Seasons

The road doesn't stand out very much if you're not keeping your eye out for the old building that sits on the corner.  It's always been the landmark of the final leg of a very long journey, telling you you're almost there.  The road takes you quickly out of the town below, rising and twisting through so many different views in only minutes.  You still can't believe that you're not that far away from a bustling college town.

After a left at the church on the hill you turn onto a gravel drive hidden in the trees, the green moss creeping over the rocks a sign that you're in a completely different world.  As the car shuts off and you open your door, you're met by the wash of water through the creek.  The cool moist air wraps around your skin and that deep earthy smell finally reaches you.  Eyes close momentarily and you're still, and it's perfect.


My family has been visiting my Grandpa at his cabin in the Appalachians of North Carolina since I can remember.  It's been his summer home for thirty years.  When I was little I would take my barbies and let them have adventures in the creek that flows outside the back deck.  There has never been a trip, even into my twenties, that I haven't spent even a little time building a fairy village with tiny stone steps down to the water, or finding sticks just the right length to build a raft to float through the rapids.  Evenings were marked by a trip over the bridge and along the back road to the apple tree that supplied us with as many tart, little green apples as we wanted.

I was in high school when I finally knew that North Carolina was my future home.  I didn't know how I was going to get there, but I felt it in the vibrating of my soul, just at the thought.  Last weekend I took a trip up to the cabin with my mom, aunt, and cousin as a Father's Day surprise for Grandpa.  I hadn't been in two years, so it was pretty exciting.  We spent a lot of time with Grandpa and found some pretty good views.



Sophee, still aspiring to be a juvenile delinquent.



View of Boone from Howard's Knob

Pretty flowers from our walk!

To the apple tree...

This little guy landed on me while I was standing on the waterfall.

The rushing, raging creek.

On the parkway.

Right after I took this picture a man came walking down that hill, hopped the fence, got in his car, and drove away.

I always like to take pictures of wavy grass.

I managed to snap this in a moving vehicle the day we left.

But the trip wasn't just to see Grandpa.

Recently my Grandpa and his wife had been considering selling the cabin and staying in Florida year round.  I won't get into details, but keeping the cabin has become a burden on them, and this summer they got serious.  We went up there for a weekend to see if he needed help getting anything ready, and while we were there the signs went up.

Now, just days later, they've sold it.  It's finally real that I'll probably never have my morning tea on the back deck again, never haul a cold watermelon up the steps beside the waterfall, never squeeze into the older-than-me Suburban for a trek down the mountain.  The gateway through which I came to fall in love with the mountains has closed.  I must find some other route.

I've heard people talk about seasons in a comforting way, "There's a season for everything."  They talk about better things to come.  But what I don't hear very often is the opposite: when a brilliant and wonderful season must pass away, and you're left to face a new and unknown season.  I try to remind myself  that there's no guarantee that this is the end.  I don't really know for sure that I'll never see that place again.  What I do know is that God will get me back there somehow.  But the knowing doesn't make this new season hurt any less.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel

As some of you know I've been on a great new hair adventure the past few years, but my whole life has kind of been a great hair adventure to be honest.  While I've never been victim to the dreaded bowl cut, like a dear friend and cousin of mine has, or gone so drastic as a pixie, in my book my hair has practically seen it all.  So let's start from the beginning and see how all of that went.

I was born with dark hair, and basically with the shortest hair I've ever had.  Also, we should note that I was adorable.

 
It didn't take long for my hair to go blonde, which was inevitable since it was the same with my sister and my dad.

Then my mom decided bangs were the way to go.  Every time I've tried bangs since then I haven't really liked them.

Second grade was the drastic change.  I wanted short, and I got it.  My sister called me a boy for weeks, and still I'm being nice enough not to detail her great perm fiasco.  Let's just say I wasn't the only one who "looked like a boy."

It eventually grew out, and at the same time my hair started getting darker.

