What happened that day...

When I typed that entry Wednesday morning, I did not know what would be happening that day. I knew I had some major homeschooling questions and decisions to wrestle with but I did not know that my husband would receive a call from the dermatologist. I did not know she would tell him that a mole she had removed from his arm and sent to the lab was very atypical and more skin would need to be removed. I did not know that I would hear the word "melanoma" and feel a terrible, throat choking fear. Before we got more information, the words from yesterday morning came back...."What happens today - let us be assured of this - is meant, in the purpose of our loving Father, to make us holy in every part." I felt steadied and held.

It is not melanoma. But it shares some characteristics with that cancer. More surgery will be done in mid-October. His arm will be sore and he'll go back to the dermatologist more frequently from now on.

A word to the wise...wear your sunscreen. If you have young children, put sunscreen on them. Do not, do not, do not even think of going to a tanning salon. (I don't think many of my readers would, but you never know!) Many of us baby boomers who went to the beach and laid out in the sun before the days of SPF 45 are showing up in dermatologist's offices with the effects of years of childhood sunburns. Please protect your children. My big boys slathered on sunscreen before their soccer game yesterday.

And another word to the wise who know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. He truly does use everything in the lives of those who are called according to his purposes for good. Everything. Good. I am so confident of that, even when the fear grips and the tears flow. I am also confident that we walk by faith and not by sight. I do not know what will happen the rest of today or tomorrow or the next day. But I will keep walking, my eyes on Him, daily desiring to be more of a saint than the day before.

"Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it." 1 Thessalonians 5:23,24

Holy in Every Part

What happens today - let us be assured of this - is meant, in the purpose of our loving Father, to make us holy in every part. This making of saints out of sinners is a lifelong business. One of the things that slows it down is our tendency to react to the happenings instead of responding to the Holder of the happenings. He is at work. He knows what He's doing. He asks us to believe in His thoroughly loving purpose........from The Music of His Promises by Elisabeth Elliot

Words I need to hang onto today as I continue to finalize our homeschool plans for the year and deal with the frustration of two last minute class cancellations for my high school senior. Last night, as I went to bed, I was very bummed about this. I stayed up late brainstorming and yes, fretting, and when I finally went upstairs, I needed to read something. I tiptoed to my bedroom bookshelf so I wouldn't awaken my already sleeping husband and pulled off the little book quoted above which is subtitled Listening to God with Love, Trust, and Obedience. How thankful I am, once again, for Elisabeth Elliot, whose words have so often given me hope and courage on this parenting journey. I am praying today for wisdom and creativity for this homeschooling quandary and seeking to respond to the Holder instead of the happenings today.

Lovely sounds....

Well, last night we did get a bit of rain, 2/10ths of an inch. We still need LOTS more to ease the effects of this summer's drought. Still, I relished the lovely sound of rain gently falling on the oak branches above the porch roof, splashing off those dry hostas, and soaking into the parched ground. My plants seems a little happier today.

Most of this afternoon, I've been thinking about other lovely sounds. I've been elbow deep in books, catalogs and calendars, studying book chapters and perusing websites to cobble together our music appreciation course for this school year. I am departing from Ambleside's composer selections this year and putting together my own course using Patrick Kavanaugh's excellent book, A Taste for the Classics. We'll study orchestra, chamber music, choral music, and even opera and take in a variety of performances in the area. We are fortunate to have access to a wealth of free and inexpensive music like First Tuesday concerts at St. Peter's, Opera Carolina's student night, Charlotte Symphony rush tickets at classics concerts, and a variety of musical offerings at Davidson, Queens, and UNCC.


And the other very exciting musical note (pun intended) is that WE ARE BUYING A CELLO!!!!!!!!!! Andrew's very dear cello teacher found an instrument for him at Claire Given's Violins in Minneapolis last week and we'll be discussing options for getting the cello when we talk with them on the phone tomorrow. While in Minneapolis last week, Janis played lots and lots of cellos and this reasonably priced one has the kind of sound Andrew likes. He describes it as a clear October morning cello sound. That would be in contrast to a cello that sounds like a vat of dark chocolate. Can you hear the difference? It is a thrill to Andrew to think that this October, he may at long last be playing on his very own clear October morning cello!

