Staying in Charleston

Tom is back in Charleston and we are staying here. Thanks for all the people that have "welcomed us back"! We are happy to still be in Charleston although a bit disappointed to not be going on an adventure! Tom is back in the job market again and we will keep everyone posted as to our next status

DETOUR!!!

Move on hold!!!

Official News

It is with mixed emotion I will be bidding adieu to Charleston on April 23rd. We officailly have a contract on our house as long as nothing unforseen occurs. The scariest part is not having a home to move into out there yet. I will be going out Aril 6 to give house hunting another go. I am sad to leave all the great friends and family that I have here. And I have just recently met several new friends but hope to be able to continue those newly formed friendships from across the country. I truely hope many of you will feel welcome enough to come out to visit us. I especially hope that some of my photography friends will come out to do some shooting excursions.
We have been very blessed to sell our house so quickly in this market. And that was our 3rd offer in two months!
I worked downtown at one of the galleries yesterday, which I so enjoy. But afterwards I took my camera on that cold and windy afternoon to the old bridge (to Sullivan's Island in the village), which is one of my favorite spots in Charleston and shot some photos that I will share here.

My Tuesday

My Tuesday was a good one. I accomplished a good bit of personal business in the morning then was greeted by the smiling face of my 3 year old great nephew, Greyson. It is so nice to have some little body so glad to see you and the unconditional, unspoiled love of a child. He lives in Georgia so it is so special every time I have the opportunity to spend time with him. He came as a special treat to come to Charleston with his dad all alone. His dad (my nephew) is here to do the special effects at Seacoast Church for their annual passion play at Easter, The Thorn. It is an awesome and moving show. Greyson and I went to my neighborhood play park and had a grand time swinging, see-sawing, and sliding! When I returned to my car I had a message from my friend Debbie reminding me to me her in North Charleston to eat before our concert. Well, thank goodness she called with a reminder message because I thought our show was TONIGHT!!! So I had to take Greyson along for the eating part until my sister could pick him up from me. (Thanks to my friends for not minding that I had to do that!)
The show we went to see is a Mexican duo, Rodrigo y Gabriela. They were the most awesome acoustic guitarist! They play rhythemic guitars with a bit of folk rock and latin rock. Gabriela stole the show with her hand moving beyond eye following speeds and playing almost all of the guitar, not just the strings, to produce rhythemic percussion. And the crowd was quite eclectic and attracted people of all ages. Take a listen to them if you can.
And when I talked to Tom after the show he was already in bed! It was 7:40PM there! I think the new job is really taking it out of him. You would think the time difference would make it hard for us to talk in the evenings because of me going to bed but it is actually the opposite. Tom is always going to bed about the time I am settling down! Well, such is our new life...

Toms Pictures

The sunset photo is from the road in front of his apartment. The mountain views are from houses and yards he looked at for us this weekend and the ponies were just because they were so cute!

Saturday in different time zones!

So Tom and I are still living in EST vs. MST. The worse new is that we in SC are changing to daylight savings time while he, in Arizona, is not changing to daylight savings time. Now our struggle to live in a two hour time difference will change to THREE hours!

Tom has every other Friday off (nice!). So yesterday he went house hunting for us yet again. He found a couple of houses he really liked that are older but a bit past our upper end of our price range. I will post some photos from his hunting tomorrow. Today he went to one of the municipal golf courses there. He said that for a "muni course" it was awesome! That's the second one he has played. Weather was sunny and in the low 70's. Perfect!

Here in Charleston I met up with a new photographer friend, Deanie. She and I met up and went to Folly Beach to go to a craft show. We first had lunch a little place called Taco Boy. It was very eclectic cool and was very crowded as the area was having a St. Patty's Day pub crawl. My food was very good. I had a shrimp tempura taco, black beans, and a japaleno cole slaw. I recommend it if you are out that way. And check out the bathrooms which are unisex. Then we went to the Tides of March craft show where I ran into lots of people I had not seen in a while. That was a

really nice treat! And I was spurred on to go by an e-mail of another new photographer friend I had met one day while working at Charleston Crafts. Laura is from Indiana and has a condo here and comes to Charleston when she can. She had a booth and I had the opportunity to see her beautiful work. I appreciate her letting me know about it so I could have this very nice day (although a bit chilly from the wind) seeing so many people today. And Deanie and I got to spend some extra time shooting a few photos together.

