Trip to the ER
So Hal and I had a rather eventful night. I got home from the Pelicans’ game around 9:00 last night to a very pitiful husband. He’s been complaining of fevers and just generally feeling crappy for most of the day, so I was hoping he’d be feeling better. In the span of about two hours, Hal was throwing up and his fever had spiked to 100.7 degrees and he was complaining about pain in his right side. Of course, that sent alarm bells screaming in my head!
I called the on-call doctor at Doctor’s Care (since we still don’t have a primary care doctor here) and he advised us to go to the Emergency Room. So at about 11:30 we made it to the ER and while waiting to be seen, experienced a wide array of humanity. Lots of highly intoxicated people, several injuries, one attempted suicide, one with a head wound, two with heart failure, and us. (I overheard these cases after we’d gone back to have Hal looked at). The doctor and nurses that were on Hal’s case were extremely nice and funny and compassionate…not something you find much in the ER. After running a CT scan to check Hal’s kindneys and appendix, the waiting began again.
Long story short, Hal’s appendix was fine, and the doc diagnosed a kidney stone which he passed at some point last night (just based on all the symptoms). So, after several hours we were released with a prescription of Vicodin should Hal need it, lots of water and rest, and keeping an eye on fevers and all that jazz. But driving home at 2:30 a.m., all I could think about where the lives we came in contact with while we were there. Broken people, broken lives, screwed up lifestyles, screwed up bodies, compassion, pain, doctors who demonstrated their understanding of the differences between men and women and what men are missing, nurses who got pleasure from putting tape on Hal’s hairy arms to keep the IV in place, all wrapped into 3 hours. I found myself praying for those people behind the curtains surrounding us. Praying that the Lord would touch their lives and renew their bodies and spirits. Would you think of them and pray as well?
And keep praying for Hal. This is his 9th kidney stone (4th round of ER trips), and it’s brutal on his body. He’s so tired. And I, too, am exhausted from the worry and being up far later than I have been since graduating college. 
Cow Appreciation Day & Customer Appreciation
Some exciting things are coming up at the Myrtle Beach area Chick-fil-A’s and if you live in this area, you won’t want to miss out on any of it!
First up….COW APPRECIATION DAY!
Cow Appreciation Day is Friday, July 10th across the country! Here’s the deal, go to any Chick-fil-A, at any time during the day July 10th dressed as a Cow and receive free chicken. How simple and how fun is that!? Come by yourself, bring your family, bring a herd…all are welcome! You may be asking, what is Cow Appreciation day? On one day only, black and white spots, cow bells and furry ears will be appropriate attire in the nation’s second largest chicken chain. In celebration of July 10, Cow Appreciation Day (an unofficial yet nationally recognized holiday), Chick-fil-A will award a free combo meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) to any customer who comes to any Chick-fil-A fully dressed as a cow. Fully dressed just means that you are dressed like a cow from head to hoof…I mean, toe. For customers who want to just wear partial attire (cow printed purse, cow printed hat, cow printed shirt, or cow spots on your face, you will receive a free entree. And from what I understand, there are contests at each of our stores to find the biggest and best herd of cows that day as well! It’s an awesome and fun day and we invite you to participate!
Secondly, CUSTOMER APPRECIATION DAYS!
Throughout the month of July, several of our stores are having Customer Appreciation Days! These weeks are devoted to telling all of our Raving Fans THANK YOU for your continued support and love for Chick-fil-A! There will be cows, activities, great food, festivals, 80’s nights, Nascar Nights, fine dining, and loads of fun! Make sure you head over to the following locations where we can show you how much we appreciate your business!
- July 6-11: Chick-fil-A of Conway
- July 13-17: Chick-fil-A at Myrtle Beach Mall (formerly known as the Colonial Mall or Briarcliffe Mall)
- July 20-24: Chick-fil-A of Surfside
Lots of fun things happening this summer at Chick-fil-A! Make sure you’re part of it!