Rain

I drove to the gas station late the other afternoon to meet my friend and deliver her son to her after an afternoon of swimming at our house. The sky to the west was dark with promise. I was hoping maybe the rain would fall and end this long dry spell. It’s been hot, hotter than I remember since moving here a few years ago. The grass is dry and crackly underfoot, the leaves on the deciduous trees yellowing, drying, and falling prematurely to the ground. It’s too early to hear the autumn sound of leaves crunching underfoot, too early to see leaves blown by the wind into the pool. I drove back home, heading east, dark clouds behind but following me, obscuring the sun. I pulled into the driveway and a gust of wind scattered crepe myrtle blossoms across the yard. The trees were bending with the wind and the promise seemed assured. Yes, it was going to rain. Bring in the chair cushions, roll up the car windows.

We felt the kind of electric excitement we used to feel when the first large drops spattered into the red dusty earth of our Cameroonian driveway, the way we would feel when we stood on the porch, looking north at the clouds rolling down over the hill into the valley in front of the house, hoping, hoping that rain would come and bring the end of the long dry season. Those first few drops always disappointed. They didn’t amount to anything. The dust still billowed down from the road behind the house, clinging to the laundry on the line. But even though the rain didn’t come, we knew that it would, knew that soon the laundry would hang on the porch, taking three days instead of three hours to dry, or not even have enough time to dry before we needed to wear it again. We knew that we would soon light a fire in the fireplace and set the wooden rack in front of it in the evening to dry socks and underwear. We knew we would exchange the red dust that covered our sandals and colored our legs for mug clinging to the soles of our wet shoes.

I came in the house and the thunder boomed and rumbled. What a sound. The lightning popped close and we unplugged computers and turned off the hot water heater. Still only a few drops spattered, but the wind was blowing hard. We looked out back to see dry leaves, crepe myrtle blossoms, and white plastic lawn chairs swept by the wind into the pool. Never had chairs go in the pool before. What a wind. And then the rain started coming down harder, dancing on the surface of the water in the pool, spattering on the bricks, beading on the wood on the deck. But just like in Cameroon, those first drops disappointed and didn’t amount to anything. The ground was barely wet. The garden barely got a drink. But the heat was dissipated. The temperature dropped sixteen degrees in those fifteen minutes and the air smelled of rain, evaporating quickly from hot ground, bricks, and rocks. It was over too quickly. Will tomorrow bring another storm, another chance of relief?

It’s Sunday evening now and the thunder’s rolling and the rain threatening again. More promise. Will the clouds fulfill this time? Will we get more than a spattering, sprinkling rainfall? We need an honest to goodness gully washer. We need rain that falls and falls and falls, all night long in soft sheets soaking this dry, cracked ground, refreshing the sad, browning hostas and ferns that, even in the shade, look parched and flaccid. I just looked out the window behind me and ooooh it’s dark out there. The rain is falling harder. Maybe today we’ll really get some relief. The lightening is flashing and I’m turning off this computer and heading out to the porch to smell, hear, and feel this storm.

Today...

in addition to missing Thomas, I am working hard on homeschool plans. That's my job for the rest of this week - to take the nebulous, loosely scoped out plans and get them wrestled into submission, neatly assigned to days and weeks, laid out in lovely order for the year ahead. So far, I've been cutting and pasting American Literature and World Literature reading lists, talking with a physics tutor, and looking at my list of books on filmmaking for Matthew. I've got a loooooong way to go....

And Thomas isn't....

home, that is.

We left Thomas at college on Saturday. It was not a difficult parting. I didn’t even cry. I was sort of surprised. But here’s why…Covenant is such a wonderful place and Thomas already has friends, new and old. In our last hour there, we discovered that there are two young men in school there that our boys played with in Kenya in 1992!!! Amazing!!!
It is what President Neil Neilsen referred to in his talk on Friday night as “the unrent fabric of Christian community” across time and space. Thomas and Eric played together in Nairobi when they were 3 and 5 and they have met again as college students a continent away.

How could I cry after that discovery?

I did get choked up on Sunday morning, though. When the boys got up and I listened to the normal sounds of boys getting ready for church, it hit me that I wasn’t hearing Thomas. Oh! Lump in my throat, tears stinging my eyes.



When he was six, I was sitting in the rocker in the dark of the nursery, rocking and nursing his baby brother. He came into the room to give me a kiss goodnight. As he walked out the door of the darkened room into the light of the hallway and turned his back to me to walk down the hall, I saw him not as a six year old but as a sixteen year old, dark blond hair tinged with golden, broad shoulders, confident stride. It startled me, took my breath away. I’d never had such a premonition and haven’t since. From that moment, ten years before the time, I knew what he’d be like as a teenager. I’d seen him, a man child, strong and handsome. And when he reached that time in his life, it was no surprise to me to see him becoming that young man I’d seen in something more than my mind’s eye ten years earlier.

