I’ll be cutting back on my blogging over the next couple of weeks to give more time to family, household projects, and writing. But I still plan to drop in for Stream of Consciousness Saturday and Good News Tuesday.
Here are some photos I took this month at the inlet.
Happy Summer!
Yeah, I might have enhanced this color just a little.
I always wanted long legs. Ta da!
I believe that’s an osprey up in the clouds.
A Black Skimmer Coming back to the Sanctuary
Sea Oats Waving in the Breeze
Yes, I really like sea oats.
I like how the lines in the water and sky compliment each other.
This cloud reminds me of a tornado. But it’s not.
I did not enhance these last two. This is how the sky looked!
You never know what God’s going to paint in the sky to say, “I love you.”
I’m thankful for a nice visit with my son and his girlfriend who came down from the mountains Tuesday. After a swim in the ocean, we walked around the south end of the island to relax in the intracoastal waterway and watch the sunset. My son who’s in his 30s, and my daughter, who’s in her 20s, played in the water like when they were kids fascinated by the tiny clams they found in the wet sand.
You can let go of worries and
open your heart
when you immerse yourself in a natural body of water
Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt is “ooooh, aaaah,” provided by Dan at “No Facilities.” Thanks, Dan for the great prompt and for filling in for Linda.
I’ve done my share of oooohing and aaaahing at fire works displays. I love them with my eyes, but my ears, not so much, and the crowds, not so much. Sparklers are nice, though. I used to have a dog that got terrified by fireworks, two dogs in fact, that would shake and hide every fourth of July.
Why can’t they make quieter fireworks?
Plenty of other things to ooooh and aaaah about though:
Ooooh contains the element of surprise and delight,
Ooooh is a dragonfly on my clothes line.
Aaaah is more relaxing, like a purring cat.
Ooooh is the way the ocean feels at the beginning of summer – cold and full of life.
Aaaaah is how the ocean feels at the end of the summer – almost warm like bath water.
Ooooh is the sunset lighting up the sky with pink and orange glowing streaks – nature’s fire works!
Aaaah is twilight when the sun has dipped below the horizon – leaving hints of lavender and indigo.
Ooooh is finding the message from my long lost love.
Aaaah is cuddling in his arms at night, the full moon coming in the window in the winter.
…
You’ll find more oooohing and aaaahing going on here:
The rules for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness are:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
In high school and beyond, I listened to John Denver sing, “Rocky Mountain High,” over and over. I sang along with him and longed for the Rockies with the feeling that that’s where I belonged. Yet, after all these years, I’ve still never seen the Rockies in person.
Living on the east coast for most of my life, I’ve settled for visits to the Appalachians. I love them, because they are mountains. But I’d always felt like they weren’t quite enough. Like they weren’t the real deal, until last weekend.
My friend and I spent Labor Day weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. On the first morning, I woke early to a lovely sunrise.
By mid-day, the sun brightened the crisp blue sky as we hiked a moderately difficult trail on Beech Mountain. The waterfall gleamed like silver flowing over smooth rock and fed a creek who’s cool water tasted cleaner than any I can remember.
Later that day, I shared my longing for the Colorado Rockies with my friend who is well traveled. She talked about how the Rockies don’t have the tree coverage of the Appalachians and about how Colorado had become heavily “developed.” I remembered John Denver singing about “more people, more scars upon the land.”
My friend reminded me that the Appalachian Mountains are much older than the Rockies though they used to be at least as grand. Time has weathered the eastern mountains into gentler slopes covered by a rolling blanket of green and smokey blue.
I started to wonder if maybe these gentle old soul mountains are just as good as the Rockies. They may not be as dramatic, but they sing their own sweet song. My heart sings in their presence, like John Denver sang in “Country Roads,”
“Life is old there, older than the trees…”
On our second evening in the mountains, we went up to Oz.
A prosperous amusement park in the 70s, The Land of Oz is now open for a couple designated weekends in the summer and fall. No one was home, but we peered through a mysterious locked gate at the glowing yellow brick road, and I imagined skipping off to see the wizard, and meeting Glinda, or being Glinda, since I’ve always wanted to play her character.
Then I sat on a hill near the Oz bridge and thought about how there’s no place like home, and how nice it is to live in a state that has mountains on one end and the ocean on the other….
….and I watched the most magnificent sunset I’ve ever seen in my life.
