Notebook collage and a day at the beach

I took to my old pastime of making collages on my notebooks.

Aiden wasn’t as scared of the water as he was last summer, he had a lot more fun this time!

Got sand in my phone (not as bad as getting it in other places).

Crazy plant lady post, take one – Brown cactus isn’t really brown.

Droopy, brown cactus in a weird basket.

Perky, plump and turning green!

I was wanting a cactus for a long time, but since they don’t naturally grow here in the temperate and somewhat soggy land of Ohio, they’re kinda pricey. They are expensive for a little one, so imagine trying to get a big one. This guy is definitely from another land and I spent a whopping $4 to make him mine.

We took a trip to Kansas at the end of February to visit my husband’s side of the family and our nephew (a little business man in training) was selling some cacti someone gave him for .15 cents each. When he found out that I wanted one of them, he hiked the price up to $15! Since I’m not Mrs. Moneybags, I managed to talk him down to $4. That 9-year-old drives a hard bargain.

It was in that weird basket without much dirt and I finally broke down and bought some potting soil and a better container for it. Yesterday I took my plants outside on the balcony to get some real sun, but I didn’t bring them back in before I left and it started raining. Luckily, it didn’t rain too much, but I was worried about my cactus. My jade plant died because I watered it twice within a 2 week period and it got root rot. Jades are succulents, so they don’t need as much water and of course, cacti are the same way. It surprised me today, though. That brown color that it was when I bought it isn’t really its natural color. It was brown because it was just waiting for it to rain again!

Besides my fail with the jade plant, I’ve had the most luck with plants that don’t need as much water. I used to be really forgetful with the water, but my mom gave me a starter for a schefflera plant and I’m intent on not killing it. Growing things isn’t as easy as you might think… water, sunlight, too much sunlight, too much water, bad pH balance in the soil, etc.

My mom has always had a jungle in the house and our yard was always gorgeous in the summer time. I don’t have her green thumb but I started to miss having plants around, hence my growing interest in growing things.

About that time I went on an adventure and it was awesome.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my vacation to Virginia Beach back in 2004 and how I’d love to go there again soon (like this summer!). It can’t be a coincidence that there would be a program through Social Moms “Love the Moment”, which brings me to this post!

Back in 2004, I saw the ocean for the first time. It was late August of that year and I had turned 19 a few months before. I was invited by my friend, whose family gave her permission to bring one friend along, and that very lucky friend was me.

We got there after the sun went down and a storm was brewing out in the distance over the water. It was gorgeous. Our condo was on the third (or fourth?) floor, right on the edge of the beach. My friend and I walked down to the edge of the water and let the little waves splash our feet. Hurricane Charley had made its way up the east coast a few weeks before that so the ocean was still a little dicey. Even though the ocean and I didn’t get along so well, I had a blast the week that we were there. If you’re thinking about visiting VB, here are some ways to make sure you enjoy it to the highest degree.

Try to plan your vacation for the end of the season. Hotels were having discounts, so my friend’s family had more money to play with. There were less people, probably on account of the recent hurricane, so the beach wasn’t so crowded. Even the little shops along the beach-front strip were having huge sales. I did so much shopping while I was there!

Bring lots of extra cash. I bought gifts for my family members because I wished they could have been there with me. I snagged a few things for myself, but my favorite was one of those necklaces with my name written on a grain of rice. The girl who was selling them made it for me, since there wasn’t one already with my name on it. I also got to pick out the tiny vial it was in and a tiny red rose to go in with the rice. I wished I had brought more money with me, since we found so much great art in the shops along the strip, especially from one artist who painted aquatic scenes on driftwood.

Get in the ocean, even if it isn’t your idea of a good time. My friend and her family felt at home in it (they had been there many times before). There wasn’t a riptide alert like there was the morning after we got there, but I thought it was intimidating and a little too wild for me. It took me a while to get the courage to join them out in the deeper water because the waves looked so much bigger out there up close. They told me to dive down under the wave right before it hits you. Well, I tried this a few times and let me tell you what happens if you don’t do it right: I tumbled face down into the sand below the wave and was swept back toward the beach with a sinus cavity full of salt water. Thankfully, salt water doesn’t suck as much as regular water when you get it up your nose, it just slides right back out! I did a lot of lounging on my blanket and listening to music while my friend and her family frolicked in the ocean. Another good thing about salt water: it’s very healing. I had sores on my legs from getting poison ivy earlier that summer and they were completely gone by the end of the week!

I took this from our balcony the morning we went deep sea fishing. No digital camera yet, just a disposable!

Go deep sea fishing early in the morning. We woke up to the sun just beginning to shine over the ocean and the dolphins jumping around, just like in one of those pretty paintings. My friend, her brother, their Grandpa and I got on a boat with a small group of other people and went way out past the beach. I got to see some of the huge Navy ships and even caught some fish. Just make sure to take some Dramamine, even if you don’t normally get motion sickness. Previously, I had never gotten motion sickness, but I did when we were bobbing around out there on the open ocean.

Check out the restaurants! We ate so much while we were there, mostly sea food of course. I think I might have eaten some squid. Luckily, I’m pretty open-minded even when it comes to food, and I’ll try anything once. There are a lot of food adventure opportunities.

Leave plenty of time unscheduled to just explore. One night, my friend and I walked all the way from our hotel down to the boardwalk. We took goofy pictures in a photo booth (unfortunately they were ruined) and went to watch a lawn show with some funny guys who pretended to be Polynesian chieftains. There was a trolly, which we took advantage of a few times, but I preferred walking so I could take everything in.

Go to the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau website to find out about more stuff that I didn’t get to do while I was there!

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Virginia Beach blogging program. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Boardwalk on Dwellable

NaPoWriMo highlights and a walk through the woods

I ended up only finishing my NaPoWriMo halfway. After the first two weeks, I accidentally stopped writing a poem everyday. I tried for a few days the last two weeks of this month but it just wasn’t happening. I’m not too bothered by it, though. Sixteen is better than zero! It was fun and a few good ones got through.

Day 4 (a haiku)

Scratched, blue fingernails
are chipped but she still sparkles -
leaving fairy dust.

Day 6′s poem turned out to be my favorite:

Day 6

‘We don’t come from molds’,
we cried.
Born to be slender, short or thick
allowed to exist as we are,
to eat carrots for dinner
and cake for dessert.

Yesterday wasn’t cold like it has been for the last week or so, so we went for a walk at Towners Woods. It’s like our version of the “hundred-acre woods”, only it’s better because it’s more than 100 acres and there are no heffelumps or woozles.

The monument on the Hopewell mound.