Thanks to all who helped me have a nice day when I am missing my hubby on the weekends!

Magnolia Gardens

Our days have begun to be more Charleston like. Warmer temperatures and sunshine and flowers and trees beginning to bud. So I took the day "off" yesterday to meet my friend Debbie at Magnolia Gardens. I truely had a "Murphy's law" day including dropping my good camera and messing up the lens but still enjoyed the glory of the day. Magnolia Plantation and Gardens are my favorite here in Charleston. Debbie and I walked the area for about 2 wonderful hours. The pictures I am sharing were taken with my point and shoot but seem to have come out nicely just the same. I am sharing photos of herons, ibises, a Coopers Hawk that we came upon and a golden pheasant that is with the small zoo they have there.

And Tom was in cloudy, cool Arizona going to open houses. (Sorry Tom!)

Snow in Hendersonville!

I have not even had a minute to post anything since the last time. We have all been working on getting my mom moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina. She will now be living there year round rather than here in Mount Pleasant and up there. (I miss her already!) We all worked endlessly getting her up there and trying to combine two houses into one. The job is still not complete. She still has a LOT of boxes to go. I was supposed to return to Charleston on Wednesday but felt I could not leave my mom with so much to do. I still felt bad leaving her yesterday with so much work ahead. Our very wonderful treat for my sister Dianne and I was that we got this very beautiful 7 inches of snow while we were there. We went out to run errands and could not resist taking a bit of a break to take some photos around Hendersonville. We were giddy with excitement and felt this was our reward from God! So I am sharing some photos from around Hendersonville as well as my mom's house and her back yard in the snow. Enjoy...with a little shiver from the cold!

Mom's BD

Tom has gone back to Tucson. He is loving his new job so far! He is going to go to the Accenture golf tournament this weekend. One of our friends here has a brother out there that she hooked Tom up with and he was kind enough to give him tickets for this weekend! He is also lined up to do some house hunting for us.

We did not come to terms for a contract on our house with our offer. It was a young couple and we believe they did not really have the money for this house. They were getting a 100% loan which I was hoping was not possible anymore. But we are still hopeful for someone else to love our house enough to give us a good offer. All of our feedback has been very positive. We had an agents caravan on Wednesday and they were all very positive about it.

Yesterday was my mom's 86th birthday!! She is just incredible! She does NOT seem 86! We celebrated Wednesday night since my sister was leaving for Washington yesterday. We went to eat at Sullivan's, a local seafood restaurant, and then had cake and gifts at her house. I had her over for supper last night. It was nice for just the two of us to have that time together. My sister Dianne is on her way from Orlando today to help my mom with moving. She and her husband will stay with me this weekend. My brother and his wife are also coming and staying at my mom's house. She closes on Feb. 26 so we will all be headed to Hendersonville, NC then to help my mom.

And we have had a wonderful time with my little nephews here!

So life is continuing on that crazy busy path for the time being...

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am so happy I got the chance to spend Valentine's with my sweetie! What a nice weekend it has been. We would have never thought we would be living a part a few months ago! Just goes to show you one never knows what life will bring! We should all enjoy our moments with our loved ones for you never know when things will change!

We have such a nice weekend but it has really sped by! First of all, the beautiful snow! What fun we had with that. We played in it as it was snowing and Saturday morning we went walking around Palmetto Park. After that we went and built a snowman with our nephew. That was followed by sliding down some local oysters. That is where we were when we got a call from our realtor with an offer on our house! We are glad but the offer is not that great so we shall see what happens with our counter. But we had 3 more showings after that and got feedback that someone else may be interested in making an offer! So we shall see. I do not worry as I am a strong believer that things like this work out how they are supposed to!

