International Women's Day

i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful

before i’ve called them intelligent or brave

i am sorry i made it sound as though

something as simple as what you’re born with

is all you have to be proud of

when you have broken mountains with your wit 

from now on i will say things like

you are resilient, or you are extraordinary

not because i don’t think you’re beautiful

but because i need you to know

you are more than that

Rupi Kaur

Early Spring Flowers

Honestly, there's not much more to this post other than these flowers.  Spring is here early and boy, oh, boy is it showing off beautifully...

Yesterday I was able to take a hike near the river and it was one of those days where everything just seems, for a better word, perfect.  My brain and body needed the outside world!

The warmth on my skin.

Fire falls beneath the trees.

I see the sun set.

Travel Adventures // Going To The Golden Isles

Praise be!  I was able to take a Birthday weekend off and travel to coastal georgia.  Adventures abounded...

I spoke briefly in my latest My Life In Pictures post about visiting The Smallest Church In America outside of Darien, GA and how it has been rebuilt complete with a new hot Jesus 'pour me some of that sweet, sweet communion wine' stained glass window.  Unfortunately, the area to the left of the place is being plowed under and it's rather a mess but all-in-all I'm happy to see it back in operation.  As an atheistic humanist, it pains me to see that people want to tear down other people's faiths/support and create exclusion in order to make their own views seem better or stronger somehow?  Politicians in Washington, take note.

Ok, moving on from politics and religion...literally and figuratively.

After visiting Cumberland Island and staying a night in St. Mary's, GA we headed up to my childhood, and most of my 20's, home of Saint Simons Island, Brunswick and Jekyll Island areas.  They're about 5 hours south of my current home of Athens, 2 hours east of the old homestead of Valdosta and just a hop, jump and skip from Sapelo Island.

While I have family - Dad, Grandma, various Aunts and Uncles and Cousins - in the area, we decided to rent a house via our trusty ol' standby of airbnb.  The place looked absolutely bizarre with flags and nautical shit everywhere (EVERYWHERE) but it was one of the most well stocked and personable places I've ever stayed.  And they had a kitty on premises that was the cutest thing ever!

A few of our friends came over and stayed with us in the home of bright colors and we ate, drank and made merry.  While the men ended up drinking all night, us women made for sleepyland STAT in preparation for the next day's adventures.  Let's just say that some of us had more energy the next day than others and were able to keep up our spirits with sugary donuts and lots of pizza without turning green around the gills.  Hangover or no, everyone was willing to go exploring and eventually make it over to Jekyll Island where we prowled around the massive driftwood trees on the beach.  It was achingly cold (I was wearing a puffy coat over my puffy vest because style) so we didn't stay long and we didn't find an Island Treasure aka glass orb either.  Boooooo.

The best of the whole birthday trip?  Visiting my Grandma!  She's in her 90's and is still feisty as hell so she makes me laugh constantly.  Her views on current politics and the quality of modern literature are made quite plain so I can definitely see where I get that part of my personality from...

As always, I feel lucky to have great friends and family and a husband who's almost always willing to go along with my crackpot ideas.  2017 is off to a fine, fine start.

Sweet Treats

Even though today is Valentine's Day you really don't need a holiday to make something special for someone.  Or something special for yourself because, hey, we need to make sure we're happy so we can do for others.  Love yourself.  No shame!  Anyways, let's talk my language...desserts!

Pssst.  By the way, I meant to post this early this morning but I forgot.  Ooops.  Moving on.

Almost 4 years ago I was a guest blogger on a friend's site and I shared a recipe for my restaurant's best-selling cake.  It's vegan.  It's chocolate.  It's that kind of bitter chocolate that comes from a lot of coffee and cocoa.  Maybe that's why they decide to name it Chocolate Death?  What a way to go, am I right?!?  You can find the recipe here.  If you aren't a fan of tofu icing then just use the layer recipe you find via the link above and then scroll down this page to the cupcake picture where I'll share some basic frosting recipes for cream cheese or vegan 'butter'cream...

You can never go wrong with simple, classic melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip cookies.  And you can add toasted nuts for an extra special something or mix in some white chocolate chips too.  This recipe has a vegan option for those skipping eggs and/or dairy.  And feel free to add some sprinkles.  As you can tell, I love me some sprinkles.