Bella Collina Jewelry
I love jewelry…..like really love jewelry. All of my friends know that I have a wide assortment of jewelry and in every spectrum of color on the rainbow. And I happen to know a fantastic jewelry designer….my mom! She decided to go into business making the kind of jewelry that I wish others would do. Thus far she’s been selling things through parties and friends, but she’s now gotten her business license and is making this her real business and her real passion. BTW, Bella Collina means “beautiful hill”. My mom’s name is Cheryl Hill…get it?
She uses real high-quality gemstones, Swarovski crystals, real glass beads, real pearls, sterling silver and copper. All of her pieces are unique, but she can of course make things in groups if someone wanted. There is absolutely nothing plastic, nothing that will turn your ears green, and nothing cheaply made. She’s a fantastic designer and a craftswoman for sure! When my parents visited a couple weeks ago, she brought everything she’d been working on and I bought up 5 sets ASAP! And drooled over tons more!
Here are a couple of pics of the pieces she’s recently designed. She, of course, has tons more. If you see something you like, let me know and I’ll get prices for you. If you are interested in a particular color or if you’d like something designed for you, just let me know that as well or you can email her at bellacollinajewelry@yahoo.com. She’s working on getting her website up and running, but until then, let me know if you’d like to see all her jewelry and I will post them for you.
Like I said, these are just a couple examples…..she’s really amazing!
Anniversary Weekend
Hal and I had a fantastic mini-vacation. We headed out on Friday after lunch to Charleston to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. It was a much needed break for the both of us. With Hal entering his last couple of days with his students and with me gearing up for a busy summer with CFA, we’ve both been ready for a vacation!!!
After checking into our hotel, we embraced our lazy selves and decided to just relax. Vacations, for us, aren’t really about staying busy DOING stuff, we want to RELAX. So we spent the afternoon being lazy. We hit the market and just wandered around. Downtown Charleston is so pretty this time of year and the weather was phenomenal. We went to Gilligans for dinner…I love seafood and Hal dislikes anything except fried shrimp, so we always have to pick somewhere that he can get chicken or something else. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to put on some comfy clothes and went back out for ice cream. Definitely my kind of night.
Saturday was another pretty day. We got up, after sleeping late, and decided to go down to Folly Beach. We walked down to the Morris Island Lighthouse…took some pictures (on Hal’s phone since we failed to bring the Rebel). Then off to the Kickin Chicken for some quick and yummy food and headed back to the hotel so we could get ready for James and Amelia’s wedding. We met up with our good friends, Will and Diana Thompson, at the wedding and spent the evening laughing, chatting and eating. We skipped out of the reception early so we could go downtown to Kaminsky’s…by far the best coffee and dessert place that I know of! After some coffee and sinfully wonderful dessert, we parted ways and headed back to the hotel. Here’s some pics from the wedding…we failed to take any of James and Amelia.
This is Will & Diana….if you’re ever in Surfside Beach, go eat at the Surfside Chick-fil-A..they’re the owners.
Doesn’t Hal look fantastic in a suit?!
Cheesin for the camera…anticipating coffee and dessert.
Sunday was another morning of sleeping in, but because of the rain we decided to head back to Myrtle Beach earlier than we had planned. To round out our vacation we went to see Angels & Demons. If you’ve read the book, don’t go see the movie….you’ll be sorely disappointed at all the “creative liberties” they took. They, essentially, rewrote the entire book. I really hate when they do that! The movie itself would have been great had I not read the book. But I did enjoy the night out with Hal and am so glad we had the opportunity to get away for a couple of days to relax and reconnect.
Anniversary Part 2 – Pearls
Hal and I are the practical sort… We like to keep things simple and are pretty content with the life we have and the things we have. Whenever it comes to birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas gifts, we simply have to laugh because we often give each other practical gifts. For example: my anniverary gift to Hal being Rainbow Sandals.
So it’s especially surprising when one of us decides to give a gift that is totally unpractical. After Hal surprised me with the car stereo system, he surprised me today with…….saltwater pearls! They are gorgeous! I love being able to see the slight imperfections that were created by the hand of God in a clam shell. Reminds me of how very big he is and how creative he is as well. Who would have thought that sand in a clam shell could create something as beautiful as a pearl. I’m so blessed to have a husband who likes to give gifts that are both practical and not!
