Reading On Vacation and Other Packing Tips

Our week at the beach is coming up soon, and I'm picking out the books to take. Beach reading requires something light and fun; no thick tomes to digest. Who can think much with the sun baking your brain and the crashing waves obliterating all your thoughts and turning you into complete jelly? So definitely something light; the term 'beachtrash' comes to mind.

I'm sure there are plenty of people like me, or should that be I, who pick their books to match their travel environment. In the past I've picked Jane Eyre while traveling in Yorkshire, England, Beach Music by Pat Conroy to read on the coast of South Carolina, Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh for Sanibel Island, Florida or really any beach, Dylan Thomas for our trip to Wales, The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell while in London, A Moveable Feast by Hemingway in Paris, Sir Walter Scott in Scotland, Washington Irving on a lovely trip to the Hudson River Valley in New York State, the Charleston novels of Karen White while in Charleston, South Carolina, and again Pat Conroy's South of Broad for Charleston.

The little island where we're going has two different places to borrow books; the convenience store which has an 'honor system' where you just take what you want to read and bring it back and the more organized, public library where you do the same. No librarian on duty! I've always thought that I'd love to not bring any books with me and just read what I find that week on the island. The house we rent always has plenty of books, too.

But fear keeps me from doing that. What if I get almost to the end but can't finish one? I wouldn't/couldn't take it home with me, so I'd have to try to find it in our library in town. Much too much trouble! But someday, I promise I'm going to not take one single, solitary book with me to the beach!

But this isn't someday it's today, so this is what I've packed so far: The Pat Conroy Cookbook which is full of stories and anecdotes about people he's cooked with (Natalie Dupree, for one) and food he's eaten. If you're familiar with Mr. Conroy's style of writing, you know good and well that he wouldn't fill a cookbook with just recipes! Can you tell that I like him? Gift From the Sea...again. I've read it 14 times already(literally), and it always goes with me to the sea. That's a given. And last is Home By the River by Archibald Rutledge whose ancestral Hampton Plantation is but a daytrip north of where we'll be on Fripp Island. Mr. Rutledge was once South Carolina's poet laureate, and he wrote extensively about the plantation and his growing up years there. I've read a few of his books, and they're delightful for young and old. And that's it. Just three. I'm tempted to take more, so many more, but I'll leave room for the ones I plan on finding on the island.

It's a joke in our family about how I pack for any trip we're taking. I'll tell my 15-year-old to pack light meaning for her not to take two outfits for every day and to limit her makeup to one small case. When she tells me to pack light, she means to not weigh down my one suitcase with too many books, paints, and other projects. My clothes and makeup could fit it in one Kroger sack! I have MY priorities straight!

And someday will I not only NOT take ANY books to the beach, I'm not taking anything but the clothes on my back. I'll just pick up some toothpaste and a toothbrush at the little store on island, a few cans of Beanie Weanies and saltines, an apple or two, and pat myself on the back for being so unfettered with life's distractions and accoutrements. But one thing is certain. The rental house had BETTER be full of paperback beachtrash!

Gift From the Sea-Revisited

We're taking a few days vaca at Jekyll Island, GA. I'm reading Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh for the ninth time. It's a book that I never get tired of. If you've never read it, you must. It speaks to every stage of a woman's life.

As I was reading today, a sentence resonated with me. It said, "One falls under their (waves) spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which on lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today's tides of all yesterday's scribblings."

I want all my yesterday's scribblings to be erased. I'm up at 1:00 a.m. right now unable to sleep. I'm all out of sorts from all the travelling we've been doing for the past three months. The older I get, the less flexible I get about getting away from my usual routine. Or maybe it's just the back-to-back trips we've been making. Whatever it is, I'm topsy-turvy, and I don't like it.

So while we're here at the beach, I hope to lie flat and let the sun and surf do its good work.

More Images From the Amish

Oklahoma!

This week we're visiting our soldier son and his wife at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I've never been to Oklahoma before. I'm surprised at how much it reminds me of Colorado. We've got one more day here and then we'll start the two-day trip back home. I read one book on the way up and hope to read the one for my bookgroup on Friday on the way home.

More images to come...

Williamsburg Watercolor

I took this photo at the Powhatan Plantation outside Williamsburg where we usually stay. As ya'll probably already know, I'm a sucker for fog and impressionistic images.

