A long drive for a pretty hike

I never got around to blogging about our Savannah trip, so since I am on another trip now (posts coming on that), I thought I'd catch up.

We wanted to get out of town. Well, I wanted to get out of town, and Livy and Aaron were their usual "up-for-my-adventures selves. We talked about going north to Clingman's Dome in TN, but there was a snowstorm, so we decided to drive south. We didn't know where we wanted to go, but we packed our stuff and starting driving south on I-75.

Finally, we decided on Savannah. We left in the mid-afternoon on a Saturday and arrive in Savannah about 5 hours later, after dark. We drove through the downtown just to see it, and then we got a hotel, ate our picnic supper on the floor, and went to bed. The drive down was nice. Aaron and I took turns driving and reading Anne of Green Gables out loud, and Livy read a book to us as well.

The next morning, we got up kind of early and headed to Skidaway Island State Park. It was very cold, but we took an awesome hike. A lot of the ground was sandy, and there were tons of palm trees and saw palmetto on the path. We saw beautiful marshes, and there was even an observation tower to climb and look down over all the grasses and marshland. Livy loved playing on all the twisty coastal trees, and she liked the live oaks with Spanish moss in them enough that on the way home she drew a picture of one for her nature journal.

After our hike, we went to the Visitor Center to see the reptile feeding. We were the only people there, so the park ranger talked to us the whole time. We learned a lot about their animals. We saw 2 different snakes swallow mice, a baby alligator under a heat lamp, and tons of turtles and frogs and lizards.

The visitor center also had an amazing bird viewing room with big glass windows that looked out onto a patio with lots of bird feeders. We sat with binoculars and a bird book and identified cardinals, a blue jay, tufted titmice, and Carolina chickadees. There were so many birds swooping this way and that, and we could have stayed there a long time. Except that we were HUNGRY!

So we drove into Savannah for lunch. I wanted seafood, but we wandered up and down the street a while and ended up in a non-so great brunch kind of place. It was overpriced and not fantastic, but I did have an amazing bowl of she-crab soup.

After lunch, we headed home. It was really nice mini-trip!

Nature Journal: Mountain View

We stayed one night at Jenn's awesome mountain cabin, and early that morning, Livy and I went out for a nature walk. This post, the first of two, includes the pictures we took right by the cabin.

Livy says: There are mountains. You see them every day when you get up. And the good part is that they make pretty pictures.

Kelly says: This is the view from the cabin's back porch. This tree leaning in from the left looks amazing. I think this is one of the best pictures Livy has ever taken.

Livy says: We found this tree in the backyard of Jenn's cabin.

Kelly says: We saw this little pine tree standing out among all the grey winter trees. I loved how green it looked in contrast.

Livy says: This picture is a brown flower by Jenn's cabin. I think it looks pretty because it's leaning into the picture. I think it looks pretty because it's kind of brownish and it's an unusual picture.

Kelly says: This is a dried hydrangea bloom. I love hydrangea bushes for just this reason: they look amazing all year round, even in the winter. I actually took this picture! Woot!

Livy says: This fern was taken at Jenn's cabin in her backyard. I think it's pretty because it's a little bit purplish around its leaves. I also liked that it's just growing down the mountain.

Kelly says: These ferns were growing down the mountain like Livy said. You can't really see that from the picture, but they were spilling down a large hill.

Livy says: These are berries taken in Jenn's sideyard. These berries were hanging down from the bush. You can't see it from the picture.

Kelly says: This is a nandina bush. I remember that my Papaw had a really big one in the front yard, and I used to love to pick the berries and try to get birds to come and land in my hand to eat the berries. Of course, they never did, but it was great fun to call them to me by made-up names.

Livy says: These berries were the same ones as the picture on top of this one, except it's more close-up and has more sunlight on them.

Kelly says: I am so proud of this picture. I took it, and it turned out to be so shiny and beautiful. Nandina berries have never looked so good. If those birds from my childhood saw berries that looked like this, they would have come to me for sure. :)

Nature Journal: Jump, Squirrel!

Livy says: This picture is from Aidan's neighborhood. 

Kelly says: On the way to a friend's birthday party, we saw several black birds (I think they were crows.), and we pulled over to take their pictures.

Livy says: This picture is also a crow.

Kelly says: I thought this picture turned out great. I love how the crow shows up so well in the leafless tree.

Livy says: This is a squirrel that was running into a bush in Aidan's neighborhood. I was trying to take his picture, but the squirrel ran away. All it left showing was his tail.

Kelly says: Darn you, squirrel! But it did turn out to look kind of cool.

New Living Room Picture And More

I found this picture of our new living room set up that Livy must have taken. You can see our table against the left window, my desk against the far wall (no shelves up above it yet), the fireplace on the right, and Aaron's rocking chair in the foreground. Where his rocking chair is we now have a TV, DVD player, and Wii. You can see my the bookcase where I keep some fiction and some school stuff to the left of my desk. We have also set up a computer for Livy on the left end of my desk beside the bookshelf.