Today Tom made me breakfast which was really nice. Then we had our family over for a much belated birthday party for our nephew. That was a lot of fun too.

So it was a great weekend but, alas it ends tomorrow. I really hate to see Tom go but hopefully with all of our house activity I will be joining him soon.

TOM IS HERE!

Tom got in last night- FINALLY!!! I worked downtown at The Charleston Artist Guild Gallery (very slow day!) and then went to supper club for the first time stag, and wanted to go to pick up Tom from his flight about 10:30. He had to fly to Atlanta (as everyone knows -there are no direct flights to & from Charleston!) and called me upon landing. He said the plane hit wind shears coming in and tilted to one side upon landing! That would be enough for me to say I think I would drive from there! He got a bite to eat and boarded the plane. He called to let me know they were boarded and getting ready to take off. About 15 minutes later he called again (I'm thinking I should not be getting a call from Tom at this point!) and said they had not taken off yet because the pilot had not arrived but that he was in the terminal somewhere. Well, I am thinking I hope that location is not the lounge! About another 20 minutes and Tom calls again and says still no pilot! Whatever pilot they were looking for sure seemed lost! Nonetheless, when he called me and it was approaching an hour I told him I believe there is a new law that the airlines can no longer leave you on longer than an hour on the ground. (Does anyone know if this true?) Well, shortly after he calls and says they let them "unboard". And Tom did not want his flight to be cancelled due to the weather problems possible today! Anyway, eventually they got a pilot and Tom took a cab home (since it was so late!) and got here about 12:30am. He says it feels really good to be back!
And then they are predicting 1-3 inches of snow here this evening. We both so hope it happens. We are both like kids about the snow! And our nephews are in town who are the joys of our life. I am so glad Tom gets a chance to see them while he is here.
I hope I will be posting snow photos tomorrow....

Good News!

The beginning of a new week with the Dalys living in Eastern Standard Time vs. Mountain Standard Time. Some good news though. First, Tom's trip to Camden , Arkansas got canceled. And the really good thing is that Tom will be coming home for a few days on Thursday night. He will be returning on Monday-just enough days to get his time clock all screwed up again! So it will be really nice to have him here. And our little nephews are coming this weekend too so a lot of exciting things in a few days! Thursday night I go to our supper club for probably the last time for me and my mom too. It's too bad Tom won't be in early enough to come to that too. He hardly had a chance to tell many people goodbye before he left. Anyway, we 're looking forward to spending time together, with our families(especially the little members) and Valentine's Day together.

Super Sunday

Tom and I finally got to watch something together-at the same time-in different time zones! The Super Bowl! He said it was actually nice having it come on at 4:00 just like regular football season. And it was a great game, wasn't it? I was rooting for the Saints so I am glad they one. And there really wasn't any "dirty" football- just good ole football. And the commercials were pretty fun. The only hard thing was that we would try to talk to each other on the phone throughout so we felt like we were watching it together but we didn't want to talk through the commercials or through the game! ( although it was usually during the game) But it was very nice just to be at home for the game and "watch" it with my hubby.

I wanted to go to a meeting that we had at Charleston Crafts yesterday afternoon to see everyone before I go but I was just exhausted and feeling not so hot with my tummy so I was not able to make it! I didn't even take my shower and get dressed until about 4 PM- which is VERY unusual for me! So I hope I get a chance to see more of my fellow gallery pals before I leave.

Photography Drop In

I had a photography show tonight at home. It was really nice. Several people that I had not seen in sometime came by. It was such a nice success! I really appreciate all of you that came by. I hope I meet such nice people in Tucson. And a few newer friends came too. Thanks to all of you and thank you for your purchases to remember me by. Know that my love is in each and every photo I shoot, print, mat and frame.

Photography Show Saturday

Drop by my house Saturday between 4PM and 7Pm for my photography show and have a glass of vino- or lemonade if you prefer, see some of my photos and say so long and mingle with some of my friends and neighbors. I promise to have a fire going to warm you up!