Do you think chocolate is overrated?  Then you can bake up lemon sugar cookies or ginger molasses cookies.  Or both because, duh, cookies are the best.

For those looking for small bites, I recommend cupcakes because you can share and give them away for office parties, general parties or the like.  You can use the Chocolate Death cake recipe above and just fill lined muffin tins to the brim and knock a few minutes off the cooking time.  Wooden toothpicks are a bakers best friend though and when they pull clean you know there's no question of it being done.

Vegetarian Icing:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 4 oz softened butter
• 2 1/2 - 3 cups confectioner sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream

Vegan Icing:

• dash vanilla
• 1/2 cup homemade vegan butter, room temp
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions for both:

Beat butter (and cream cheese if using the vegetarian recipe) until it softens and becomes light and fluffy.  This is about a minute on high speed via mixer.

Add vanilla.

Mix in powdered sugar (and heavy cream if using the vegetarian recipe) a little at a time until it all comes together and looks fluffy.

If you don't have a piping bag then don't worry!  You can just dollop it on or spread it gently with a spoon or knife.  Honestly, if you have sprinkles or other fun decor then your finished product will be just fine.  When it comes from the heart and is made with love (and sugar) most people don't care how pretty it is!

I hope your day, whether you celebrate Valentine's Day or not, is full of good things!  Or at least a slice of cake or two or something equally indulgent and good for the soul.

Today is actually the 9th anniversary of when my husband and I started 'going steady' so it holds just a wee bit of importance for us.   However, everyone else in Athens has to come first today since it's one of our busiest days of the year.  I'm up to my eyeballs in orders for cakes, pies, cookies, crumbles, frostings, blondies and ice creams.  And that's just before noon.  Ha!  Seriously though, Mr. Carrington and Ms. Keene will have a romantic (for us) dinner tomorrow at our favorite El Salvadorian restaurant after we go to a civic event.  If you're in Athens you should stop by and learn about local government.  I'm serious about that goal of becoming more active in politics that I made for myself for 2017!

My Life In Pictures

top to bottom / left to right

// Miss Tullah Belle looking both cute and weird.  The usual.  She's been sleeping more often than not  and she's slowed down considerably in the last few months but she's still got a great appetite so I'm not too worried.  Just trying to enjoy the time we have together and take lots of pictures and get lots of snuggles.

// Not-so-fancy folk at a very fancy wedding.  To be fair, all weddings seem pretty darn fancy to me since I got married at the courthouse while wearing leggings and boots.  But this was really was a fancy wedding via Brady's cousin in ATL and we had a really good time.  I cut off all my hair into a big curly bob the day before and it's been an experience navigating this new style.  It's amazing how big and poofy it can be.  Like, 'the higher the hair the closer to God' big.  Too bad you can't see it in the picture.

// Birthday trip to Cumberland Island = best. day. ever.

// My days of shopping at Target have dwindled dramatically thanks in part to a strict budget and my 333 goal and so we can pay off some of that credit card debt from previous travels but I sometimes go with other folks from work and I always end up buying a pair of $1.50 socks.  Always.  These are some of favorites because CRYPTOZOOLOGY!

// More Cumberland Island.  Ok, this post is going to be heavy on those photos because I had such a good time.  This one is me in my puffy vest (why did it take me 42 years to discover the joy of puffy vests?!?), my Christmas gifted Yeti Thermos (that we are terrified of losing because a) it is a miracle item that keeps our tea hot for days and b) I'm sure it was shockingly expensive and we don't want to leave it anywhere) and a sign for the Seacamp Campground that was the signal for my brain that, yes, we had really arrived to the island and we can commence the nostalgia full force.

// On the way down to the Golden Isles we stopped at the Smallest Church In America to see what had been rebuilt and/or restored after the arsonist burned it to the ground.  The chapel structure has been completed, there were already notes and prayers left by weary travelers, and the stained glass was something to behold but they were clear-cutting the entire area while we were there and I just couldn't watch as they destroyed the old growth trees that had shaded the building for decades.  At this point I think I'll just remember the place fondly but I don't think I'll be back.

// I rarely get the chance to ride on a boat but every single time I do I end up singing The Lonely Island's song I'm On A Boat.  It's lame and that stuff was wayyyyy too long ago to still be relevant but it cracks me up regardless.  Maybe I'll keep singing it til it becomes cool again...what, 10 years or so?  And, no, I didn't bring my flippy floppies.