This picture is just gratuitous cute. I found it in the same camera dump. Miranda must have taken it the night she took Livy and Morgan to a play with an ASL interpreter. I can't remember what play it was. They are playing checkers at a Cracker Barrel where she took them to eat. I remember how THRILLED they both were to be out for a night on the town down in Atlanta with their most coolest and most beloved friend and sitter.

Nature Journal: Squawking Birds

Livy and I recently joined a nature journaling homeschool group. We meet once a month to look at the journals and see what everyone else has done, and we have plans to go together to some parks and hikes and to do the Backyard Bird Count. Livy and I decided that we wanted to work together on the journal and to put our entries online instead of in a print journal. We may eventually get a blog just for our journaling, but for now, we are going to post our entries on this blog. Livy loves to take pictures, so most of our entries will be photographs. She took them all, unless I specifically say that I did.

Our first set of pictures is from our own house and neighborhood.

Livy says: I was standing on the porch. The tree is across the street from our house. The birds were squawking.

Kelly says: Aaron came to get us because he heard this loud sound. There were about a million birds all squawking at the top of their little birdy lungs.

Livy says: This flower was in our front yard. They grow right when it gets hot during winter.

Kelly says: Livy sometimes picks these for me. They are really tiny weeds that spread all over the yard, and you have to look really closely to notice them. But Livy always notices them and says how pretty they are.

Livy says: This mossy tree is across the street.

Kelly says: I never noticed this until Livy pointed it out to me, even though it is right across the street. She really has an eye for finding interesting details. I hope this nature journaling will help me to get better at noticing all the pretty things and the interesting things that we pass by every day.

Livy says: This bush is from our front yard. It blooms lots of pretty purple flowers each year.

Kelly says: I really should trim this loropetalum bush (it covers our entire bay window), but I never do because it is so humongous and lovely. I just can't bear it. Livy says that I just don't like to trim bushes or mow the lawn. Hmph.

Success at On the Border

Today, I went to lunch to study and eat yummy food that I didn't have to make at On the Border. This is a restaurant that I REALLY like. It's also a place where I often eat badly and sometimes avoid in order to eat well. But today was a success! Here's what I ate:

Guacamole (I asked them to add jalapenos and tomatoes to their regular stuff)
red and green pepper strips (instead of chips) to dip in the guac and the salsa
2 tacos (yes I ate the shells)

The tacos weren't perfect, I know, but this was so much better than what I usually eat there (a million chips) that I am very proud and uplifted. I know I can eat there without feeling overfull and lethargic, and next time, I think I will see how I do with the fajitas instead of tacos!

And I also went to the eye doctor today, another step in the direction of taking better care of my health. Yippee for me!

Making Taking Care of My Body a Priority in the Craziness that is Grad School

This semester has been SO crazy. I am loving it, doing all the things I love most (reading, writing, reading about writing, writing about reading, you know the super fun stuff), but I am busier than I have ever been with Livy and Aaron and ATLOS to think of on top of school and work.

Somehow in all the insanity, my healthy habits have gone away. I am never home during the week, so I don't cook. Instead, I've been eating fast food in the car and bar food at school WAY too often.

Instead of my long walks of last semester, I have been sitting on my behind, writing and writing and writing. When I have a break, instead of getting outside, I find myself frantically checking things off my to-do list. I'm getting about the same amount of sunlight as Aaron, for god's sake, and he's a computer programmer.

I've gained weight, and I feel yucky. I am pushing myself harder than ever before, and I am not fueling my body properly or exercising to relieve stress or sleeping enough.

So, I am making a change. I am unable to make a big change because I have way too much to do. But I am making small changes to get back on a healthier track.

I started a yoga class, which is active and also gives me some much needed stress relief (thanks, Tori!). I've been going one day a week for 3 weeks and like it so much that I am thinking of adding an extra day a week. As soon as Aaron sets up the DVD player in the new introvert-proof living room, I will add some weekend yoga with Livy.

I am going to start taking some shorter walks during my school breaks. Walks that I can do in 30 minutes. Walks that I can do in nice slacks or a dress. I do not have to walk for hours to make it worthwhile to do it. The perfect is the enemy of the good when it comes to walks (as  in so much else).

I am going to start packing food for the day. Today I brought a cooler with lunch and dinner in it, simple stuff that doesn't require cooking. I may have to live with less variety if I am not willing to cook, but at least it will be healthy food that can fuel the pace of this semester. Today, I have ham, cheese, veggies and hummus, a frozen hamburger patty, and a salad. Not perfectly paleo, but a lot better than Taco Bell.

I am going to try to get more sleep by going to bed earlier on Mondays and Wednesdays (the days before my earliest days). It's hard to do that and still see Aaron much, but even an hour would help.

I'm trying not to focus on the weight I've gained or how I want to look or how I want my clothes to fit. Those things are fine, but not the most important. In a semester this busy, I only have time to think about the things that I value most and ruthlessly cut out the other. So body image issues have to go. Instead, my focus will be on giving my body the food, exercise, and sleep it needs to make me the brainiest, most energetic teacher and scholar that composition theory and writing center studies has ever seen.