Over my public school years it varied in lengths and styles, including the Shirley temple beauty pageant look

these really big curls

and the eighth grade St. Maarten braids.

Looking back, I've noticed that my hair took a mostly shorter trend.  There weren't many times that I let it get too far past my shoulders before I decided it was time to whack it off.  That time in tenth grade was probably the longest it had ever been.

Which brings me to the summer of 2011.  Another visit to Panama City, and another hair whacking.  This time all the way to my chin!

Sometime between then and Christmas 2011 I had an epiphany.  I realized that I was addicted to cutting my hair.  I was addicted to the new and drastic feeling of having my hair cut off.  I don't really know why that was either, because not too long after I'd start complaining about how I wouldn't be able to put it in a pony tail, or really do anything with it.  And then just when it would fit into a hairtie, I'd chop it off again.  It was especially taxing on my grandmother, because she has always been the one to cut my hair.  She was always worried that I wouldn't like the cut and blame her, which I never did.  It was all my own fault.

And when this realization hit me, I made a decision, a very hard decision, to grow my hair out.  Nearly four years later, I think it's probably the best hair decision I've ever made.  It's made me realize the goals I can achieve with PATIENCE.  It's also led to more healthy hair decisions.  But let me just tell you right now, if you're planning on growing your hair out and keeping it healthy, the journey is not for the faint of heart.

By the spring of 2012 I had ceased using my flatiron and I had started going for a more natural look.  Of course, I was still blow drying and using a curling iron.  By the time I moved to Tallahassee to start at FSU that fall I had cut out the blow dryer, and by Christmas I was heat free.  I noticed such a change in my hair.  Sure I had to wash it early enough to let it air dry before I went to bed, but it was worth it to not have to literally sweat through blow drying and straightening.  By the summer of 2013 my hair felt like it was so long, even though it really wasn't.  I had begun to devise ways in which to curl it without heat, to much success.  I also began to braid my hair at night.  I felt like I lived in the 1800s, but easy brushing the next morning was worth it.  By the summer of 2014 my hair was so long it was giving me hairtie headaches, and milkmaid braids were my go-to when my hair was dirty.

June 2014

Now let's fast forward to today.  In the big scheme of things, my waist length hair isn't all that long, but for me it's a big deal.  My go-to is a French braid to avoid headaches, and I rarely wear ponytails.  I also use a giant clip and tie my nightly sleeping braid with a soft length of t-shirt material.  These are all ways I fight breakage, which is one of my biggest enemies.  I've cut out my hair products completely.  About a month ago I stopped using mousse, which I've used since childhood, and I've even stopped with my anti-frizz product.  I found that the mousse caused my hair to take longer to dry.  All I really do is shampoo and condition, and I only do that once a week.  Yes, friends, I only wash my hair once a week.  It's WAY better for my hair, and it makes a difference in how moisturized it is.  I've also been benefitting from the wonders of coconut oil as a treatment before my weekly wash.  It also helps moisturize and keeps some of the frizz at bay.  But my latest weapon is my new brush.

As a treat for finishing my novel's rough draft in April I finally ordered my fancy hair brush that I had been researching for weeks. It cost way more that anything I could get at Walmart or even Sally's, but even after only using it for a few weeks I can see a difference in my hair.  The secret is that it's made of wood.  Not the brush itself, though that's made of wood too, but the bristles.  Each individual bristle is solid wood.  The wood soaks up the oils near your scalp and then distributes it throughout your hair, helping combat dryness, frizz, an itchy scalp, and the need to wash you hair more often.  I know that might sound gross, but there's a reason our scalps produce oil.  "Back in the olden days" women didn't wash their hair very often, and used a similar system with a boar bristle brush to redistribute the oil in their hair.  It's also the reason they could achieve such elaborate hairstyles without hairspray, and the reason why today it's so much easier to braid your hair when it's "dirty."  Having long hair is work.  I mean, there's a reason women used to have ladies maids.

