Alas, the end of summer vacation is upon us

Well I'm back from the beach. I was planning on waiting until I uploaded some pictures to post but seeing as I'm at work and trying to not work I figure I'll post now.

My vacation was great, too long and not long enough at the same time oddly enough. It was hot, I got stung by a jellyfish, twisted my ankle and got to lay on the beach, pick up seashells, and go swimming nearly every day. Well i didn't get stung by a jellyfish everyday, that was just once sadly. I also scribbled away in my new Moleskine 3 new ideas that will demand fleshing out at a (much) later date. Sadly I didn't do too much writing on BoR but that's okay. In fact I was hardly on my laptop at all during the whole week, it just didn't seem right to focus on my laptop when I could be outside in the sun. Everything about the beach, especially the area I was in feels like home. The smells, sun, sand and salt remind me of happy times and a wonderful childhood. Plus I just love being lazy and laying out soaking up sun (except when stupid jellyfish attack me).

I had a bittersweet moment on Thursday when I drove from Myrtle Beach to Southport and Oak Island meeting my childhood friend Lauren for lunch. My family owned a beach house on Oak Island for almost the first 20 years of my life. Some of my very best childhood memories take place in that house so visiting it was both painful and jubilant for me. I loved seeing the Brambles, they lived (still do actually) across the street and their daughter Lauren became a second sister. She's now married with a 1 year old son, but we picked up like we always do and it was almost like we hadn't seen each other in 5 years. It was quite painful for me to walk up the stairs to MY beach house and peek in the screened-in porch to see our deck furniture that was sold with the house. It's emotional just to write about it in remembrance, especially because of my grandfather's passing less than a year ago. It was our special place, my grandparents and the rest of my family and it was a huge part of my life. Some day, I vow that I'll have another special place. If I'm lucky then my family will be able to enjoy the love and peace a place like that can bring, even if it isn't my beach house anymore.

The ironic and sad part is that this marks, as it did in many years past, the end of summer vacation. Most schools start back up in a week or two and this would be about the time I would return home from the beach after spending several weeks or months there to start school back up always thinking I'd be able to return the following summer. It was a sad parting the last time I was there and it wasn't any happier of a parting this time. However, at least now I'm old enough to return to the area whenever I have the time or money even if it isn't the way I'd like.

My grandmother has vowed to never again go to that beach, it's too painful for her. She hated selling the beach house and I think it's even worse now with my grandfather gone. Days like Thursday make me see her point of view on the matter a little bit more clearly. I can completely empathize with her decisions and don't fault her for it at all, it is painful and we can't go back to those lazy summers no matter how much we want to. That being said, I think the happiness that place brings me is far stronger than the pain and I'm pretty sure my grandfather would want me to spend as much time at our beach as possible. If he could, he'd be swimming out there with me. Maybe he was, in spirit at least. I miss it every summer and I'll definitely be going back.

It was a good vacation.

vacations, pneumonia, iphone and books

So it's been quite some time since my last blog post. Many factors have contributed to this, well not many really just two main ones.

1) I was on vacation for nearly a week
2) I've had walking pneumonia for the past 2 weeks.

I've been feeling very grumpy, probably due to the whole pneumonia thing. It certainly makes you appreciate a good pair of lungs when things like going up the stairs make you winded and doubled over in a coughing fit. Walking Pneumonia is basically Pneumonia lite, which means I don't have to be hospitalized and I can "walk" around....but not hike (i found that out the hard way). I've had the worst cough ever for two weeks, and I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. I coughed so hard one morning that I made myself vomit. Supposedly the cough will linger for quite some time although the breathing problems should go away soon, that part is getting better. I haven't used my Albuterol inhaler all day!

Being sick has stifled the creative process greatly. In fact, pretty much all I've been able to focus on is keeping my coughing under control and you know...breathing. However, while I was in Washington I did have an opportunity to set my laptop up facing a beautiful mountain lake and do some very peaceful writing. I'm happy to say that during that afternoon in between coughing fits I filled out the rest of my book. I now have a chapter summery for every chapter from here until the end. Isn't that lovely news? Also I did a lot of actual writing but that's not nearly as exciting to me as having everything down plot-wise for the rest of the book. I have something like 50-70k MORE words to write. It's a higher number than I originally thought but probably more accurate given that it's all planned out now.

Of course it's a bit sad that the reason I spent the afternoon writing was because I couldn't go on the hike with my friends. I went on a short hike the previous day and thought I was going to die so the longer hike was out of the question. My lungs still haven't forgiven me.

In other news, I finally got my iphone. Huzzah! BTW, Todd I couldn't respond to your comment because you don't have a blog on which I could comment! Yes I got my iphone, yes it's the same phone number (unlike yours, what is it again?) so you have no excuse not to call me! Seriously, it is THE coolest piece of technology that I've ever owned and I don't care what anyone says it's the coolest PHONE ever. All you blackberry fans out there may think the blackberry is "better" but it is certainly not cooler! Or sexier. So Fie on you Blackberry!

I'm going on vacation the first week of august, this time to a much warmer climate. It's kind of cool that I will have visited the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean in less than a month. I'm going to Myrtle Beach and I sincerely plan to spend the entire vacation on the beach, unless it's raining. I'll do lots of writing I hope, but I'm going to also focus on soaking up the sun.

I've read a couple books during the past week or so. It was kind of nice to actually read something, I didn't have the brain power to do anything creative myself but I haven't sat down to read a book in ages. The first book I read was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman . I'm not interested in doing a book review but I enjoyed it. I did struggle, at first, with the main character. He just seemed exactly like Arther Dent from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. But I got past that fairly quickly and really enjoyed the book. It's very clever and well done. The second book, which I read this weekend actually, was Sunshine by Robin McKinley. I liked the book but it was written in 1st person which sometimes throws me off (not always though, she did a good job) but there were a lot of internal that felt very long and wordy. However, it was probably one of the funnier vampire stories I've read and the "romance" is pretty atypical. Also her depiction of an "Earth gone bad" is very cool. They're both good and I'd recommend them both. Especially if you like the supernatural as they both deal with that.

Well it's after 10 and I have a very uncomfortable pressure on my chest which means it's time to take my steroid inhaler and get some sleep. I'm sure I'll write again before the week is up.