// One of our favorite places is a El Salvadorian restaurant with an excellent mural and even better bean pupusas.

// Got a new tattoo.  I love it.  And I love possums.  Judge me if you will but me and my big hair don't care.

// Things I miss about living in coastal Georgia?  The views.  The trees.  The moss.  The marsh.  The salt air.  But I'm a mountain gal now.  My heart does go pitty-pat when I visit my old homestead and see the unique beauty but then I can't wait to get home among the granite boulders and the roaring shoals and sometimes-not-so-gently sloping hills.

// Went with friends to Athens 1st Annual Martin Luther King Jr parade and celebration.  I'm still aghast that we haven't done anything as a city and community up until this year but the organization/volunteers behind the parade did a stellar job.  There were puppet shows, spoken word, music, art and more.  There was also an artist doing a photobooth type photography session for his continual project and I sat for a quick, and unsuprisingly awkward looking, photo.  

// There was more to my birthday weekend besides Cumberland Island.  Brady and I rented an airbnb in Brunswick that happened to be the restored home where a long ago ex-boyfriend had once lived.  I didn't recognize it from the pictures and didn't put it all together until we were sent the address but it turned out to be cool because I know where everything is in that neighborhood.  We invited a few friends over and we all ate pizza and the guys drank wayyyy too much whisky because they always do when they get together and then we all went to Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island.  The driftwood trees are uh-may-zing.  I usually go to the other end of the island because it's quieter but we had the place to ourselves on a cold blustery morning in January.

// A throwback picture to New Year's Eve where we tilled a friend's garden and ending up going to sleep by 10pm because we were exhausted from it.  I love days like that.  Where we come together with others and make something happen.  

Big thanks to everyone who has sent postcards!  I just mailed out over a dozen to places all over the world.  Keep 'em coming!  Go here to find out more.  

And if you happen to be in the Athens, GA area there's The People's Power Happy Hour tonight at Normal Bar where you can mix politics and postcards.

"Making our legislators work for us doesn't have to be work for us. We can eat. We can drink. We can laugh. We can--AND WILL!-- hold our legislators accountable to us, and we will have tons of fun doing it. 

Got a political issue that makes you feel some kind of way? We'll have the resources you need to make your voice heard, including phone numbers and addresses for our local and federal policymakers! As well we'll be jointly constructing a few letters as practice if you're worried about what to say. 

On top of that, we'll have postcards from Classic City Postal Service and others that you can send to Senator Johnny Isakson, Senator David Perdue, Congressman Jody Hice, Mayor Nancy Denson and others."

Have a great Monday and keep up the good fight!

Travel (And Birthday) Adventures // Cumberland Island Natl. Seashore

When I was much younger I would spend most of every summer on a tiny island off the coast of Georgia with a variety of cousins, aunts and uncles from my paternal family.  I would chase armadillos (sorry about that my little ones!), hike for hours, take cold rainwater showers, watch wild horses roam, avoid jellyfish stings, get sunburned and bug bit, eat my weight in butter cookies and fried Spam sandwiches, look for sharks teeth, climb oak trees 20x my age and watch sea turtles hatch from their sandy nests.  As you can imagine, Cumberland Island became almost something mythos in my adult life and I always remembered it with a sense of awe.  Fast forward 20+ years and I finally found myself back on the tiny old ferry, The Cumberland Queen, chugging along to that island once again.  All for my birthday...wheeeee!

Before we dive into pictures let me give you some quick facts about the island.  It's over 36000 acres, has a varied and wild history, is home to a number of native species as well as a few invasive, has ruins and important sites/sights, is unlike anywhere else I've ever been and is currently being threatened with some (what I think is sneaky and underhanded) developments.  Go here to read more about the island.  If you are interested about how you can help keep millionaires from destroying the ecosystems then I'll share that at the very end...

Here's to waking up and finding out that the 70 degree weather you'd arrived to the night before had changed to a 40 degree cloudy morning with wind gusts of 25mph.  I was prepared because I always overpack.  Brady was not.  We were both tired thanks in part to the music the saloon played til late in the night.  Yes, we stayed in a hotel that had a saloon that was full of doggies and drunk folk.  That was a first.  But neither one us got seasick so that's a plus!

This picture has been hanging in that spot for over 30 years.  It was there when I first came to the island at the age of 8!