His high school years were filled with football, friends, and funny sayings. Why he started affectionately calling his brothers “pigs” I do not know. But I chuckle every time he walks in the house and shouts, “Hi PIGS…….and parents.” And we are all happy to see him.

He has been a loyal friend whose friendships have sometimes given his mother pause. At times I have wondered whether he was influencing others or being swayed by some that I wasn't sure were particularly good examples. When the mom leading the homeschool teen group shared with me the ways in which Thomas, an honorable young man, as she called him, was helping some guys who needed some positive leadership, my fears subsided. I still pray for discernment for him, but see more clearly now how God has given him the gift of a magnetic personality to very good purpose.

I didn’t really want him to play football, but he was persistent in his desire. For good reason. In tenth grade he began his Pioneer Football League career and in three years helped to lead his team from a no-win season to a no-loss regular season his senior year.

I will never forget standing on the sideline at a game in Asheville. A man in the bleachers behind us was cheering and cheering as Thomas ran the ball, made tackles, and played his heart out against a much bigger and stronger opposing team. The man, after one particularly good run by Thomas, said, “I LOVE that kid.” I turned around and said, “I love him, too.” “Are you his mom?” “Yes.” “Know why I love him? It’s because he never, never quits. No matter what is happening in the game, no matter how badly they may be losing, he never quits.” He was right. Thomas never did quit. It makes me think a little bit of what Eric Liddell said in Chariots of Fire about feeling God’s pleasure when he ran. I wonder if perhaps Thomas didn’t feel a bit of God’s pleasure as he played. If you don’t love football that may not make sense to you, but having a son who has played like that for three years, and being drawn by this son into the love of the game, it makes sense to me.

He was not my most diligent homeschool student. I think he was a sleuth studier, hitting the books at times and in places that I didn't see. But he managed to do very well, often surprising me with insights from his reading and excelling in his outside coursework. I will consider it a major accomplishment if I ever read all of Shelby Foote’s Civil War, Volume I, which he did his sophomore year.

My friends and family teased me for what I said at his graduation. I commented that it might not appear that he was a deep thinker. They thought I was being negative, calling him goofy or shallow. But what I really meant was that beneath the ripples and splashing on the surface, there was a deep well. Most people see the surface, but I’ve seen the depths. I’ve cast a bucket down in conversation and brought up sparkling, clear, cool refreshing water. There’s more than meets the eye. The cool, handsome, nonchalant, charming, funny, sometimes loud and boisterous exterior hides a wisdom far greater than what either his father or I possessed at his age.

I also said that he had the misfortune to follow two overachievers. He has walked in the shadow sometimes of two very intelligent, accomplished older siblings. I’ll never forget when, after child number 2 received a prestigious scholarship, the same one that child number 1 had received two years earlier, this boy, child number 3, said, with dismay, “Oh no, now the pressure’s on.” My heart broke. Did he think that his performance or ability to accomplish the same thing his older siblings had done was somehow the measure of his worth? I tried to assure him that I had no expectations of him except that he do his very best and shine in the ways that God made him to shine. He has done that. He has not lived in the shadow but created his own brightness, his own shining path these last few years, and the sunshine of his personality has brightened the lives of all of us in the family and many, many beyond.

I’m sure I’ll have many moments of missing him and we’ll all be getting used to the way our house sounds different without Thomas’s (loud) greetings and his (boisterous) teasing. This boy with the ready smile that makes his eyes squint, who is the spitting image of his Daddy,
will light up and bring a spark to new friends these next months and years ahead. We are excited for him…and praying that he’ll remember what time he’s supposed to go to class!

Matthew's home!!!!!!

My friend, Carla, pegged it. I was giddy this morning in anticipation of Matthew's return. He arrived at 3:00 this afternoon and we are sooooo happy to have him home. This ends the summer of international travel for the Pinckney boys. Matthew had a wonderful trip to England. Enjoy just a few shots from his travels...

William Shakespeare's house in Stratford



Stratford "under" Avon during the rainiest summer in 250 years!