BUSY Week

Life has been so crazy busy on this end that I am so tired when the day comes to an end that it actually helps with missing Tom. But now I am wishing for a little more "spare time" so that I can get all done that I want to do before we move. I want to get most of my work part done so that I can visit with friends and go shoot a load of photos before I head out west.
Tom's life has been crazy busy too. It's that all new corporate world. Every minute is filled! I miss our "friendship" conversations. Being in different time zones adds to the difficulty of any lengthy conversation. By the time he is fee to chat I am ready to settle into bed. And so it goes...
Next week he has to fly to Arkansas for 2-3 days.
I am having a friends and family photography show on Saturday from 4-7PM so if anyone wants to stop by please do. Just e-mail me and I'll give you directions.

Weekender: Tom in Tucson/ Me in Charleston

We are having our first full weekend living in two states. Tom went to a local Mexican (surprise! surprise!) restaurant and had dinner and a beer and met some local people. He said the food was good and he told me his dish had shrimp that really tasted like shrimp! (On our house hunting visit I had shrimp that if blindfolded I would never have guessed it was shrimp that I was eating!)

On this side of the country, I went to a Kris Kristofferson concert. We had bought the tickets with a couple we are friends with 7 or so months ago and as it turns out, she is not in Charleston at the time and, of course, Tom's ticket had to be subbed out. We both ended up asking 2 other friends from when we had all worked together in a restaurant many (many) years ago. It was a high end steak restaurant called Le Chateau. There are a core group of us that have remained friends over all these years. So we had a mini Chateau reunion with our friend Andy coming in from Columbia. So it was really nice for me to have an opportunity to see all of them together before I leave. And that was just a bonus to a great concert. Our seats were 6 rows back and Kris sang for over two hours and played all the songs that you remember as his biggest. He was also very humble and humorous. His tempo was a bit slower than in years past and he joked that when the audience was clapping in time with the music that if it seemed a bit off that it wasn't us, it was him.

Today was one of my least favorite days in Charleston as far as the weather goes, for it was in the low 40s and raining most all day. I spent the afternoon with my mom and my sister out to lunch and a little bit of shopping- as I need to have more things for the movers to pack! Tom spent his day with his cousin Kate checking out some more houses for us and doing a bit of bird watching.

So just one more day of this weekend living apart...

And so it goes...

So Tom and I have just about made it through our first "bi-country" week. I think we are both exhausted- he with his new job and me trying to accomplish so much. I also worked at both of the galleries that I am in this week. I got the house listed and I believe it went on MLS yesterday. The realtor is great and was set up for us through the relocation service. She has even posted our house on you tube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21PsSUDrj6o So aren't we social mediazed? (word?)So keep your fingers crossed that there is a nice family out there just looking for our house!
Tom is loving his new job so far. It has already been challenging and he has already had to do some crisis management. His hours have been long and he doesn't have his office yet so he is in a cubicle in the meantime. So this corporate environment is a whole new world for Tom. They have given him a Blackberry that I think is going to become my enemy because last night they were still e-mailing him work up to 10:30! I don't think I'll be crazy about Tom being that "connected" to his work! Hopefully, that won't be the rule but I will let you know as time goes on. One really, really good thing is that he is off every other Friday (unless something comes up). So that will be really nice to be able to have longer weekends to explore more of the area. So many of the places we want to visit are about 6 hours away and with that extra day that makes that more feasible for a weekend trip. So this being Tom's first Friday off he is going house hunting tomorrow. Hopefully, he finds us some good choices.

Tom has started "the adventure" ahead of me. He is experiencing his first day of living in Arizona being tired (he got in about 12:30AM our time) and a bit bummed as his NY Jets lost in the playoffs to Indianapolis. They have had an amazing post season anyway.

