because you know nothing goes smoothly here…
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See the threshold piece wrapped in plastic on the right? See how it matches the flooring? There should have been 3 tubes of that, we got 1.
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The other 2 tubes looked like this.
Not even close… which means another delay and annoyance while we wait for the store to replace it.
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Furry inconvenience?
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We’ve got that too as Lord Dudley Mountcatten has developed a fascination with power tools.
😉
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When I was painting the living rooms walls, I removed all the light and outlet covers. That included the ridiculous switch on the right the previous owner had installed.
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It went to the hot water heater which apparently she shut off every night. We never do that and I was tired of looking at it so I had the contractor remove the annoying red light. This meant rewiring some lines in the basement.
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And the discovery of a corpse.
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Poor little thing.
Trying to keep my husband from talking to the contractor …. while paying him $55 an hour to listen…. I found a project to keep my spouse busy.
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Installing cellular shades on our new bedroom windows. He gave me the look when I told him that meant putting holes in the new trim but before long he was reaching for his hammer for some none too subtle adjustments.
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This job took the better part of an afternoon..
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And didn’t seem to bother His Lordship over much.
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When my husband started chatted up the contractor again, he was asked to help with some laser assisted measurements.
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And after the measuring?
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More talking…
😉
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Because my vacation series is finally over.
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I have to be honest and say this question stumped me. While I know most children cycle through dreams of being a fireman or an astronaut or an actress or a professional sports star… I can’t remember ever wanting to be anything.
I loved dinosaurs when I was a kid… ( still do) but I never dreamt of being a paleontologist.
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I loved taking pictures as a kid… (still do) but never dreamt of being a photographer.
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I loved to read as a kid… (still do) but never dreamt of being an editor.
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I guess I never set myself for up disappointment by dreaming of a career. I’ve had multiple jobs in my life, but I married young and thankfully never had to work.
How about you?
What did your childhood self dream of being…
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After cleaning and bleaching the black mold off the wallboard, our contractor wanted to make sure there wasn’t a larger problem lurking behind the wall and hauled out his spy camera.
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It’s a wonderfully nonevasive way to take a peek.
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And in a very unexpected turn of good luck in our usually cursed house…
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Everything looked fine.
No water damage, no mold. Yay!
Before the contractor started on something else, I had him remove an old useless thermostat left over from electric baseboard heat that was used in the ‘80’s.
Under that thermostat?
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Some really beautiful vintage wallpaper.
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Not!
But it does have all those wonderful 1970’s colors… olive green, gold and orange.
🤣
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A few more pieces of wood ripped out …
And then the reason our contractor loves charging us by the hour becomes clear.
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My husband, talking.
And talking. And talking. And talking.
Ka-Ching!
💰
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His Lordship?
Sleeping in the sun with a catnip mouse.
I wish my husband would do that, it would be so much cheaper.
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We woke up on the morning of the 8th day and had to say goodbye to our palm trees.
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Vacation was officially over and though I didn’t want to leave quite yet…
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We headed to the airport in Charleston, enjoying a few final glimpses of the South Carolina low country.
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It looked like the buzzards had lined up to see us off…
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But they were just having breakfast.
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Yes, my last image of Edisto Island was a carcass. Bet they don’t highlight that in the tourist brochures.
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We relinquished the giant rental vehicle… me quite easily – the husband with pangs of regret…. and began the long haul to the terminal. Seriously Charleston, could you put Avis any further away? Damn.
You’ll notice the husband is lugging both of our suitcases because…
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Yes. Mine might have been a trifle overpacked…. but it’s still rude of the airline to advertise the fact. Luggage has feelings too.
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Goodbye South Carolina. We enjoyed our visit immensely.
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Washington National Airport…
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Where your dog has a rest room too.
And apparently a fire hydrant.
We had two hours to kill and opted for lunch at PF Changs. We don’t have them up our way and I wanted to try it.
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One tasty Asian pear mojito in…
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I was questioning this man’s seating choice.
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I don’t care if there’s a heart, it’s still the business end of a very large horse.