Here I tried re-creating it in watercolors. I haven't viewed them side by side, but as I'm looking at them, I didn't capture the right colors of purple that was in the photograph.

I also felt that I had to make the road more distinct or the whole thing would have been a dark blob. I'm still happy with the outcome. After all, I wasn't striving for photographic realism. It makes for a good excuse, anyway.

Pat Conroy and His Cookbook

This is the view from the back deck which overlooks a small lake. I'm on Fripp Island for a few days to plan, rest, read, etc.

I brought Pat Conroy's Cookbook with me. I don't usually read cookbooks, but this isn't an ordinary cookbook, and Mr. Conroy isn't an ordinary writer. Put the two together, and you have one part lyrical autobiography and one part food from around the world.

So I began reading about making stocks when he says to take a whole chicken, wash it inside and out with cold water, then pat it dry. Why on earth would you do that, when the next step is to put it into a pot of water for boiling?

I've wondered the same thing at Thanksgiving. Why wash the turkey only to pat it dry? I never do that, and mine is always moist and flavorful.

Any of you cooking experts out there have an explanation? Seems a silly thing to me, but there's probably a good explanation I don't know about.

Great Grandma and the Twins

My mama came down for a few days to see her new great granddaughters. I wish we lived closer so we could visit more often. We're five and a half hours apart. I am thankful that it's drivable in half a day, but one hour would be so much better; so would ten minutes! That's how close I live to Laurel, the twins' mother and my oldest daughter.
I think Laurel and her whole family will be going to the mountains sometime this fall for a vacation. They'll be going by my parents' house so Daddy can see them, too. He would have come down with Mama this time, but his shoulders hurt too much if he sits for that long.

I hope to get away for a few days myself this fall and have my annual get-away. I love my family but need time alone to plan, regroup, give myself some pep talks, read Scripture, and pray. It does a body good!

Learning by Travelling

"A school should not be a preparation for life. A school should be life." Elbert Hubbard

We've learned much about the past from living history museums. There's a great one in Norris, Tennessee about pioneer life in the Appalachias. We also went to one in Virginia that shows how different ethnic groups lived in the 1600-1700's. One was Irish. Another was German. I can't remember the other one. Yorktown, VA has a pretty good one.

The one I'd really like to visit is in Massachusetts. It's called Plimouth Plantation. I've been wanting to see Cape Cod, so maybe next August we can go see both.

Seems like we usually take a vacation this time of year. Due to the twins coming two weeks ago, we'll not be travelling too far from home anytime soon. I do hope to take Darcie to the North Carolina mountains in October to see Biltmore House in Asheville and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in Cherokee.

In the fall the mountains call, and I must answer.

More Travel Photos from Britain

A few more images from our last trip to the British Isles.

This path was on the hill overlooking Tintern Abbey in Wales. I love the moss and the exposed roots.

The next one is of a barn courtyard. What I love about this photo is the contract between the red bricks and the blue doors with the large black iron hinges.

The last one is of canal boats. We stayed on one for a week. It was close to Nottingham. I thought it was quite an adventure. Husband was less enthusiastic. It was cramped, for sure. But all we did was sleep there anyway. I wouldn't want to do it again, but I'm glad we did it once. We didn't go to Sherwood Forest, because friends who had gone said it is too commercial and to skip it. So instead, we went to Burleigh House. It was well worth the visit. You can read that post here: http://artfulaspirations.blogspot.com/2011/07/burleigh-house-my-ancestral-home.html

A Good Education

Darcie driving a wagon in Colorado and scraping a deer hide in Jamestown, Virginia.





"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."

Robert Maynard Hutchins

Grandsons watching a rifle-firing demo at Yorktown, VA. Good grief, those old guns were loud!

Bauer receiving a lecture on different punishments given to wrongdoers. The 'Insubordinate' label he's holding up certainly fits.

Caed petting a turkey in the colonial settlement at Yorktown, VA.

Bauer and Caed chasing a strange-looking duck.

I think one of the best ways to self-

educate is to travel. All these photos were taken on family field trips/vacations. Our family loves to learn the history of a place we visit and to do as many interesting things as we can while there. The children aren't always willing participants, but they'll thank me someday!