So I spent my afternoon with my sister Vicky and we went to the Charleston Tea Farm Plantation, the only tea grown in America. It's one of those places you always say you're going to and never get there. Friends of mine live at the original tea farm in Summerville so I had learned a lot of the history from them and had even seen some of the photos from when this had been Lipton property. The tea plants at the Wadamalaw island location had originally come from the Summerville property.So because of the connection I had always wanted to go. It is now also co-owned by Bigelow which is a major importer of teas. But the tea you buy from here, which is the American Classic tea, is all American grown at Wadamalaw. I do not know if you can still find it in the grocery stores but I used to buy that tea all the time and I would recommend it. Anyway, it was an interesting visit although we weren't able to cover all of the territory due to the mud.

I am going to try to do some more of those cool things around Charleston that you take for granted and do not get out to do them. I am just glad I have the opportunity to get some more of those "under my belt" before I depart this beautiful city. Lesson to all- get out and go enjoy all that surrounds you!

Tom is on his way. He called a bit ago to tell me his first leg of the journey was done. He said his flight was rough although the weather didn't look too bad between here and Dallas. I'm glad I wasn't on that flight as I am not crazy about flying these days. Unfortunately so many places I want to go require a plane flight!
A few nights will be okay with Tom in Arizona then I will be ready for a visit from him. It will take some getting used to doing things like eating by myself and even watching TV. A lot of people watch TV when they are by themselves but I really only like to watch when I have someone to "share" it with. When I lived in my little beach cottage I had a television in my room that I probably turned on a hand full of times. I only liked to watch in the main room when others were around! Maybe this will help me work on some of those projects I was always going to get around to.
So I finally had some down time to look up some things about the Tuscon area regarding things we can do when I get there. There seemed to be a good bit of state parks in the south of Arizona but as I simultaneously went through them I discovered that about half of them will be closing in the next two to three months due to government cuts. What a disappointment! I am excited to see there are several hot air balloon companies. I tried that up in the mountains of NC and loved it so much that I feel like I have to try it again.
Okay, time to look up some more cool things to do in Arizona...

The countdown for leaving Charleston is on for Tom. He flies out tomorrow at 4:00. My car left this morning for its journey. A little more reality! Busy day ahead being sure Tom has all his loose ends tied up and getting all his things to take in order. He is very excited and very nervous at the same time! This job puts him in a better position than he has been before and is actually just what he would like to be doing. The hardest part has probably been the swift speed of everything moving along. And then we don't know how long it will be before we're together again and we've only spent several days apart at a time before.
Kate, Tom's cousin in Tucson, said it has been raining and the rivers are running but she thinks it may be dried up by the time gets there. Rain is quite the event out there!
Anyway, off to helping Tom...

We are busy getting everything ready for Tom to leave. Tom is taking my car out there and I am keeping the truck just in case I need to move things. My car is being picked up tomorrow morning to be transported to Arizona. It will take it 12 days to arrive. I wish I could put a camcorder on it to see my cars adventures across the country! My sister is also here from Orlando at my mom's house. My mom has sold her house here and is moving back to her house in Hendersonville, NC year round. My sister is helping her sort through things and pack up. So many wonderful years of all of us getting together here at the beach at my parents house on the Isle of Palms. So many changes in a year's time. It is all so very emotional for all of us. But there is no time to be emotional. Too much to do. Get Tom off on Saturday, get our house ready to put on the market, many trips to Goodwill, and helping my mom get packed up. Until later...

Back in the beautiful city of Charleston! We just can't help it, we love it here! We think one of the things that makes it a bit more challenging for us to move to the Southwest is that we are leaving one of the most beautiful cities in the country! How many other cities are there that people visit, go home, sell their house, and move to here? Now if we were moving from some place like Sumter or Florence (no offense to anyone) we don't think it would be such a stark contrast! Not that Tucson doesn't have its beauty. Those mountains with the sun setting on them or the silhouettes of the cacti at dusk is stunning! We just miss our water. Now they have what they label as "rivers" out there but they only become rivers during the monsoon season. (yes, the MONSOON season!) So you go across these bridges that are just dry, very dry, gulches. And if you have prickly pears ( a type of cactus that we have here too) you should watch for pack rat nests. And you don't want too many rats around because that attracts more snakes! Arizona has more poisonous snakes than any other state but it is said that you have a better chance of being killed by your spouse than by a venomous snake! (What in the world does that mean??? Tom?)

