Do you believe in ghosts?

One of the things I really wanted to do when we went to Charleston was to take a Ghost Tour.  There are several tours to choose from, but we waited too long to make a reservation and all we could get was the Dungeon Ghost tour. 

We walked along the streets at night and and our tour guide gave us some history of the city, and at each stop along the way. Our first stop was at the Provost Dungeon.

The dungeon was very dark with no real lighting to speak of other than our guide's flashlight and some of the street lights filtering in through the windows.  There were little vignettes set up to portray what it was like to be underground way back in the day.

I took several pictures with my iPhone and several with my little camera, and whatever lighting you see is due to the flash lighting up the very dark space.

The next day when I was looking through these photos, I saw this ghostly figure in the picture below:

If you enlarge the picture and zoom in on the shadow, you can sort of see a pirates face.  I can make out a turban on his head, his eyes, a nose and a little mustache.  Can you see it?  

What do you think???

Charleston Trip - Part One

My investment club just got back from a fabulous trip to Charleston, South Carolina.  It's amazing that twelve ladies could actually get our schedules together to make this happen - and even more amazing that on this trip, there was NO DRAMA!  It was wonderful!

Our first night in town, we were lucky enough to have dinner at Husk.  We did have to make reservations several months in advance since this place is very difficult to get into.  If you are planning a trip to Charleston, I highly recommend this place.

The menu changes daily and reflects the freshest seasonal ingredients.  A few of the more interesting things we tried were compressed watermelon, pig's ear lettuce wrap (I couldn't quite enjoy the pigs ear - it didn't taste bad, I just kept thinking about the treats I used to buy for my dogs),  pimento cheese spread (delicious!) and the baked grits.   We left Husk feeling so full, I thought we might pop.

This is a picture of the outside of the restaurant:

 On Saturday morning, there was a farmer's market in the town square adjacent to our hotel. The pink building in the background is the Embassy Suites where we stayed and it used to be the Citadel.  Although not fancy, the location was great, the place was clean, and the staff was attentive.  The free breakfast was also good.  The weird thing was that not all the rooms had windows.  Since we only went back there to sleep, it was fine.

 The produce and the flowers at the farmer's market were just spectacular.  Look at those peppers!  There were plenty of local artists selling their wares, and I know we all had a great time mulling around.

Charleston has plenty of steeples.  Oh, that blue sky and the *perfect* weather!

Part of our group took an afternoon to head to the beach.  We went to Folly Beach which ended up being a great choice.  There was a festival  going on in the little town, and there was plenty to do (or not to do!) for all of us.   Just looking at the beach pictures makes me feel relaxed.

Folly beach has a huge fishing dock if someone wanted to do some fishing.

The piers under the dock - I thought this was so cool! Some of the girls got in the water and then sat on the beach.  I walked around and took lots of pictures - just soaking it all up!

We took a carriage ride and learned some history of this beautiful town.

Tom pulled us with grace and strength.

Of course, there was shopping.  There are several in our group who are hard core shoppers and they were not disappointed in all that Charleston had to offer.  The City Market was fun and we all picked up a few things, but the big time shopping was done over on King Street.

In the next post, I'll share more fun stuff we did.  We packed a whole lot of stuff into the time we were there.  

Fun embroidery hoop art

I've seen lots of cute embroidery hoop art out there and finally decided to make one.  This one was sent to my sister for her birthday  - which was yesterday.  It turned out so cute, I wanted to keep it for myself.  :)

It feels so good to be in the creative groove!

Oklahoma Memory Book

Debby Schuh of The Memory Bee came to the Paper Crown in Oklahoma City last week to teach several classes.  I was only able to attend one of her beautiful classes, but look at this fabulous Oklahoma Memory Album we made!

I am not originally from Oklahoma, (I'm from Connecticut) but I have lots of memories that I have made in the 12 years I have been here so it shouldn't be hard for me to fill this album up.

Debby was so generous in her kits, I have tons of paper and stickers to use as I add my memories.

I'm usually a very slow crafter, but for the most part, I was able to keep up.  Yay me!

 None of us were able to complete the books in the class, but I was absolutely determined to get mine finished and ready to use.

 I think this is a record for me - only four days after class is over, and I have my book completely assembled!  I'm on a roll, baby!  ;)

 If you want to get a closer look at these pages, just click on the photo and it will zoom for a better look.

 Lots of fun detail, fold outs, envelopes, page protecter inserts - just fun!

 Oh! and a bonus was getting to see a bunch of my friends in OKC that I haven't seen all summer!

Isn't this fun!?!

Phoebe's latest health issues.

This sweet girl is not feeling well and it just breaks my heart.

 I took her in last week for her Percortin shot, which she gets every 25 days to keep her "up".  In addition, she has a bad hip and had not been putting any weight on it for over a week and a half.  The vet had instructed me to increase her steroid and give her pain meds twice a day (which I did)  but it didn't seem to help much at all. She wasn't putting any weight on her back leg at all.  In addition, the night prior to her scheduled shot, I thought I heard her wheezing.  I tried to listen to her lungs with my stethoscope, but she wouldn't stay still long enough for me to hear what was going on.  I thought I heard crackles and wheezes but I couldn't tell for sure. So instead of just going in for her shot, I asked to see the vet because I knew my girl wasn't feeling good - at all.

She ended up staying the day at the vet for some xrays and some blood work, and then I got the call.

It's never a good sign when the office calls to schedule a pick up appointment rather than the vet just calling me with the test results.

When we got there for our pick up appointment, the vet brought us back to show us what is going on with our sweet Phoebe. The good news was that her blood work all looked good.  As expected, her bad hip still looked bad, but in addition, her knee also has very bad arthritis.  I had been warned way back when she was a puppy that it was likely that she would suffer from arthritis in that bad hip, but it didn't really cross my mind that her knees would give her trouble too.  She also had a urinary tract infection, which I had suspected due to the increase in her steroids in the effort to ease the inflammation in her hip.

The worst news of all however is that her trachea is collapsing.  I was right when I thought I heard crackles and wheezing.  The vet was surprised that Phoebe is breathing as well as she is with such narrowing in her trachea. She isn't coughing, which is usually one of the signs, but she is definitely having some issues.  There is not much that can be done other than try to manage her symptoms.  It doesn't help that she is overweight which puts extra strain on her body.

We are in a tough spot.  She needs the steroids to feel better, but they make her extra hungry and she can't really exercise because of her pain and her breathing.  We are trying to cut back on her portions, but with three other dogs in the house, it's kind of hard to make sure she gets only what she is supposed to have.

I am not handling this very well.  It makes me so sad and scares me at the same time.  She is on medication that has to be given every 8 hours, and I know she doesn't really feel good.  I will not let her suffer but I'm so afraid that we are going to get into a crisis.  For now, I'm going to keep giving her her meds and see how we do.  It's been a rough year.