What I Did During My Summer Vacation

At least one morning of it, I took photos at our public library of people with their dogs. They'll be hung in the library for the "Dog Days of August" exhibition. After it's over, they'll be given their photos to keep. It was a fun two hours getting to meet the different dogs and their people.

The Business Lunch

Here are two of my grandsons having lunch and discussing the problems of the world. We were in a pub in Yorktown, Virginia last fall during our Williamsburg pilgrimage. This is the first time we've been to Yorktown. We were waiting until the children were old enough to appreciate it.

I'm a sucker for silhouettes and couldn't resist taking a photo of this most serious moment in time.

Art and Simplicity

I took these photos this past weekend at my parents' house in East Tennessee. There are two spiders somewhere in the five photos. Can you find them?



"When the light fell, like a wash of truth, every corner that held obscurity also held the potential for beauty." Deborah DeWit Marchant in Traveling Light, A Photographer's Journey

I'm rereading this book for inspiration. Mrs. Marchant's photos are so much like my own. Our writing is very different, though. Her prose is very poetical and sometimes difficult to understand. I'm tempted to say, "Just say it in plain English!" I really don't like to try and wade through words. It frustrates me. I like forthrightness and simplicity in writing; except for Pat Conroy. He's absolutely hypnotic.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't like pretentious writing. It especially irritates me in an artist bio. You know when you go to an art exhibition and you read what the artist says about his/her art. Sometimes I think you need a doctorate just to understand what they're saying. I think they believe that the more obtuse they are the better. It's so annoying.

When I wrote my artist statement, I tried to keep it simple and understandable. I didn't start out this post with the intention of posting my artist bio, but I think I will. Do you think it's understandable? Is it too simple?

THE ART BIO

OF

DEBBIE BAILEY

Having grown up in the mountains of East Tennessee, I have a heightened awareness of the beauty of the great outdoors. I’ve always been happiest listening to wind whispering through the pines or lying in a field watching clouds float by. As a photographer, I now capture those pieces of the everyday and hold them as images of things remembered and cherished. If you look at one of my photographs, smile, and say, “I know that place…” or “That reminds me of…” then I’ve done a good thing.

Since early childhood I’ve been interested in many different art forms; especially music and photography. I’m proficient in piano but mainly piddle around with the lap dulcimer, recorder, and guitar. The hammered dulcimer is next on my list of things to try.

I became passionate about photography after a trip to Italy in 2001 with one of my sons. Since then I’ve tried different photographic techniques such as handtinting with translucent oil paints on black and white photos, copying my photos onto watercolor paper and painting over them, bleaching them, using many different film speeds to see what will happen, taking Polaroids with a 1970’s camera and then manipulating the images using different instruments while the emulsion is still wet, and attaching a photo to the back of an antique mirror after some of the silvering has been removed.

I believe in THE CREATOR who made all from nothing. I also believe all people feel the need to express their uniqueness in some way. As image-bearers of God, we can only re-create what is His. I want my art to show the goodness and beauty of creation. I affirm with the Psalmist David who said, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.”

Never content to do the same thing day after day, my art is always changing into something hopefully better. And just like life, that requires patience and perseverance. So I keep pushing onward and hope that my art will bless you as we go along.

Longing for the Beach

I've got beach fever. Yeah, I know I was there in May, but that was almost two months ago. During that last trip, I saw this written on the sand. Unfortunately, all I had with me was my phone camera. I says Just Married, 5-22-11; very romantic.

Double click on the bird-in-flight photo. It's a pelican but looks like some kind of prehistoric bird. We were staying in a condo on a headland where the wind kept pushing against the flying birds causing them to stop in midair. We were on the third floor and level with them making

photographing them a snap.

I definitely like staying in a beach house as opposed to a condo. I like to pretend we live there, and I would never live in a condo. I need a yard, trees, animals, and all the things that make up a cozy home.

Fripp Fun

Pom Pom, you asked what else we did on Fripp Island? We ride golf carts to random destinations or no destination. We do the same on bikes. We go to the beach. We go to the pools. We go to the playground. We cook, eat, read, and sleep. That's about it.

I experimented with taking photos at night at the pool. I do a lot of experimenting with my camera. Here are some of the results.

And here up top are some photos of the marshes on the island.