September is Birthaversary time!

Happy Birthaversery!  It's September so it's that time of year where we celebrate our wedding anniversary and both of our birthdays!

This year marked year number 22 of marriage, Dan's 56th birthday, and my 53rd birthday!  Yikes!  We really are getting up there aren't we?  :)

We celebrated by taking a two day trip to Charleston.  I know, I know. We've been there a lot in the last 27 years - if my math is correct (the memory gets foggy now that I'm so dang old!) this is NINTH trip to Charleston together.  What can I say?  We love it there.

We stayed at the Elliott House Inn which is a favorite of ours.  We've stayed there a couple of times before and then they closed for renovations in 2009  for two years and then closed again in 2018 for more renovations. We were excited to finally get to stay there again.  

But, much to our dismay, they have stopped doing the morning breakfast service to your room AND they have stopped the evening wine and cheese reception.  We were so sad (and I'm not going to lie - a little upset) when we checked in and found out those things weren't offered any longer. I'm not sure why although I am blaming covid. 

We recovered from our shock and disappointment (sort of) and went to lunch right next door at our old favorite, Poogan's Porch.  Long time blog readers, might remember that that's where Dan proposed to me waaaaaaaaaaay back in 1999.  

After our late lunch we walked around the city.  We stopped in the Unitarian Church Graveyard because we are Cotells and can't pass up a good graveyard.  

We spotted the grave stone of a Mr. Charles Otis who died in 1794 at the age of 17.  The cool thing about this fellow is that he was originally from Barnstable, MA which is where our cape house is located!  This man's father was a lawyer in Barnstable so Dan feels certain that due to the small size of Barnstable in the late 1700s, he would have probably known the original Peter Cotell. This Peter Cotell was born somewhere in France around 1750 and  made his way to the Cape in his early 20s. Anyway, we thought it was cool that we stumbled on this stone.

 

 Some cool Spanish moss hanging on the trees in the Unitarian graveyard.

After our walk through the city, we stopped at Mac's Place to get a drink and watch a little football before our 7:00 tour.  We did a combination tour of the city/ghost tour.  Here's a selfie of us with our horse right before the tour.

Our horse's name was Cash and he let loose with a large gas storm about half way through the tour.  Of course we all started laughing and I couldn't help but to think of the episode of Seinfeld with Rusty and the Beef-a-reeno!After the tour we headed back to Mac's to watch more football because it was Sunday Night after all!

We got up Monday morning and went to Bitty and Beaus for coffee.  I had been wanting to get coffee at Bitty and Beaus for a while now.  Bitty and Beaus started in Wilmington, NC.  The owners have a child with autism and two children with down syndrome. As advocates for their children and others with intellectual and developmental disabilities, they wanted to start a business where their children and others with similar disabilities could work.  They have expanded and are now have 23 shops in 12 statesand employee over 200 people.

I got an iced chai latte, Dan got a regular coffee, and we split a chocolate chocolate chip muffin.  It was delicious!

After our coffee, we walked through the market and then walked over to the battery and just enjoyed the views.

 

Then we headed to Folly Beach for our next little adventure.  But first, we had lunch at Taco Boy.

Oh my goodness was this some good food! Dan and I split the chips trio (queso, salsa, and guac) and Dan had buttermilk fried chicken tacos and I had tempura avocado taco.  So yummy!  Plus, I got a side of elote.  It was delicious.  Fun fact: on our honemoon in Cancun we had elote for the first time.  They were celebrating Mexico's Independence Day and as part of the festivities had a elote for us to enjoy.  It was delicious there too!  

(I know it sounds weird, but the tempura battered fried avocado was so good with the Thai chili sauce and the citrus jalapeno slaw. I would definitely get that again!)

After lunch we headed for oour tour with Charleston Fossil Adventures.  The owner greeted us and the other couple who were on our adventure with us and told us a little bit about himself.  He is a paleontologist who graduated from App State with an environmental science degree.  We were going to be searching the beach for fossils and he was our guide. He spent some time explaining what we were looking for and how the fossils ended up at Folly Beach

And then we set out on our fossil hunt.  It was nice that our group was small because anything we picked up we could ask him about and he was right there to tell us "Yes!  That's a Megalodon bone!" or "Nope. That's just a piece of phosphate." 

We searched the beach for two hours and filled our pockets (or little aprons) with all sorts of treasures.  Afterwards he sorted everything out for us and told us about everything we found as well as the probable ages.  We have video of that but I am not even going to try to link it here because I think you would all find it boring.  

