Deep South

“Visions of sugar plums danced in [my] head…” This would accurately describe how blissful and peaceful I thought my life would be once we moved out of the rat house. Somehow, it turned out to be the week of my emotional break down. I guess that it’s fair to say it was building and a long time coming! Even though we were out of the house, successfully moved, successfully found the dead 18 inch rat under our sofa, and were cozy in our new, clean, temporary home…I totally lost it Thursday night. Poor Mr. Bruce. Feeling a little overwhelmed by my ‘baby Bible’ and its vast amounts of information and the 100 pages about strollers laying ahead of me to read that week, I tried relaxing away my stress in a bathtub – which is a cure all for me – but not this time, and I finally just conceded to laying my head down and having a good sob session. It was mostly curative. The Rita’s I had with Becky an hour before also might have helped.

But what really helped was when Kat and Matt asked us the next day if we wanted to go on a last minute trip to Charleston. Of course, first of all my much too planned self thought, “no, we’re keeping Mike’s dog this weekend, we don’t have anyone to watch our own dog this weekend, Terry has basketball Saturday morning, the cable guy is coming to set up our cable on Saturday, Terry has a corn-hole tournament Saturday afternoon [I know, busy guy, huh?] – we can’t go.” Then I thought…wait a minute, wasn’t I just sobbing (literally) last night about needing to relax, and in a very short few months we are not going to be able to pick up and go like this…so we went! The dear hubs didn’t even hesitate to cancel his plans to let us go on this get away and regain some sanity for his dear crazy wife.

And boy was it worth it. We drove down early, spent the day on the beach – baby’s first trip to the beach. Couldn’t believe we didn’t have chairs as I’m lamenting and struggling through not being allowed to lay flat on my back anymore – this is mostly horrible at night, but hello, laying on the beach…so Terry and Matt dug me a chair in the sand complete with a backrest and arm rests – can’t believe we didn’t take a picture, it was amazing, I was definitely the envy of Sullivan’s Island. I ate a HAMBURGER for lunch from the infamous Poe’s. We strolled downtown and rocked in some great rocking chairs while we waited for dinner at S.N.O.B.

This deserves a post of its own, but since I’m already going on and on…here’s the short version of this amazing dinner. I sent a text message to my brother on our way down to Charleston because they were at the beach for the week at Hilton Head. He asked where we were eating dinner, and said he recommended this place, S.N.O.B. We tried to get reservations, but the earliest available were at 9:45 – past my bedtime folks! So while we went to eat elsewhere, we stopped in to put our name in for brunch the next day – but they weren’t serving brunch the next day – but said they could get us in to sit at a different table in 45 minutes. Sold.

So I sent Adam another text with a picture of the menu to show him we were there along with a picture of the scraped clean bowl of crème brulee we had just polished off. Terry says it was the best meal he’s ever eaten, and it was DELICIOUS. Bellies full, we were waiting for our check when our waitress came to our table and said to me “You’re Ellen, right?” I thought one of these jokers I was with had told them it was my birthday or something – not that this was the kind of restaurant that was going to give me a hot fudge sundae and come out singing and clapping, but what else was I supposed to think? So hesitantly I told her I was, and she proceeded to say “Okay, well Adam has taken care of the bill for your table.” WHAT?!?!?! What a sweet brother. We talked and talked about how thoughtful and how generous, who thinks to do that? Well, my brother does I guess, and I’ve been bragging about him all week. I even called mom to let her know she should brag on him too. He says it took the people he talked to on the phone about 30 minutes to figure out what table he was paying for. He described me as having short dark hair and being a little pregnant.

No wonder they couldn’t tell which table we were, after we ate, we ALL looked a little pregnant!

So Adam, even if you did get your name on the board in elementary school when I warned you not to...I guess you turned out okay. Thanks again Ad, you're my favorite brother :)