RESTORE

If you’ve been reading my blog or my Facebook page, you might know that we have been restoring our rental, a duplex attached to our home. It’s just off the beach at the end of a dead end street, and the only long-term rental that I know of locally.

Just now we’ve been at work on the downstairs unit. Renting long term makes it possible for us to afford to care for the property and pay taxes. It’s why my grandfather first constructed the building in the mid-1930s. My family had a summer house then, dating back to 1911. We’d hoped to replace our dysfunctional garage door this year and take a few days on a vacation, but life had other plans.

This is probably 1954 before my brother was born, and Castle Rock behind me is 0.6 nautical miles offshore. My mother spent all her summers here and my grandfather retired here in the 1940s. Some of my earliest memories are from this place and Gary and I have lived here full time since 1979.

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AGING IN PLACE

Zora Neale Hurston shaved ten years off her age early in her life, at least partly because circumstances made her entry into college late and she was embarrassed to be a decade older than her freshman peers. But she was also a woman who lived in a society used to women denying their age. She got away with her lie until long after she died.

THE SUN HAS SET, BUT WE’RE NOT NEARLY DONE.
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IT’S NOT AS BAD AS IT LOOKS

November is our wettest month, with over twelve inches falling on average. I used to claim that there would be a week in November where rain falls 24/7. I might be forgiven for thinking all twelve average inches have fallen in the past two weeks. Creeks are high, streams running down into the sand every few feet.

We met Phil from our water department on our morning walk the last time we got out on Saturday. We had forecast to have two inches of rain in the previous 36 hours. He said we’d had six. Well, no wonder.

Gary gave me the little heart, and I found the larger one as a frame for the photo.
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