Here's a picture of us and the couple that went with us:

Their names were Lamar and Starliah and they are chicken farmers outside of Athens, GA.  They were so nice.  Going to different beaches and hunting for shark's teeth is their hobby when they aren't raising chickens.   The shark's teeth that wash up on Folly Beach are typically 3 to 5 million years old!!

Since Dan and I have never found any shark's teeth on the beach before, we got our picture taken to commemorate our first finds. We are holding a sticker that says "Sharks Tooth Club".

And here we are with some of our favorite finds of the afternoon:

And here we are with Ashby.  Ashby is the owner and tour guide and he has written a book on Fossils pictured below.  Which of course we purchased because now we are official fossil hunters!

After we were done, we headed over to the Morris Island Lighthouse.  Because in addition to enjoying graveyards, Cotells also love lighthouses! Morris Island Lighthouse is a civil war era offshore light house so we parked our car and walked about .3 mile to the beach where you can view the lighthouse.

We then headed back to Charleston and got ready for the evening.  We went to The Rooftop at Vendue and had drinks overlooking the city as the sun was setting.

I had strawberry basil lemonade with honeysuckle vodka.  I highly recommend!

Then we headed to Rudy Royale for dinner. I had the tomate bisque with crab mousse and it was so delicious.  Dan had the risotto and raved about it the whole time.  For dinner, I had shrimp and grtis because when you are in Charleston, you have to have shrimp and grits. And Dan had the fried chicken.

I had the banana pudding for dessert and Dan had the pecan pie. So yummy!

After dinner we went to Tommy Condon's to listen to a little live music before heading back to the hotel.

And then just like that it was time to head home, but before we left, we  had breakfast at Ruby Sunshine.  It was delicious!

Here are a few other photos:

We took a lot of pictures of St. Phillips Church!

It was such a great 48 hours together.  We missed the kids but we sure did have fun without them!  (Although we kept in touch the whole time via our group chat so it was almost like having them with us.)

22 years together (27 years if you count the 5 we were together before we got married) and there's no one else I'd rather see the world with and there's no one else I'd rather sit at home with.  💕

Starting things and finishing none of them.

Well, I guess it's official.  The empty nest phase of our lives is upon us whether we want it to be or not.

I saw a quote last week that said something along the lines of "Don't mourn the loss, rejoice in the launch."  And after reading that all I could think was "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah".  How's that for mature?

I'm extremely happy for my kids.  They are in college, finding their way, officially beginning their lives as independent creatures.  And isn't that what we've been working towards for the last 18 plus years? Yes, it is. But that doesn't mean that I'm not just a little bit annoyed that I'm left behind in a house with a bunch of empty rooms trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing for the rest of my life.

So what have I been doing to fill the empty void in my life that my children's absence has left? Um, not much.

I attempted to clean out the office.  I cleaned one drawer full of old paperwork and looked around and thought, "Eh. I'll finish this later." 

I attempted to clean out the pantry. I cleaned out one shelf and looked around and thought, "Eh. I'll finish this later."

I attempted to clean out the hall closet.  I opened the door to the closet, took one look, and quickly closed it and thought, "Eh. I'll probably never get around to doing this so I'm not even going to start."

I had all these grand plans to clean, organize, file, minimize, straighten, arrange, and sort! In reality I have had zero desire to do any of these things.

I did update my resume though and I've been looking at job openings on Indeed.com but so far, nothing seems right.  Before kids, I was a buyer of electronic components, and worked my way up to materials planner and eventually supply chain manager dealing mostly with pricing of electronic computer assemblies and a whole bunch of other dull things. (My resume is full of boring business buzzwords.)

Do you know what the absolute last thing I want to do right now at this stage of my life? Yep.  Anything having to do with any of that stuff that I did for 10 years. I'm thinking a position as an administrative assistant would be more in line with my goals and desires at the moment. Although really my dream job would be Mega Millions lottery winner but there don't appear to be many of those positions available...

 

 

Sarah's move-in day! And freshman year begins...

Yesterday was a big day.  We packed allllllllllllll the things into our Pilot and Sarah's car and headed south to UNC Charlotte.  

Sarah's move-in time was 2:00pm. I would have preferred earlier but her roommate was moving in at 10:00 and there was no way we could have all been in the room moving in at the same time.  Plus the later move-in time gave us a leisurely morning and a little extra time with our girl.