They needed their rain gear, to be sure, this wet summer



The Eagle and Child in Oxford where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein met



The bath at Bath



The white cliffs of Dover



Big Ben - which was being repaired while they were in London so they never heard the bells




We are relishing this last evening with the four boys who are still at home. As I write, they are in the other room looking at Burkina Faso pictures, making funny comments and laughing a lot. In a little while we're headed to the Melting Pot for chocolate fondue and sweet memory making before Thomas leaves tomorrow. We are a certainly a family of comings and goings. How thankful I am that the Lord watches over our "coming and going both now and forevermore." (Psalm 121:8)

Our Ebenezer night

Last night our small group came over for swimming, potluck, and Ebenezer story telling. We sat around the family room, grown-ups and kids, marrieds and singles, telling stories of God's faithfulness. Some were stories from long ago. Some were more recent. What struck me is how many of our stories were filled with pain, uncertainty, sickness, sadness, or loss. There were some tears. A few stories were happy reminders of God's goodness, but mostly we talked about suffering. God gets our attention when we are hurting, doesn't he? In our pain, we cry out to Him and we find that He hears, He knows, and He acts - not always in ways that we comprehend or desire - but always for our good. I was also struck by the how we all saw acceptance of pain as a good thing when it leads to greater love for God and deeper, more abiding trust.

I am so thankful for this group of folks who were willing and even eager to share stories last night. I think we all came away encouraged, closer, and more confident in God's faithfulness. We know how to pray for each other more intimately and we know ways in which we have all been shaped by the loving hand of God. Thanks to all of you who were able to come and who blessed me so much last night with your own Ebenezer stories.

Learning from the Wrens

I used to know things. When my children were younger, no not the very early years, but by the time my six children ranged in age from 12 to 1, I felt pretty confident. I’d had lots of experience by that point with birthing and raising little ones. I’d been through potty training several times, sorted out many sibling squabbles, and dealt with medical emergencies both major and minor. I had trained a small army of household helpers who could do anything from laundry to lawn mowing. I knew how to navigate restaurants, grocery store check out lines, airline security checks, and dental waiting rooms. My children were generally well behaved and respectful and I often basked in the glow of admiring glances and heard complementary words from complete strangers who were occasionally amazed and usually baffled by a mother with six children who seemed to be enjoying it.

Back then, I also felt pretty confident about my homeschooling decisions, and was mostly pleased with the progress of my young scholars. They learned to read with a minimum of fuss, practiced math facts with games, sat quietly during read aloud time, and put on plays in the basement. Various children sang in the choir, took piano, guitar and cello lessons, rode horseback, and had roles in church Christmas plays and community theatre. We cross-country skied, hiked and camped, organized a track program, and participated in Junior Olympics. Life with our gang of six was full.

Like any mother, I had moments of doubt about my abilities as a mom, but generally felt pretty settled in the routines of my life with kids. I had read lots of books on child rearing principles and it seemed that the practice flowing from those principles was resulting in a pretty good job of “training up my children.” My confidence was tinged with a bit of sinful pride, to be sure, but there was also just the confidence that comes with experience, of having gone around the block a time or two and having learned a few things.

In this looking back, the sharp edges of memory have, I’m sure, become fuzzy. Was I really as confident then as I make it sound now? Was I doing the right thing? Was I teaching what they needed to know? Was I disciplining well? How would they turn out? I asked all those questions and more. But still, by the time my oldest was almost a teen, I was enjoying the settledness of having done something for 12 years straight. Practice makes, well not perfect, but easier. Time and experience gave me a sense of knowing what I was doing.

Fast forward to now. My children range in age from 23 to 12. One has finished college and married, one will be a senior in college this year, one leaves tomorrow for his freshman year in college, and three will remain at home, still homeschooling. All are loving and respectful, hard working and helpful, kind to their mother. They have excelled in learning and have developed their own talents and gifts. They still do laundry and mow lawns and go on their own to restaurants, grocery stores, and dentist offices. They fly on airplanes to far away places and drive cars long distances. I do not generally worry about their safety and I don’t (usually) fret that they are doing things they should not be doing. They still have their share of sibling squabbles, which I mostly stay out of. They sometimes forget to do the dishes, give me phone messages, or feed the cat. On occasion, they are late getting home.

So, why is it that I sometimes feel as though I don’t know anything anymore? Why do I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and feel confused and bewildered? Why do I sometimes feel as though I am a complete novice, without a clue about how to be a mother to these grown and still growing children?