And they have these wild pigs called javelinas that wander around. We were told they are just dangerous when they have babies! I do believe it's all just a way of life and creatures that you get used to. I must say when I lived out at the beach I saw my share of copperheads, swam with the sharks and jellyfish and got pinched by crabs on my feet. And even my own yard is dangerous here with all the fire ants! So just a new set of "ominous" creatures to adjust to that just become a part of everyday life. It is a very friendly city overall and always helps with the adjustment. Now if we could just find a house we like!

The pictures today are from our flight out of Tucson.

Last night here. We are headed back to Charleston tommorrow. I can't say I'm not glad. We are missing our green!
House hunting again today. It is just so overwhelming all the houses we have looked at. We have several that could be good choices but we have not seen one that we say we love and this must be it. Tucson is very spread out and we have been in every direction. Unlike Charleston, we can't find an area that seems to be better or particularly worse than any of the others. So that does not help us to look in a specified area. We have 6 houses in the running at this point. But there are pluses and minuses to all of them. One that we like is in a "green community". All of the houses and businesses are built to green standards. That is very appealing to us but we're not sure about living in such an extreme close environment where your house just about butts up next to the ones on either sides. And then there are major power lines nearby which I thought are not supposed to be "safe" to live near but they seem to be everywhere around here. Another favorite is a Santa Fe style house that is pretty cool but it is in short sale which can be a real pain in the arse. In addition, they took one wall down between bedrooms and added floral carpet and stripped light fixtures, etc. but it could probably be a really neat house after these obstacles are overcome. And so it goes with all of the houses- some possibilities but no clear choices.
Okay, back to Charleston to put our house on the market and then To has to be back here Saturday. (poor Tom at this sped up time line! From what we understand here it is very unusual for Raytheon to move so quickly so they must really want my hubby!)
See you on the East coast...

Another day...more houses!

Okay, another day of house hunting. Today we went to Vail in the southeast of Tucson. We were actually prepared to not like it as well but actually liked that it is under developed on the way out to the area. I would rather live in the north as that is closer to almost everywhere else we would want to go. (The south is just closer to Mexico!) We found one possible house today that I will post some photos that show abit of the outside. We were disappointed to find that one of the houses that I posted photos of yesterday got a contract today. That would be the 2 story one that overlooked the golf course. I loved the views from the bedroom balcony overlooking the mountains. And if we overlooked the golf course maybe seeing all that green might help us adjusting to the desert scene. The other one we are afraid will go quickly too as it is such a nice house with the great outdoor area.

We did have a fun eating "experience" last night. Tom has a cousin Kate that lives her and she took us to an Ethiopian restaurant. It was fantastic! You eat with your fingers and all of you at the table share the food. It is all piled on a big platter and you use this starchy flat bread to pick it up. we even had spicy collard greens which, being the southerner that I am, I loved! And was surprised to get those out west! Ironically, the people that worked there were quite skinny!

Anyway, more house hunting tomorrow..... Stay tuned!

Yesterday=house hunting=disaster! Nothing, no good houses. Tom and I depressed! Today=house hunting=success. we found an area we loved in the Northwest. Beautful mountain views and nice drive. Much nicer area of Tucson. There are 2 ways we can go with houses here. Newer housing with less updating and repairs but with NO land or older 60's and 70's houses with an acre + of land, bigger pools, but lots of work to be done. We are leaning towards the newer house as we do not have long term plans to stay here for years (at this juncture) so we do not want to spend so much time/effort/money working on our house. So I am posting pictures of two different styles of houses that we liked today. One is Santa Fe style and the other is california contemporary. Any thoughts anyone?