The drive is, thankfully, a short one.  It's only 55 minutes from door to door which seems so much shorter as compared to the drive to Raleigh which is 1 hour and 45 minutes!

We got there a little early because I knew no one would be monitoring that and also because it just seemed like we had so much more stuff than when we moved Peter into his dorm last year so we knew it was going to take a long time.

Sarah's roommate, Gabi,  (who also happens to be her bestie from elementary school through high school) had been Facetiming Sarah so the furniture was already arranged in a way that was suitable to both girls when we got there.  

We got all the stuff from the car into the room and then got the bed on risers, the bedding on the bed, the clothes in the closet and everything else essentially in the area it needed to be in.  Then we headed to Walmart and Target for a few last minute items.  The Walmart and the Target closest to the school were both zoos and the shelves were pretty bare.  But that's to be expected during day two of move-in.  (Peter texted me the day before about all the freshman and their families in the Target at NC State. It seems no matter how well prepared you are, there's always going to be something you realize you need and didn't think about.)

The best part about going to the Target though, was the Starbucks.  Sarah and I both got iced chai lattes and they really hit the spot.  The extra burst of caffeine was exactly what we needed to get the rest of the room put together.  

The girls are living in a 4x2 suite.  Which means 4 roommates sharing 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a little living room.  (Sarah and Gabi really wanting a 4x1 ((4 roommates, 4 bedrooms)) but you really need to get your housing application in immediately upon getting your acceptance letter to get those. 

Obviously, Sarah and Gabi are sharing one of the rooms and the other will be two people that they don't know and that don't know each other either will be sharing the second room.  One of the roommates moved in the day before.  She seems very nice and I think the girls will get along with each other.  The other roommate is older and will be moving in today.  Her name is Sarah (hopefully that won't get confusing).

It was 7:00 until we finally got everything in place and then we took Sarah out to dinner.  She wanted pizaa so we went to a little Italian restaurant near campus.  The restaurant was packed thanks to all the people moving in but it was really good.

Then we took our girl back to her dorm, gave her really long hugs.  I didn't cry (but I did tear up) and she happily trotted into the building and into her new life!  

I know she's going to be fine.  I'm sure she'll have some struggles along the way because freshman year is never easy, but I know this girl is going to work hard, follow her dreams, and end up exactly where she's supposed to be in life.  Remember, sweet girl: 

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”― St. Catherine of Siena

 

Of course, we had to get a picture of my mom and Sarah before we left. We gave mom a hard time because she's wearing NC State colors and not UNCC colors!  :)

Our weekend.

It's quiet around here this morning.  Dan does a combination of work-from-home and work-from-the-office.  They call it a hybrid workplace or something like that. Anyway, today is an office day for him so it's just me at home all by myself.  Sarah is at the lake with friends and won't be home until later this evening and then tomorrow we will pack everything we've purchased over the summer and hope we can squeeze it all into two cars on Thursday morning.  And then hope we can squeeze it all into her tiny dorm room on Thursday afternoon.  

We had a relaxing yet busy weekend.  On Friday evening after we ate dinner, Dan and I were planning on going for a walk but Sarah needed us to pick something up for her dorm room.  She was conveniently watching a movie with a friend and didn't have time.  :)  But Dan and I love a good errand so we went out to pick up the item.  We found what she needed on our first stop at the Walmarts and texted her a picture:

She made her choice on which frame would work best (the black one but we would also need to get white spray paint to paint it white) but then asked if we can run to Hobby Lobby to see if they had any white ones so we wouldn't have to spray paint them.  So, we did what any good parents  fools would do, and raced over to Hobby Lobby because they close at 8:00.  Why so early, Hobby Lobby?

They did not have any white poster frames so we went to Michael's and then to Target.  Nope and nope.  So we went back to the Walmarts and got the black frame and the white spray paint and finally made it home to sit on the couch and watch a couple of episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  

Dan has seen the show on airplanes while traveling but I've never watched it because it was on HBO and we never had HBO.  Sarah purchased HBO Max to watch Pretty Little Liars and graciously shared her login information with us and now we are able to watch the show.  It's pretty funny.  It's basically Seinfeld minus the audience laughter and add adult themes and cussing. And I'm laughing as I'm typing this because the show is over 20 years old so I'm sure you've ALL seen it and don't need me to describe it to you.  :)

On Saturday morning, Dan did yard work and I made these chocolate chip oatmeal sandwich cookies. That was Sarah's request as her last Sunday dessert before school. (The recipe, even halved, makes a ton so I was able to send all the extras to the lake with her which is a good thing because if they are in the house, I will eat them.)We went to Mass in the evening and then went to dinner at Fourth Street Filling Station. 