This lack of parenting confidence is humbling. I quake at the exhortation in Titus 2:3-5 given to older women to train the younger women to love their husbands and children. How can I possibly train anyone when I feel so weak myself, how give answers to others’ queries when I have so many of my own? Thankfully, as an older mother, I am not alone. Over coffee, I have talked with other experienced mothers who wrestle with doubt. Like me they feel, at times, so inadequate for this task of mothering older children. What has changed?

The issues these days, certainly, are quite different than the issues of younger days. Sharing toys, cleaning your room, coming when called, and eating your vegetables seem so simple when compared to relating to the opposite sex as a teen, choosing a college, choosing a spouse, battling depression. If your child messes up on sharing toys the consequences may include gentle coaxing, a firm reprimand, or the loss of a coveted toy for a while. But if he exercises poor judgment while driving or makes a foolish decision in a matter of the heart, the consequences are likely to be much more painful and long-lasting, more severe and possibly devastating. Is this what wakes me up at night - a fear that one of my children will have to endure terrible consequences and deep pain?

Or perhaps it is a sense of losing control. When your children are small, you pretty much call the shots. You’re bigger than they are and though they may test you to the limits, they really know that you’re the boss - or that you ought to be anyway. As your children get older, your control loosens. It can start with something as simple as no longer being able to read every book they read. Then you send them off to places without you and before long - in a blink really - they are making major life decisions. Though they may still seek your counsel, it’s their decision, not yours. You’re not in control anymore.

Or maybe it’s the prospect of loneliness. I remember the days when I couldn’t go to the bathroom without company. I have my privacy now. And I remember the days when going to the grocery store was a major outing requiring advance planning which, if successful, resulted in companionable perusing of the produce aisles and little hands cheerfully unloading cereal boxes and apples onto the check out conveyor. I can get through the grocery store faster now, but I no longer hear gales of laughter when the mischievous son successfully sneaks a bag of chips under the bottom of the cart and it gets all the way to the front before being discovered. When the phone rings and my far away daughter asks for a recipe, it is bittersweet. I am happy for the call, but wistfully remember the times we made meals together, mother teaching daughter, the two of us working in the kitchen, chopping onions, stirring soup, kneading bread. This fall three of mine will be away from home. The brood around me is shrinking. The prospect of all of them being gone from home, though still several years away fills me, at times, with a sense of dread. I already miss my two oldest terribly. I’m facing the next couple of days with a mix of excitement and trepidation as one more leaves. And then three more will spread wings and fly.

I watched a wren couple this past spring as they made their nest in the garage. When the eggs hatched, Mama and Papa wren flew in and out, bringing worms and insects to their babies. I stood still on the cool concrete and listened as the young ones chirped. I walked near to the shelf which held the cleaning bin that sheltered their intricately woven nest and they grew silent. A few days later, the young wrens fledged. I knew it was happening as soon as I approached the garage that day. Both Mama and Papa were in the Bradford pear at the end of the drive, calling to their young ones in a tone very unlike their usual lilting song. The notes of their raspy, rapid, insistent calling urged the little birds out of the nest, young wings unable to fly but a few feet across the garage, toward the door, and out, out, into the big world. I happened to walk into the garage just as one of the babies reached the door. Mama and Papa ignored me completely as they kept up their urging. I stood in the doorway and they landed on the fence rail a foot away, seemingly oblivious to me. Their sole concern was to get their fledgling baby out of the garage, out of harm’s way, safe from the prowling cat and into the brush on the other side of the fence where young wings could rest, hidden and safe.

I keep imagining those wrens when these clouds of parental anxiety overshadow and confidence is fleeting. If God so teaches the wrens to guide their young ones out of the nest and into the world, will he not guide me? And if he so teaches the fledgling wrens to travel in a few short hours from the safety of their concealed nest to the height of the pear tree, from the security of parents supplying predigested worms to the necessity of seeking their own sustenance, will he not also guide my fledgling children?

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” asked Jesus, “And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Indeed. At these words, I take heart. There are many things I do not know about mothering my older children, but this I do know - they are worth more to God than the sparrows or wrens. He knows and guides all that will happen to them, their successes and failures, the heights to which they will fly and the depths to which they will plummet. Though I would rather see them reach the heights, I know that He is in the depths, too, and I must learn, in my unknowing to trust the hand that holds fledgling wren…and child…in his loving grip.

