A Great Time at Grayton Beach

I have found that I enjoy planning a little get-away from time to time. As we are on a limited budget --very limited!---these may be camping trips, or in the winter, cabins. It give me something special to look forward to for weeks. Because I am a school teacher and must always consider that sub plans must be prepared and that while children will have instruction, it is not the same as me being there, I try to plan these trips around a three day weekend. Then when I take off one additional day, we have four days and three nights to go somewhere out of town. In October, I made reservations for a cabin in Grayton Beach State Park and this past weekend, we went.

It has been quite cold for the past couple of weeks. We have been in the 20’s and for almost a week, we hardly made it out of the 40’s for our high. It had warmed up when we got there into the 40’s and 50’s. Still, it was hardly “beach weather” but we did not let that deter us from having a great time. We joked about penguins and long-sleeve swimsuits. We pretty much had the beaches to ourselves.

In some places, these would be snow fences, but here they are used to hold drifting sand and to help remind people to stay off the dunes. B removed some fishing line and tackle that was tangled in the wood.

There are boardwalks from the parking areas over the high dunes.

The scenery was breath-taking---- and breath-giving, all at the same time. It was a break that I needed.

Mailbox Monday: Hot Mail on Chili Days

St. Marks Sunset

We had been away from the St Marks Wildlife Refuge for a while, so we decided to take refuge there ourselves last weekend. It is a great place to leave behind the cares of our lives and refresh ourselves. As we neared the lighthouse, the sun was setting. There was a fire across the bay and the smoke added to the loveliness of the sky.

Monday Mailbox: Butterflies Are Free

Postage? Not so much.

This mailbox was simply covered in nice butterfly stickers.

The Garden Club Project

Mama was a published poet. My sister has been typing her poems over the past year and is up to 350 and there are many more.

There were several of my mother’s friends from her garden club who came to her memorial service. One of them told me, “Your mama didn’t plant or garden much at this point in her life, but she could still write and so we asked her to make us some little poems to go on signs in our community garden project.”

Before I left town to go home, I tracked down their project on a vacant lot.

In raised beds, the ladies are producing winter vegetables. Each seemed to have a sponsor.

Here are some of the signs made with Mama’s words.

As a gardener, I couldn’t agree with you more, Mama.

A Lesson in Acceptance

At school on Mondays, we always go around the circle and tell about our weekend and today (our first day back together) we each told about our holidays. I was able to share (without tears, in a pretty low key manner) about my mother’s death. I told my kindergartners in simple terms what happened: that because she was very old the tubes that the blood goes through to the brain had gotten very skinny inside and that a ball of blood (blood clot) got stuck in her neck and stopped the blood from coming to her brain. That side of the brain began to die at that moment. I stressed to them that this was because she was very old and that they do not need to worry about that happening to their parents because they are not old. We even looked on the number chart to find 93 to see how many times she had been around the sun.

They had lots of questions that I did my best to answer simply and honestly, sometimes though the answer was that I just don’t know. (Those were mostly the flying angel questions.) We did not talk about her memorial service or cremation. Later, there was some ambulance re-enacting in housekeeping  center, but they have played “dead” and “rescue” before. This is one way that kids process information: to act it out. Children already have various ideas about death and dying but I hope that I shared this as a natural part of living, not something to be worried about or feared but accepted.

At this point, I accept, but it is still very painful. We were very close. There are moments when I just really want my mommy.

Mailbox Monday: Santa’s Mailbox

Who knew he had a box in south Georgia?

We will be ready for next year!