 

After dinner, Sarah went to hangout with the entire basement one last time because one of the guys was heading to college and wouldn't be able to go to the lake with them.  :(  

Then on Sunday Peter came home and joined us for lunch at Mom's.  After lunch, Sarah headed to the lake so I had to get a couple of pictures of my babies together. I'm glad Peter was able to come home to give Sarah a big hug and a proper goodbye before she leaves for school.

Dan, Peter, and I went to dinner Sunday evening and then just hung out at home and Peter headed back to Raleigh on Monday afternoon.  It's so nice that he has his truck there and can come home whenever  he wants to. The drive is only an hour and 45 minutes so it's not too bad at all!

And that was our weekend.  I'm extremely thankful for the time I got to spend with my kids. 

Not much going on around here...

Exactly one week from today, we will be moving Sarah into her dorm at UNC Charlotte!  She and I have gone shopping THREE times for all of her dorm essentials AND she has ordered quite a few things from Amazon as well.  I've enjoyed our shopping trips and am thankful for the time we've managed to spend together.  She has worked almost every single day this summer and while her bank account is looking good, I've missed her!

I laugh when I think back to last summer when I had to drag Peter kicking and screaming to Bed Bath and Beyond to pick out a comforter and get the rest of his items. That trip ended pretty quickly with me offering to just go by myself to purchase everything I thought he needed.  He was totally fine with that. All he cared about was ordering a flag (Charlotte Hornets) for his wall.  And it's so funny because since then, I've seen a lot of boy moms talking about all their boy cared about for his dorm was a flag for the wall!  (I would also like to add that now that he has his own room in the apartment/frat house, he proudly has THREE flags displayed! :)

It's been pretty quiet around here now that Peter is gone.  Sarah's last day of work is tomorrow and then she is going to go to the lake with The Basement for a couple of days and then it's off to school!

The birds continue to come to the feeder that is mounted to the kitchen window.  And last week we finally had a cardinal visit!  It was a female.  She's visited several times and I'm hoping she brings her husband.

Buddy continues to enjoy the bird feeder as much as I do:

I've been enjoying my fair share of tomato sandwiches this summer:

Toasted sour dough is the key to an exceptional tomato sandwich!

I made this delicious tomato pie:

And a big pot of tomato bisque that was delicious too!

Dan and I have gone on a couple of walks this week and on Monday this little rainbow was just hanging out:

I love a surprise rainbow when there hasn't been any rain!

And according to my camera roll, that's all that's been going on around here.  

NCSU - Year 2 begins

On Tuesday morning, with a car loaded full of clothes and household items, and a truck loaded full of boxes, we headed to Raleigh to get Peter set up into his housing for sophomore year at NC State.

It was hard to be sad because he is so excited to be starting this year in an apartment/house with 11 of his fraternity brothers.  The building looks pretty old and I was curious so I did some sleuthing at the register of deeds.  It shows that the property was built in 1901 but also it doesn't show an actual deed being issued to anyone until 1924.   So either the building is 121 years old or the  building is at least 99 years old - either way, it's OLD! 

There are four front doors. The door on the far left and the far right are single person units with a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathroom.  The two doors in center are identical apartments but mirror images of each.  You walk into an entry way with steps leading to the second floor.  And then each of these two apartments have three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen.  No central living space.  And then the unit that Peter is in has a set of stairs that leads to the attic where there is another apartment with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. And then in the basement there is a laundry room and another bedroom. (I am assuming there is also a kitchen and bathroom down there.)

It's a very interesting housing set up and it appears that the attic and basement apartments were added in the 1990's to accommodate as many units as possible and I'm assuming at that time large groups of friends (aka fraternities) most likely started renting it. 

We got his room set up and all of his stuff put away and left him to deal with the leasing company on an issue we found. And before we left on Tuesday he was on the phone with AT&T because he is responsible for setting up internet for the whole house. So not even a couple hours into apartment living and he was already dealing with some fun issues.  It's great experience though. Welcome to adulthood!

 

I'm praying that year #2 is awesome! Lots of studying, a little fun, and a few of visits home. :)