Stillness

     As promised in my last post, here are pictures of my pond. It sits under a huge magnolia that bears the large, dinner-plate sized flowers. When I was skimming the leaves the other morning, I was engulfed by their scent. Magnolias defy convention by dropping their leaves in late spring/early summer rather than fall, as they blossom. That's the one drawback to having the pond sheltered by this magnificent tree. Means fishing a lot of yellow magnolia leaves out for several weeks.

     The white tubing is there to keep the net I put on in the fall from sinking into the water. When I actually put it in place, the spring cleanup was much, much simpler and easier to do.

     Even though I've neglected my pond for the past three years, I'll miss it. Getting it in shape for the new owners has reminded me of how much I enjoyed skimming the leaves in the morning and watching the fish dart about after the food I tossed in. Twenty minutes of sitting in the stillness. Then I repeated it in the evening. What a great way to start and end the day.

     I had some bad news last week. My buyer lost her job, so I'll more than likely be putting the house back on the market after I move out if she hasn't gotten a new one by then. It's not looking good. And here I was thinking that for once, the answer to my question (this time about selling a house), "How hard can it be?", was going to be, "Not hard at all."

     Kthxbai.

Beachy Things

     I went to the Outer Banks at the end of May, just before the start of the high season, before it got incredibly crowded. It's been quite a few years since I've been there. Not much has changed really. I enjoyed revisiting favorite spots and showing my MF around, since he'd never been there. High points: walking on the beach at the end of the day, taking a dip in the pool at the rental house (we were two of ten people staying there), just relaxing, driving down the ocean road from Duck to Coquina Beach so we could walk along the beach in the Hatteras National Seashore, and eating at Pigman's Barbecue.

     Isn't that gorgeous? And it wasn't crowded the day we went either. I didn't take this picture; forgot to take my camera. What a maroon.

     I did take Hens & Chicks with me but didn't do a lot of stitching. Here's how far I got plus an evening of stitching the other night.

     Slowly, but surely I'm getting there.

     During one of our late-afternoon walks on the beach, I found a couple of shells that captured my fancy, so I had to bring them home.

     The top one seems perfect as the handle for a mug. If only I knew how to make one. Maybe I can find someone who throws pots who would do that for me. The bottom one just seems the perfect complement to it and is an unusual size to find on one of the crowded, busy Duck beaches.

     I'm getting psyched up to move to my apartment in a couple of weeks. Today I went shopping with my daughter, looking for a dress for her to wear to a wedding later this summer and a new bed for me. Amazingly, we both managed to find just what we were looking for in only about three hours at the mall. (Neither one of us truly enjoys shopping at Tysons, or any mall for that matter.) So I'll have a new bed to replace the one with the broken leg that creaks every time I move. Now I just have to get the box spring and mattress.

     I'll try to get some pictures of one thing I'm really going to miss when I move and post it in the next day or two. My backyard pond. I've neglected it for the past three years, initially because of ill health and then just lack of motivation. I've been trying to get it back into decent condition for the new owners and realize now how much I've missed tending to it every morning and evening. Oh well.

     Kthxbai.