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One horrible chicken lo mein and one even more horrible beef fried rice later, we vowed not to eat at PF Changs if they ever do make it up our way. Blech.
In other news, the flight to Maine did not start smoothly.
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Because of course, out of all the seats on the plane… my husband’s had to malfunction. The cushion was basically free floating and not attached to the seat frame at all. Every time he tried to sit down it just slid out from under him.
This delayed the flight a good 45 minutes while we waited for the maintenance people and did not endear us to our fellow passengers. After another 20 minutes of tinkering by the repair guys?
Velcro to the rescue.
I kid you not.
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An ignominious end to an otherwise delightful trip.
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At least it wasn’t duct tape.
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Day two of our working weekend consisted of ripping up carpet…
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Which was the easy part…
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Until my husband hit the closet.
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The padding was a bit harder to get up…
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And it left all those nasty little sharp staples which needed to be pulled by hand.
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The spots?
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That would be blood.
Home renovations are dangerous dontcha know.
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Next was the old baseboard trim, parts of which were damaged and all of which was beat up enough for us to decide we wanted new.
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His Lordship?
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Back in the bedroom sleeping with 3 mice on his scratchy post.
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The day ended with a much needed second coat of ceiling paint and two seriously aching homeowners.
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Thought I was done with the Boneyard Beach photos?
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Almost…
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I promise.
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But who could resist framing their spouse in driftwood?
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Making our way back to the path, I snapped my last photos.
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And my husband joined in the odd shell placement tradition…
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Trying to balance one on the sign.
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Success.
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Exiting through the marsh …
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We climbed back in the ungodly expensive rental behemoth…
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Of which my husband had become entirely too enamored.
It was late afternoon of our last day of vacation so we took a leisurely drive around Edisto Island and enjoyed some of its quirks.
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No one knows who erected this odd marsh angel but apparently she changes with the seasons and has become a local favorite.
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This is the only acceptable answer to the question what do I do with dead palm tree stumps?
Hula girls, that’s what.
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We drove past this native while on the main beach road.
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It was a wonderful sight so I made my husband turn around and circle by him twice to ensure decent photos.
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A poo covered jacket seems a small price to pay for such a beautiful friend.
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This bottle display is an old Gullah way of driving out evil spirits. They have to be blue, but sorry… for the life of me I don’t remember why. The Clemson tiger paw is a modern addition.
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Remember the herd of tiny deer we saw every night? I wondered where they could possibly live in so busy an area…
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The answer was our resort’s golf course.
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Where they clearly didn’t read the sign.
😉
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When the weekend rolled around it was time for the husband and I to go to work.
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Since having the living room stripped bare doesn’t happen very often we decided to take advantage and paint both the ceiling and the walls.
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Husband did the ceiling…
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I did the walls. Don’t criticize the paint on the baseboard trim, it’s all being ripped out and replaced anyway.
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And no, I couldn’t talk the husband into letting me pick a color other than off white.
Change is not his friend.
🥴
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten was inconvenienced yet again.
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And let us know in no uncertain terms he was not pleased.
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This window viewing platform was nowhere near as comfortable as the couch.
And as the day came to an end with both of us moaning and groaning about sore muscles and aching feet… my walls looked good.
The husband’s ceiling?
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Not so much.
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He actually thought he was done after one coat.
Silly man.
😉
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When you’re in Edisto Beach, South Carolina one image looms large.
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It’s the one lone tree that stands in the surf at Boneyard Beach in the Botany Bay preserve.
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Admittedly it’s a fabulous tree.
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Silhouetted against the sky…
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All by it’s lonesome surrounded by plouffe mud.
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It’s certainly the most photographed tree there.
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But it does make me wonder if the other trees feel left out.
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No one prints postcards of them…
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And some of them are fabulous too.
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Such a strange and amazing place.
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I never would have thought dead trees could be so appealing before visiting here.
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But they were.
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And as much as I would have loved to spend the entire day here, our last few hours in South Carolina were running out and we had to move on.
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Past some live trees that were decorated with shells.
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River's world..... 