Anniversary Part 1
I LOVE my husband. I am so blessed to be his wife. While I will save the mushy stuff for Hal’s ears alone, we’re celebrating our 3rd Married Anniversary this week. Our anniversary is technically tomorrow (Wednesday), however, we went out to celebrate tonight and will take an anniversary vacation this weekend. So to kick off part 1, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants…P.F. Changs!
After dinner we wandered around the Market Common because, quite simply, it was a beautiful evening. Fantastic weather, fun people watching, and just enjoying being together. We stopped in Barnes and Noble to grab some books…yes, we’re geeky like that. After spending some time just enjoying each other’s company, we headed back to the house to open some anniversary gifts.
Ladies, you are going to understand what I am about to say….husbands are impossible to shop for, especially MY husband. He never wants anything, rarely needs anything, and even when I ask him about some things he may like to have he can never come up with anything. I suppose I should be thankful that I have a husband who embraces contentment, but it makes him a pain to shop for! Hal loves Rainbow Flip-Flops and has had the same pairs since we met 6.5 years ago. His newest pair was purchased as a gift on the night before we got married 3 years ago tomorrow. So, I decided to buy him some new hemp flip-flops. He’s had all the other colors so I got him the brown ones. If you can’t tell by the dopey picture, he likes them! And of course, I am big on cards….
Hal truly surprised me with my gift. He’s been squandering his blow money (we each get $20 each paycheck to use on whatever we want to….we’re on a strict budget) so that he could buy me a new car stereo that my iPod can plug in to. He bought me an iPod for Christmas, but the car adapter we had didn’t work, so he’s been saving up to get me one that will connect my iPod in the car. He’s so thoughtful and sweet.
Part 1 of our anniversary week was wonderful…simply a night to relax and rest after some long days and weeks of late. Part 2 to come…
Gardening by a Novice
For the last couple of weekends, Hal and I have been prepping our yard for installing a new garden. Some of you may recall that when we purchased our home last fall, the builders installed the typical shrubs that I loathe…. See picture
The house BEFORE
As you can see, we have the standard low-lying shrubs….the sad thing is that the bulk of them were simply sitting in a hole because their roots never took. That’s why you may notice that some of them are quite dead.
So last weekend we ripped out all but a 4 of the shrubs surrounding our house. We also got rid of all that nasty pine straw…have I mentioned that I hate pine straw? We literally had over 26 bags of pine straw. Once we got all of that stuff up, we added garden soil and tilled it all together to prepare it for this weekend.
While we are far from done, we are so pleased with what we were able to accomplish today. We added: perennials, annuals, irises, lilies, and a plant I cannot remember. We’ll be adding some leafy shrubs and some ornamental grasses to fill in or use as edging. But we’re maxed out on our budget for this project so we’ll add to it a little bit at a time.
The yard AFTER. The leafy bushes in the rear will flower in the summer with cascading purple flowers. The next line is the irises which will flower shortly in a light lemon color. The small flowers in front are hard to see but they have stalks of purple bells. And in front is a combination of perennials and annuals.
Please ignore the condition of our sod, the builder installed crappy sod so we are having to overseed in the hopes that new grass will fill in and grow where it’s currently dead. We’ve watered, fertilized and nothing has helped…so we’re hoping that seeding helps. I would really hate to have to re-sod. Anyway, please enjoy a couple more close ups of our first foray into gardening.
The random tree in our front yard, which we hope to replace with a palm tree (a small one) at some point.
Side view of our front garden area, they haven’t flowered yet so it’ll look fantastic once it does. We also chose some plants that would also spread out a bit.
Another view of the yard….the side yard (far left of this picture) will have two white trellises and we’ll be planting climbing roses. This part of the yard faces the street so it needs a little something, but for now it also has black mulch.