Actually, I do still know a few things. I know that adult children need love and attention. They need parents who will listen to their music, read their books, and welcome their friends. They need support and encouragement. They need care packages and letters, emails and phone calls. I know that adult children still need parents who are always ready to listen and who will not condemn them for wrong turns or false steps, but who will be there to hold them in a warm embrace, helping them find their way back to the right path. They need parents who love each other and model strong, God-glorifying marriages. And they need parents, who though weak and fearful at times, yet know and trust God’s unfailing grip. I am exchanging confidence in my parenting these days for greater confidence in God. As I let go of my children, I hold tighter to Him and cry out for deeper trust. And this - I know - is the message from this sometimes fearful, often uncertain, aspiring Titus 2 older woman to a mother of any age – in order to love your children, whether babes in arms or young adults out the door, cling. Cling tight, trusting God who gave you these child gifts for He, the Lord of the sparrows and wrens, is faithful, always.

A new bowl and a new recipe to fill it

I love the abundance of summer fruits available right now. On the way back from the beach, we stopped at the Pee Dee State Farmer's Market in Florence and loaded up on watermelon and cantelopes. Then we stopped at McLeod's in McBee for a bushel and a half of soft peaches. So with a kitchen full of fresh, ripe fruit and a brand new bowl, gift from a visiting friend (thank you, Val!), I had to come up with a new recipe. I perused Recipezaar and a couple of cooking blogs for ideas, walked around among my herbs, and came up with this...



This new bowl is the perfect color for this soup. The picture was taken after about half of the soup was already gone!

Here's what went into it. Sorry, no exact measurements. I didn't measure anything, as usual. This is another one of those, "I just" recipes. Coty says that when people ask me how I make something, I always reply, "I just..." and then proceed to describe what I did. I guess that's pretty much how I cook. Good ingredients, favorite flavors, imagination, courage, and lots of experimenting. This soup is really one you can't go wrong on, though. If you don't have the fresh herbs around your house, I expect mint is pretty easy to find at the grocery store. The others you can leave out, but the purple basil does lend a lovely lavender color to the "stock."

about half a big watermelon
a big cantelope
8 or so peaches
approximately a cup and a half of purple basil syrup
at least a cup of fresh mint leaves, probably more
about 1/4 cup of fresh lemon verbena leaves
water
lots of lime juice

Just chop all the fruit into bite size pieces, add the basil syrup if you have it, water, lime juice, and herbs, chopped fine. You need to let this chill for awhile so plan accordingly for chill time. I also thought that white grape or apple juice would be nice added to the soup.

A couple of teen girl friends who were here while the soup making was in progress kept saying I should have my own cooking show. That's a new one! One of them thinks my pink, funky reading glasses would be particularly endearing to the audience. Hmmmm??!! A future in food TV - I don't know. But I do know that this soup is making a repeat appearance tonight when our small group comes over for swimming, a potluck dinner, and an evening of Ebenezer stories...but that's a subject for another post. I'm off to the kitchen to cut up the fruit.

To hear a hero

I am very thankful for the opportunity Coty and I will have to hear someone who has been, for me, a great hero. I read Helen Roseveare's story many years ago and eagerly look forward to hearing her speak at the Desiring God National Conference at the end of September. Listen as Noel Piper describes this amazing servant of God and, if you haven't done so already, consider attending the conference.

Well, I said....

no more blogging for this beach week, but today we went here!


and my Andrew Pinckney got to see the lovely Charleston inn that bears his name. We went inside and spoke with the proprietor, who, upon learning that he was speaking with a real Andrew Pinckney, told us the history of the property and some more details about the inn. He didn't, however, offer us free rooms for the night!



We also visited the home that Grammie, Coty's mom, grew up in. From the time she was 8 til she went away to college, Grammie lived at 64 Rutledge.




What a beautiful, old Charleston home it is!

It was a fun, and very hot, day of connecting with pieces of family history. Tomorrow, we're back to the beach!

The beach

I'm at the beach this week. That means the luxury of early morning hour long runs/walks followed by lots of stretching, walking into the house to the smell of hot coffee and homemade breakfast (Mama sure does spoil us), unhurried quiet times, riding to the beach in the golf cart, swimming, building sand towns, reading with my toes in the surf, feeding the turtles in the pond down the road, games of Dutch Blitz, more reading, good food, a trip to Brookgreen Gardens, watercolor painting, badminton with the boys (they don't know that along with Tresa, I was the 10th grade badminton queen...but they're finding out why, much to their dismay!), bocce ball, even more reading, and well, no more blogging. See you next week!