Sailboat

These pictures were taken just yesterday seven years ago from Gwynns Island.

For a variety of reasons, I've not had the opportunity to get out and take pictures here lately.

But while perusing old files looking for pictures of Daughter for her graduation ceremony, I realized I have thousands and thousands of pictures that I could recycle for this blog.

(These are leaning a lot to the left, I realize. I'm anything but perfect.)

It's astonishing to me that I've been blogging for over eight years now.  I started in 2008 using smoke signals and hieroglyphics a desktop PC and dial-up internet.

All I did was blink a few times, and now it's 2016.  I am using a laptop (or, as my father would say, a flaptop) and have WiFi at my house.

I still don't know how to use my camera on anything other than Auto mode though.

In nine more years, I'll be eligible to retire officially.

Although I look forward to the option of not working, I'm not sure I want to wish away nine more years so quickly.

We're in the last few days/weeks of the school year, and Daughter is eager to be done with her senior year.  She's looking forward to starting college, and I couldn't be more proud of her.  In addition to working at Merroir, she's working part-time for Hudgins Design Collaborative, a local architecture firm. She recently won a scholastic award of excellence from the Marine Corps for having the highest GPA in her class, and she also won the Excellence in Science award.  Her bio teacher, who presented the award, gave us a copy of the speech, a portion of which is below:

" ...What impresses me most about this student is the fact that her work ethic is not confined to the classroom setting.  I have seen her fist-hand on the soccer field, on the basketball court, and on the trail for cross country.  No matter what this student is doing, she is a relentlessly hard worker and a fantastic team player."  

In entirely unrelated news, we're considering constructing an ark since it's been raining the entire month of May so much lately.  I'm hoping the sun makes an appearance this week, but I don't recall a rainier May than this one.

That's about it from this neck of the woods.  I hope all is well in your world.

Hills Bay

Near the mouth of Queens Creek. Gwynns Island to the right.

The Islander in the background.

The Islander and the Gwynns Island bridge.
(You have to pull out a magnifying glass to see the bridge though.)

Calm waters, calm skies

Because I started to twitch, flinch, and convulse at the prospect of not posting for two days in a row, I decided to peruse older pictures to see if there were some I'd forgotten about.

These were taken back in October near the mouth of Queens Creek.

Today--after I take my daughter to the doctor to see if she has a broken arm--I hope to take some new pictures. Yes, I said broken arm.

Friday night's basketball game against Lancaster was scrappy and tough. She took a very hard spill that caused me to cringe when I heard the smack on the floor. Then someone fell on top of her. This is when it takes everything in a mother's power to keep from going insane out on the court to make sure everything's OK.

But I knew I couldn't do that.

Afterwards I asked her how she felt. Fine, she said. The next day, though, she had one heckuva floor burn on her forearm.

Monday night she played another scrappy game against Northumberland but didn't complain about her arm.

Tuesday when I picked her up from practice she was grimacing.  Her arm was throbbing, she said. When I asked to look at it, I did not like what I saw.  Swelling and puffy weirdness.

("Puffy weirdness" is a technical term that only the most specialized of medical practitioners comprehend. It's also quite the fodder for the Comments section.)

My immediate reaction, which was kept to myself, was a saying I heard often growing up in Mathews:  "I don't know much, but I know that ain't right."

We'll know more after we visit our wonderful Dr. K.--who so graciously squeezed us in first thing this morning after receiving my frantic email and text.

Hope your week is going well, injury free, and full of calm waters and calm skies.