These trees.  These treeees!  I truly miss seeing Spanish Moss.

There are lots of wild horses on Cumberland Island...and lots of horse poop.

The only other person who braved the weather with us was a 72 year old woman named Ruth.  She's on an epic solo road trip adventure that will eventually take her back to Asheville where she'll then move into a retirement home.  As she put it 'I'm ready to simplify and not have to worry about snowshoeing down the mountain anymore.'  Fair enough.  I had the pleasure of spending most of the day with her and listening to her speak of some amazing times.

We saw more wild turkeys that I've ever seen in my life.  I stopped counting after the fifth flock (or rafter, which is what some folks prefer to call a group of these fine feathered friends) of them ran across our path.  These two were fearless and I think I could've reached out and touched them but, of course, I didn't.  Sadly, we didn't see the wild horses til we were on the ferry out.  When I was a kid we would see them regularly and one year they stampeded and trampled our tents into the ground.  That was a day to remember!  Maybe next trip we'll see horses and turkeys together.  *mind blown*

A good many of the structures are slowly going back into the ground.  Salt air, hurricanes and the fact that these building were abandoned for decades (or burned, as in the case of Dungeness in the background) have really taken a toll on them.

After 8 years of exploring the US, eastern Canada, parts of Europe and a smidgen of Iceland, this guy and I know what to expect from each other on trips.  And yet this time Brady really surprised me with how long he kept a cheery attitude in the wind and cold and isolated surroundings.  I don't want to sound like a jerk here but I tend to stay focused and enjoy the outdoors much longer than he does.  Usually by hour 4 he's more than ready to throw in the towel and go read the news with his slippers on and some kitties sitting on his lap while I'm all over in some trees taking notes and photos of random things and not wanting the day to end.  We're different but that's fine and we make it work more often than not.  This trip was around 8 hours from start to finish and since you walk everywhere on the island (there are a few cars for park service employees) and have to pack in water, food, etc, by the time the ferry comes back to pick you up you'll find that you're exhausted but fulfilled.  Brady lasted about 7 1/2 hours which is a new record for him!  He's pictured here at around hour 5 and still had a cute smile going on.

These ruins are what remain of the mansion of Dungeness and it hasn't changed one bit in my absence.  Revolutionary War Hero General Nathanael Greene purchased land on Cumberland Island in 1783. Following his death, his widow Catherine Greene, constructed a four-story tabby home that she named Dungeness. Thomas Carnegie and his wife Lucy began building another Dungeness on the original foundation in 1884. The Carnegie's Dungeness burned in 1959 and today only the ruins remain on the site.

My photo from our visit in January 2017...

Almost the same spot in the early 1900's...

Sea Camp is the tiny campground on the island equipped with rainwater showers, flush toilets and not much else except privacy, beauty and big trees.  I vividly remember climbing around on this one quite often.

The sun came out on our return beach walk but it didn't illuminate any sharks teeth for me.  Dang it!

I was so sad to see my day trip end although Brady was ready to get our airbnb in Brunswick and warm up with a hot shower and an even hotter hot toddy.  Birthday trip = perfect time!

What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.

Mollie Beattie

Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Pretty amazing place, right?  How unfortunate that individuals, some of the few who chose not to pass the land over to the park even though everyone expected them to do so eventually, have chosen to try to start development on the island.  As of now they've been granted the first steps of a variance that should NOT have been allowed but there's hope that this will all be shut down.  To develop that area of the island is to mar its natural beauty and begin a slippery slope of allowing land development to slowly destroy the very thing that makes Cumberland Island special.

How can you help?  First, read more about this and form your own opinion.  Hopefully you'll agree with my choice of challenging this situation.  If you do agree that the beginnings of individual development should NOT be permitted then please sign this petition in an effort to help keep Cumberland Island the pristine and wild seashore/island that it is.  You can also email the County Clerk at kberry@co.camden.ga.us these talking points:

• Congress established the Cumberland Island National Seashore, which encompasses the entire island, to preserve this iconic place in its primitive undeveloped state. 
• Consistent with the authorizing legislation, Camden County zoned the inholdings on the island as Conservation/Preservation to ensure that these areas were protected from any development that would destroy their natural and historic character. 
• Tourism is the primary economic engine for St. Marys and other parts of Camden County ($90,320,000 in 2015), and Cumberland Island is at the center of our tourism efforts considering that 60,000 people visit the island each year. 
• The hundreds of commenters, thousands of petition signers, and numerous newspaper articles reveal that people visit and return to Cumberland Island because of its historic and ecological character. 
• The Lumar tract is located in the heart of Cumberland Island immediately adjacent to the Sea Camp campground--the most-visited area of the island; development of the tract could dramatically impact visitors’ Cumberland Island experience. 
• Lumar has not, and cannot, demonstrate that it meets the five criteria required for a hardship variance; in granting the variance, the Planning Commission improperly departed from County zoning requirements that have been in place for years. 
• If the Board of Commissioners upholds this decision, it will fly in the face of the work done to market Camden County as progressive, environmentally aware, and financially strong.
• All of this information and more can be found over at www.instagram.com/coastal.south/

If you made it all the way to the end of this post then thank you.  For being a reader and for caring.  :)

Goals, Dreams And Ambitions For The New Year

“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.” 

Flannery O'Connor

Activism aka 'do more' / With a president and vice-president who are about to undo most of the progress our country has made over the last 8 years and are striving to bury our nation under a mountain of negative changes, I have been unbelievably compelled to become more active in politics both locally and nationally.  I've done more than my share of writing petitions and walking in protest and voting and brushing up on how our political system works but that's not enough.  My voice needs to be out there and I need to make this a concern 365 days a year.  I've joined a political reading group to educate myself further and attended meetings at various activist groups.  Fledgling steps but they're not tentative per se.  I'm driven but I'm finding a path that works for me and where my voice can join others who are stridently calling for accountability.

Learn to drive a stick shift aka manual transmission / I learned to drive at a very young age as many tend to do when you live in the boonies of south Georgia.  Before I was even in double digits agewise, I was hurtling around the woods on a three-wheeler or roaring around the yard on the riding lawnmower (at least that's how it seemed to me) or bouncing all over the place on a tractor.  Of course I didn't learn how to drive well/better until I was older and I didn't learn how to somewhat drive a manual car until I was a senior in high school.  David M was my crush at the time and he had a Volkswagen Vanagon and he taught me how to navigate that old car around the movie theater parking lot.  But since my goal was to get David's attention and not how to really learn to drive stick shift, well, I've never truly driven a manual car properly.  2017 is the year!

Buy a house and/or move aka shit or get off the pot /  Our house has moved from 'somewhat rustic' to 'holy shit, this place is falling down around us'.  We've made do in this ramshackle homestead for the last two years despite the sometimes dripping ceilings and the sink that makes ominous noises but we know we're going to have to start looking for a new place eventually.  With the competition for homes in Athens a very serious thing, one puts up with some stupid stuff to get a roof over your head.  The city has a booming housing market that has quite the disparity between students and long-term residents, and most home rentals in the area that we want to stay in are way out of our budget.  The decision has been made that this is the year we either buy a home in Athens, which will be cheaper than renting and provide us with an investment, or we move to the country (15-20 minutes away) and pay less rent or we move to the city of my dreams.  Two fairly realistic and somewhat reasonable goals and then *BAM* there's that one goal that's a little extreme.  But something will happen and it'll probably be one of the former, which is fine for now.  We're luckier than many, no matter what happens.

Tend a garden at my friend's farm / In the last few weeks I've filled up at least four big ol' tofu buckets with compost materials from the bakery - egg shells, strawberry tops, rinds, pulp, apple cores, etc - with the intent of bringing it all to my friend's plot of land that we tilled on NYE.  Add to that a big stack of heirloom seed catalogs (to browse not to compost!) and literature on indigenous plants, and you've got something that'll be taking up a good deal of my free time soon.  Plus, I love making scarecrows!  Not scary ones, mind you but more like this.

Set a reading challenge / I've got a Goodreads account and I set a goal to read 40 books this year even though I've not completed 50% of these challenges in prior years.  Oops!  But I've got a good list that I'll update soon, and the stack of books beside my bed and in my Kindle are growing weekly.  That's a good sign, right?  Right?

