Karen’s Place

I’m back from my vacation…until I can sit down and write, here’s a little video showing our day trip to South Carolina.  It was everything I wanted it to be.
I have to say though, my Aunt was 110% correct, it took me 3 days to be able to move again!  It was all worth it though. 

Okay, just have to drop a note to share…I just booked a two (hopefully two and a half) hour horseback ride on the beach in South Carolina. I hope it lives up to everything I want it to be.

Nancy, I am SO going to take you with me one day! No questions asked! If it weren’t for you letting me ride Roxy when I was little I would never have developed a love for horses.

I’ll post some pictures Sunday.

I posted the below on my MySpace today.  I think it bares repeating:

Today I watched as one of my closest friends buried her third sibling in 5 years. Including her father who died first, she has now lost over half her family. This sister was one year younger than me. All three siblings had the same hereditary lung disease and at any time the remaining four could be diagnosed, how scary.

We only have one life to live. I know that sounds trite, and talk about a cliche’ but it’s true. We need to live life to the fullest. If we’re lucky enough to live to a ripe old age, do we want to look back and think ‘man I didn’t nap enough’ or ‘dang, i sure wish i’d spent more time watching television.’ I know I don’t. I want to create memories that can never be forgotten. I think I have a pretty good start, thanks in good part to my friends. My first trip to Las Vegas, seeing the Grand Canyon (everyone needs to see the Grand Canyon once), riding quads through Valley of Fire State Park at high speed, swimming with dolphins and resurrecting my friendship with Kim and all the bells and whistles that have come along with it, Yea, that’s a pretty good start.

My list may be very different if I were to of had children, but that just wasn’t in the cards this go around. Maybe in the next life.

My friend Tricia and I are headed to North Carolina very soon. Since we are going to be there for several days/nights we want to spend one of our days out on the coast. I haven’t shared this thought with her yet, but I’d really like to go to South Carolina since I haven’t been there yet. Google maps says it about 2 or 2 and a half ours from where we’ll be. That’s to Myrtle Beach that is, I’m concerned since it’s off season there won’t really be anything to do. I hope I’m wrong. If anything, it’ll be time staring at the Ocean, anytime gazing at that blue water is never time wasted in my book! Ahhh, I’m counting the hours/days/weeks!

Wow I really haven’t written much this summer, I suppose that’s because really there hasn’t been much new going on.

Let’s see, I really hate my new job.  That sucks!  So far the director of my department has yet to come through on any of the promises he made me while recruiting me for the position.  I’m stuck there until November, then I can transfer out-granted there is/are positions available within the office that tickle my fancy.  I’m still doing side work for my old department, I know I should dump it all back on my old boss but we are going through an extremely important audit and I just can’t do that to her.  The only upside to the job, other than actually having one (I always remind myself it could be worse, I may be jobless) is that I get to work from home on Thursdays.  That is so nice.  We’re working on getting to be able to work from home two days a week, which would be so nice.

I really haven’t done anything new this summer.  I’m going back to North Carolina in a few weeks that will be so fun.  This time I’m not going to fly solo (literally and figuratively); I’m taking my friend Tricia with me.  Tricia is a single mom to four daughters and hasn’t had a vacation since before her oldest, who is 16 years old was born.  I think she may be looking forward to more than me if that’s possible.  Tricia works for the school district, so we had to plan this little vacation for when the kids were out of school, needless to say our options were very limited.  Luck was really in our favor as round-trip airline tickets were barely $200 and that was only booking like six weeks in advance.  Yay!  Then I found out that was my friend Paddy’s birthday weekend, his 40th birthday.  How cool is that?  We’ve been invited to a big blow out at his pub.  Then there’s my friend Bill, Paddy’s music partner; Bill is the concertmaster for the symphony.  Opening night of the symphony will take place while we’re there and we’ve been invited to that as well.  I’ve only heard Bill’s pub music and on a rare occasion, one or two classical pieces; it will be great to see an entire performance – although I do have a fear of falling asleep.  I will for sure be upping my caffeine intake prior to the concert.

So we’ll be there for a five day weekend and with Fayetteville not being far from the coast, we for sure have a trip to the beach planned.  I realize we can’t go swimming in October, but it will be a great drive (with the help of my trusty GPS) and no matter what anytime you get to see the ocean it’s a good day.

Let’s see anything else new??  Tuesday was beautiful outside.  When I got home from work I let the dog out and she was as frisky as a puppy, she just wanted to play and play.  How could I not pack her up in the car and take her to the lake for a romp and swim.  I’m so lucky I can take her off leash wherever we go she has so much fun and can swim wherever she wants without being tied to a leash.  You know I had to take some pictures:

I love this picture, I think she’s completely airborne!

She climbed down a pretty steep cliff to get here, she was determined!

She’s got a strange look on her face, but really she was all smiles!

One last thought, remember October is breast cancer awareness month.  Coming from someone who lost a Grandmother to breast cancer, please remember to have your mammograms, also don’t forget if you’re girls are even a little dense you should ask your doctor if a sonogram may be in order instead.