June 2015

Currently my hair is only about two inches away from my next goal (butt length), but after that, who knows where I'll go.  I've decided that I won't go to much longer because it would get too hard to manage.  Long hair is not just work, it can be a hindrance as well.  Because we've recently opened our pool I've discovered how not fun it is to swim with long hair, and I LOVE to swim!  Even keeping it in a braid doesn't help much.  It takes a while to rinse the chlorine out and then untangle knots.  Driving is an issue too, and sitting in general.  I have to move my hair out of the way so it's not squished between me and the seat, and I also have to move it out of the way to put on my seatbelt.  The closest way to describe it is that it's like having a paralyzed appendage.  I'm constantly aware of where my hair is and what it's doing.  Do I have to move it out of the way?  Is it touching my food?  If I bend over will it brush something gross that I don't want in my hair?  Is that my braid that's digging into my back while I'm trying to sleep?  Is that my hair grazing my arm or a vicious man-eating spider attacking me?  Is the wind so bad that I need to take my brush with me to the store?  Am I going to get a braid tan down my back if I don't put it in a clip?  I'll stop there, but the list goes on.

Still, if you want long hair, go for it!  I know a lot of this sounds discouraging, but be patient, it takes time and effort, and not everyone's hair grows at the same rate.  Ignore all those people who ask you when you're going to cut it and go for it Rapunzel!

The next adventure?  A Florida summer with three feet of hair.

The Finisher

Over the past couple months I was working on my first commission since graduating last August.  It was for a good friend and mentor of mine who wrote a story that she wanted me to illustrate.  Now I can't show you any of the drawings, but I can say that I enjoyed working on them, even though sometimes it was a real challenge.  That's kind of what brings me to today's post, the first in about a month.  We met several times to discuss the illustrations and of course, talk would sometimes turn  off topic.  She mentioned something that has been on my mind for quite a while now.  I don't quite remember what we were discussing, but the phrase she used was, "I'm a finisher.  I do things and I finish them."  I'm sure that's not quite the exact words, but you get the gist.  I've known her for about as long as I've known Caroline, so I know very well that this is true about her.  But what struck me the moment she said that was that I, myself, am the exact opposite, and at the moment it kind of bummed me out.

I will fully admit that I have trouble finishing things sometimes.  There's this thing about deadlines with me:  if there isn't one, things just won't get finished.  While I was quite the procrastinator in school I always got things done by the deadline, albeit minutes or even seconds before.  But if there's no deadline I say to myself, "I'll do it later," or "I'll start tomorrow."  Sometimes I'll even get really excited, have a plan in place, and then I just kind of piddle out halfway through.  It's why I have dozens and dozens of novel plots jotted down on my computer and only one of them is a finished rough draft.  It's why my friend's words were on my mind ever since she said them.

The problem was that I felt bad about it, but I never seemed to be able to change it.  That little voice in my ear that said I couldn't do it was always nagging me...and nagging me...and nagging me.  So now I had a voice in each ear nagging me in opposite directions.  Talk about good angel, bad angel.

And then something really strange got into me.  I don't know what it was exactly, but it sparked some kind of fierce determination.  This determination brought me to today.  It might be an insignificant thing to some people, but today is huge for me.  Today I finished the first draft of a novel.  50,576 words to be exact.  The majority of that I wrote in the last 29 days.

I freak out and do a little dance every time I think about it!  I CANNOT STOP SMILING!  I DID IT!!!!!!!

I did it as part of NaNoWriMo, which I've talked about before on here.  Basically, you write a novel in a month.  While this usually takes place in November, they also hold an even called Camp NaNoWriMo, which goes on in April and July.  In Camp NaNo, you can set a word count other that 50,000, and you can start with a preexisting story that you've already written on.  My word count goal was 33,000 because I already had a bit written, so in all I ended up over the 50k.

That brings me to the other exciting thing!  Not only did I finish my draft, I won NaNoWriMo!  It's another thing I've started many times, but piddled out on.  This time around I beat the fudge muffins out of that thing.

