The Road to Edisto

Week 31 - Hues of Blue at the Butterfly House

The Cypress Gardens butterfly house is alive with wings and bright flowers...this is just a little taste of the blue family.  It makes me happy!

Taking a Challenge...to get out of the house!

I'm excited!  I need to reconnect to my blog friends and make a little jewelry.  What better way than to join in a challenge...the 2nd Annual Challenge of Travel hosted by Erin of Tesori Trovati.

The challenge isn't so much about traveling far...instead we need to travel near in the spirit of a staycation.  So, I get to focus on my recently-found home, Charleston.

Recently I've been feeling in a funk a bit because I'm just so focused on the job I haven't really been spending any energy on the rest of my life...my evenings are boring and my weekends are even worse. Luckily, my mom came to visit and got me out.  Now, this week I'm hosting my sister and her girlfriend and all of their boys...four of them from ages 8 to 11.  I had no idea the noise level and just overall confusion could go up within seconds of them walking through the door.  It's awesome.  Makes me appreciate the peace and quiet I normally have around here that I would generally assume is boring.  We are doing all sorts of things around Charleston and the local towns, so I'm already embracing the spirit!  Today, for instance, we toured a cypress swamp with a guide named Cowboy, rang the bell at the top of the climbing wall, played basketball (I watched and sweated), shopped at the Base Exchange for sunglasses, ate at a dive bar where the kids enjoyed reading vulgarity written on the table, and broke in my noodles in the neighborhood pool.  The day isn't even over yet!

So, I'm going to take a lot more field trips, even if I'm on my own, and get some inspiration for this challenge!!

Check out this Hipstamatic shot of an amazing flower (which I just figured out is a lotus!!) from the huge selection at Cypress Gardens today:

I'll probably end up facing an over-inspiration problem by the end of the month...and that's a good thing!!