Here’s a close up of most of the plants we purchased and planted. Far right is the one that will have cascading purple flowers, the one on the far left is the lily, the one mid-right is a perennial, the two in front are annuals. The one in the far right will spread as it flowers, as does the one in the middle-right. We’ll be filling in as we have extra money. I love the colors and textures and can’t wait for all of them to flower.
So as we’ve reflected: 44 bags of black mulch, 8 bags of gardening soil, dozens of new plants and flowers, dirty nails, and lots of watering later….we’re really pleased with the outcome. Hope you’ve enjoyed this post of gardening by a novice.
Breaking up the Monotony
Now that the on-season is picking up here at the beach, my cow mascots are also out in force at various events. I hope to have some pics of the cows at the Myrtle Beach Pelicans’ games up shortly, but I figured I would start with the Relay For Life. The Myrtle Beach Relay’s theme for this year was “Come For the Party, Stay for the Cure”. The Relay For Life, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, holds a special place in my heart. Both of my grandmothers were diagnosed with cancer. One had lung cancer and eventually succombed to it along with the complications from it. The other was a breast cancer survivor, she passed away a couple years ago from an extended illness unrelated to the cancer. I’ve walked to honor them at many a Relay, so I was excited to take the Chick-fil-A cows out to this year’s Relay.
Getting ready!!
Visiting with some of our smallest fans.
Hanging out with the band pre-relay
Mingling with the survivors…one person had been a cancer for over 19 years, another for less than 2 weeks. There were also several children that were cancer survivors as well. Made me both sad and full of joy.
Dancing to the song being sung by the ladies. People found it exremely funny.
This is my wonderful husband making stupid faces with the cow.
Sorry for the poor quality of this picture but I couldn’t not share it. Because of the theme, each sponsoring team had a guy dress in drag to earn money for their team. All the “ladies” you see in this picture are guys. They were dancing to a Lady Gaga song and the cow decided to jump in and dance with them. It was truly hysterical.
Anyway, I love being able to take the Chick-fil-A cows out to fun events like these….it helps that I have some fantastic cow mascots that really enjoy doing it too. Hope you’ve enjoyed my break from work today. Now I must get back at it…
Voluntary Evacuation
Our neighborhood, THE FARM, has officially been asked to participate in a VOLUNTARY evacuation. The winds have changed and the wildfire in Myrtle Beach is headed toward our area. Not sure if we’ll be leaving or not, we’ll be making some runs to N. Myrtle Beach to pick up the CFA coolers from the command centers and return them to the stores to be refilled in the morning. So, we may be told while we’re out that things have moved bad enough to cause a mandatory evacuation.
Please keep praying….pray that the Lord would supernaturally send some major rain to stop this fire or that the wind would stop blowing so the fire could be contained. Continue praying for those that have lost their homes or are in danger of losing their homes. And if I can be selfish…pray the fire stays away from our home.
Horry County Wildfires
Many of you have likely caught the news about the wildfire that has been sweeping through Myrtle Beach since yesterday afternoon. I was driving home yesterday afternoon after a meeting and all I could see was this huge plume of smoke that looked like it was right over my house…needless to say I drove a little faster than necessary to check it out. Fortunately, the wildfire was just north of our house. Thus far it has torn through Conway and is now wreaking havoc in North Myrtle Beach….yes, this thing has traveled almost the entire length of Horry County.
Between 120-150 homes have been destroyed or damaged, 15,000 acres have burned. And it’s still burning…
Pray, pray, pray for the families who have lost their homes, their belongings, their security. Pray for those who are fearful that they may lose their home. Pray for the firefighters from all over this great state as they battle this blaze and hopefully that it would come to an end quickly before more damage occurs. Pray for the Red Cross and volunteers as they assist those people who are fighting this blaze. Pray for me as I head that way to drop off another load of Chick-fil-A sandwiches for the firefighters and workers. And if you live in the Myrtle Beach area, please thank the operators of the Chick-fil-A’s across the county for providing food since yesterday and for their man hours in mobilizing a community effort and taking responsibility for assisting our community during this time.