Minimize social media / Recently I've tried to shut down a number of sites that are connected to the blog in order to have more control of my output and presentation.  Bloglovin' was the main one since I never check it, it won't let you remove or change content and I don't want my blog on it anymore.  So, if I unfollowed you there please don't be offended!  I was trying to get off the thing entirely and was doing everything I could think of to make it an easier transition but at that point I didn't realize that once you're in, you're in.  If anyone has any information how to shut it down and get my old posts off then please let me know!  I'm still on Instagram and Goodreads and sometimes Tumblr for fun but I'm off of my other sites including Facebook.  The overall goal is to spend more of my free time writing and volunteering.

Write more / I've been working on a book for years now but haven't gotten far and every time I walk by my folder on the desk I get a guilty feeling.  I'm not saying I'm finishing it this year but I'd like to make some progress.

Buy only from the items found via the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics’ (CCIC) Leaping Bunny Program / This is something I've been slowly doing already as I've culled from my already pretty small make-up routine product line all those items which don't fit into the category 'cruelty free'.  But I've bulked up on my skincare routine so I've been doing a lot of research to make sure I'm buying the best products for my needs.  It's been important to me to try to take care of my body with incremental changes both inside and out, and I think it's just as important to try to do so with as little harm to others as possible.

Visit all of Georgia's natural wonders /  There are seven (7) to be exact.  And I've been to all of them except one!

Amicalola Falls State Park

Okefenokee Swamp

Providence Canyon

Radium Springs

Stone Mountain

Tallulah Gorge

Warm Springs

You can link back to Amicalola Falls, Tallulah Gorge and Radium Springs by clicking their names above.

I grew up in the Okefenokee Swamp but have so few pictures on the blog about so I'll need to remedy that by visiting family down south again.  The swamp's park is about to celebrate 70 years so maybe I'll make it to that!  Providence Canyon - we stopped at during a trip to Appalachicola, FL but I didn't take pictures because the camera was somewhere under a mound of luggage.  Stone Mountain - I haven't been to since I was 12 and I really don't want to go back since it's got Confederate icons carved on it and it was the meeting site of the local KKK.  Bleh.  So, that one you may just have to take me on my word for.  As an adult I'm totally baffled at this being a family theme park.  If you want to see the unique natural beauty of that area might I suggest Arabia Mountain?  Tallulah Gorge was a day long hiking adventure that took hours longer than expected but ended up being an all around fun time.  The one I really need to go to is Warm Springs where Franklin D. Roosevelt built a house around some natural, healing waters.  Anyhoo, expect a post on this at some point.

Complete the 333 challenge by the end of the year / My friend Cater is one of the most interesting people I've ever known and she's constantly seeking out ways to improve herself and the world around her.  During the year we lived together in college, we both had quite the collection of stuff - books, cookware, little bits and bobs, and clothes...lots of clothes.  The lots of clothes thing has continued unabated til now.  Cater, who has since done things like hike the Appalachian Trail in it's entirety and spent 2 years volunteering to help women in South America and now lives in Asheville teaching trouble youth, has taken the 333 challenge to heart and has completely revamped her wardrobe and accessories to include only 33 items for 3 months.  Ahem.  33 items for 3 months.  That is minimalism.  That is planning ahead.  And those are both things that I've been historically terrible about in regards to my wardrobe.  But I'm going to give it a go and see what happens.  I'm cleaning out my closest and downsizing yet again but this time with some clarity and an idea of where I'm going with outfits and wearability.  I'm getting ready!  Everything you'll see me in may consist of the same 10 floral dresses, 2 pair of clogs and denim jacket but I'm ok with that.

Exhibit my photography / This may be the easiest one to complete!  The Grit has a rotating art exhibit with works of local artists and all I need to do is get my name on the list.  Oh, and go take the series of pictures I want.  Oh, and figure out framing.  Oh, this may not be the easiest thing after all.  But I've already set wheels in motion so I can't drag my feet.  I'm scouring thrift stores for old frames this week and I bought a new camera lens instead of some vintage clogs I'd been drooling over (one good thing that the 333 challenge will do is keep my thrifting in check) so you know I'm for realsies on this one.

Be kind to others and to myself / Just a reminder.  Always.

Postcard Exchange / Pen Pals

This is something I used to do regularly.  Ah, to sit down at my desk in the waning afternoon light, sip some tea, nibble on a pen/pencil and just put some thoughts to paper.  Then send if off to a friend hoping it brightens their day or just make them feel a bit more connected in today's cynical world.  It's an almost lost art, in my humble opinion, in this day and age of social media gone awry.  Just write, I say.  It's good for your mind and soul!