The next step is editing, which I haven't done much of to be honest.  I'll need a lot of help from my best reader and idea bouncer, my mom.  I might also try to find some uninhibited readers when I get revision done.  After that will be the search for an agent, which is both a frightening and an exciting thought.  But for now, just call me Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner.  I'm totally basking in my own limelight.

Way Up on the Suwannee River

It's been a little while since I've written, but things have been slow on the writing front lately.  Since last I wrote spring has come on strong here in Florida.  All the flowers in our yard are blooming and our lime tree is so full of delicious-smelling little white flowers. We're going to be swimming in limes this year.

Yesterday was the Wild Azalea Festival in White Springs, a little town about twenty minutes north of Lake City.  We decided to drive up there and check it out.  When my mom first started making and selling quilts at festivals we would do White Springs, but we haven't been in years because this festival is really small.  I really wanted to be a Mori Girl and I started out in a few layers, but I changed into a more simple Mori outfit before we left, anticipating the heat.  Here in Florida spring feels like summer, except everything is blooming.  And Florida in summer is sometimes what I imagine hell is like.  I would have died in my original outfit.

Everything in White Springs was blooming, including the abundance of wisteria that seemed to be draped over every tree.  When we first got there it seemed a bit dead because things were just getting started.  We perused the booths but didn't see anything we couldn't live without.  After that we went to check out Adams Country Store, which is a really old building in the town.  It's usually not open but yesterday it was.  There are mostly just antiques there now, but they're everyday antiques, not vases and teacups.
 

 

 
 

 

 

I really liked this beautiful stein.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My dad said that when he was little they had one of these in his house with a built in flour sifter.

 

 

 

 

My mom was in love with these canisters.

 

 

I actually did spot some teacups!

 

 

This dresser was beautiful!  And you can see my outfit in the reflection.

 

 

This bellows was bigger than me.  It was probably as big as a cow.

 

I wanted this writing desk.

 

 

I also wanted all these trunks.

 

 

My mom knew what this was as soon as she saw it.  I didn't.  It's a refrigerator!

 

Mom immediately wanted this to put the TV on, and then she proceeded to realize it was way too big.

 

 



 

Afterwards we went out back where there were a few sheds and whatnot.

 

 

 


 

My mom didn't know I was taking this picture.  Te he he!

 

There was a really pretty gate out front beside the store.

 

 After checking out the festival we went over to check out the river, and in White Springs that usually means going down to see the bath house.  The bath house is kind of a part of Stephen Foster State Park, which means it sits on the banks of the Suwannee River.  I spent my childhood on this river, which is why I frequently call it "my river."

 

The bath house used to be a tourist attraction where people would come to swim or "bathe."  The bath house is situated over a natural sulphur spring and people visited to basically renew their health and have fun.  It's not open for that kind of thing anymore, and all the lower levels shown in the old photos are gone, but it's still an interesting place to go.  My dad said it was still open when he was a child and he swam there.

 

 

 

Look at those swim suits!  I could get used to that again.

 

 

 

This bridge leads to the state park.

 

 

If you look closely in the center you can see a woodpecker.

 

 

 

Here are my parents, figuring out technology.

 

Alligators are a geographical hazard when you're a Floridian, but that doesn't usually stop us.

 

Usually you can walk all the way down and around to the outside but the river was up a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Normally you  look down from here and see the bank, but not today.  While the water was up more than usual it's been a lot higher before.  Back when tropical storm Debbie came through in 2012 only the roof and the rails were visible. 

 

More surreptitious photo taking.

 

 

 

 

After the bath house we were getting hungry and none of the festival food appealed to us so we decided to head back to Lake City.  On the way back we stopped at a boat ramp on the river and sat in a swing for a bit.

 

 

 

 When we were leaving a cat came along to lay under a picnic table.  She was so pretty, and stayed still long enough for me to take her picture, though she probably would have run if I'd made any sudden movements.  She was one of the highlights of the day.  I need a cat so much.