So, help me meet reconnect with all of y'all via this medium.  I have a huge stack of postcards from my travels and a big ol' roll of stamps at the ready!

How To Swap  You can either a) send me a postcard and I'll send you one when I get yours OR you can email me your address (mine's provided at the bottom of this post) and I'll go ahead and send you a card.  Easy peasy.

Theme  Share something about yourself.  Where you are from originally.  Your favorite food to eat or make.  Where you volunteer.  Your most difficult goal for the year.  Anything you feel comfortable with.  Be as creative as you like or keep it simple and sweet.  Make or buy the postcard.  That part doesn't matter as long as you put some thought into it or make it personal and reflective of you.  This is all about getting to know each other in varying ways and supporting each others endeavors, maybe?  Or if you need a theme for named for you in order to encourage the start of the whole process might I suggest discussing the recent marches and maybe share what you feel is important to you?  Not political?  How about the best book you've read in the last few months or some art you feel connected with?

How Often  As much as you'd like.  Once.  Twice.  Three times (a lady).  A hundred.  I'll answer every email and/or every card sent.  If you need me I'm here.

Where  All correspondence can be addressed to: Jennifer Keene 145 Mulberry St Athens, GA 30601.  Email is gritsandmoxie@gmail.com.  No spam or the like, ok?  Thanks.

Questions  Email me.  The address is right there ^ .

I can't wait to start writing to you all!  The postcards are waiting...

Travel Adventures // Radium Springs

Hi!  Happy New Year!

It feels a bit weird posting pictures from my November 2016 roadtrip when I'm working on my goals/wishes/dreams for 2017 but since I'm not quite finished with the latter I'll just get on with the former.  So, on to the weird, wild and unique place of Radium Springs in southern Georgia!

It was originally a ceremonial site, revered by Native Americans who named it Skywater. For later settlers, it was a popular swimming hole called Blue Springs.

Then in the 1920s, traces of radium were found in the springs. Radium glows a faint luminescent blue and is incredibly radioactive, but there’s not enough in the water to be dangerous. And since bathing in mineral water was all the rage at the time, developers set to work making Radium Springs the go-to destination of their day.

And it was. In its heyday, the site housed a luxe resort known as the Casino. There were dinners, dances, beauty pageants, epic golf tournaments and evening canoe rides. Then the Casino fell on hard times. A devastating fire in 1982 and two floods in the ’90s destroyed the building past recovery. Meanwhile, a number of deaths, including divers who got lost in the complex cave system, cast a shadow over Radium Springs.

The giant Casino was torn down, but its bright white base remained as a foundation for the garden. The city of Albany, where the springs are located, opened it to the public in 2010, with no swimming allowed. Exotic and native plants bloom on the terraces above the springs. For the curious, scattered historic markers detail its strange history.  (via)

Before you scroll down to my pictures below I suggest you take a gander at this video here.  It will show you how the springs have looked in the past as well as a visual smidge of a backstory of Radium Springs.  Unfortunately, a decade long drought coupled with a change in how the city draws water has wrought some additional changes on the area.  Radium Springs is now more-often-than-not leaning towards pretty dry and is no longer full of crystal blue water that brought people decades ago.  Although when I visited, as you'll see in the following photos, the water is on the rise slowly but surely.  Again, not blue and somewhat choked with weeds but you can get glimmers of what once was and what could be again if the conditions were right.

Rusty remnants of bygone days are just about everywhere...

Can you see that small blue and white sign amongst the kudzu on the tree on the right?  That marks the height of the water level in the area during one of those massive floods that hit the Albany, GA area.  It's hard to wrap your mind around how much water it took to bring it to those levels...

Reflections on the small batches of crystal clear water.  There fish that were over a foot long swimming all about but I couldn't get any kind of shot...

Like it said in the paragraphs above, there is no more swimming at Radium Springs.  At least, not that anyone is aware of.  *wink wink*  I imagine that people still do so since you have to find ways to cool off in those intense Georgia summers!  But it's probably not pleasant.  But when did things like that ever stop anyone?

While the natural splendor of the place is somewhat diminished it's still unbelievably peaceful, and full of beautiful spanish moss and big ol' trees too.  I can just picture what it looks like in spring with azaleas, dogwoods, wysteria and more just blooming up a storm.  This is somewhere I'd definitely visit again...