My Inability to Think ...

... leads to nothing more than a simple update.

On Tuesday, Steve and I became official residents of South Carolina. We spent about two hours total at the DMV getting our property taxes paid and being issued new licenses and tags. The OCD in me is kicking in when I look at my license picture because it's off center and they took it from my neck up, leaving a significant amount of space above my head. So I look like a midget. And it irks me! But I don't think the DMV are too keen on you requesting a retake because someone didn't pass Portrait Photography 101.

Overall, the DMV wasn't as hellish as I had thought it would be. In PA, a trip to the DMV is like getting your eyes gouged out. Renewing your license is nothing, if you visit a photo center. But doing anything other than that, forget it.

We've really been getting into the swing of things here. We go to work, come home and hang out. A lot of times we go exploring or rent a movie. Steve cooks dinner and cleans up the kitchen. I do laundry. It takes forever for both of us to put our clothes away so the bedroom can look like a disaster area, but it's still functional. I've been flipping through the Pottery Barn catalog and getting ideas for decorating. I wanted a beachside cottage look,with seashells and coral and whitewash everywhere. There's a lot of ideas I've picked up that I can actually make for much cheaper than buying them premade from the store. Seashells are free here and you can find sand dollars in the surf with your toes. I've taken tons of pictures that I'm in love with and I think I'm going to blow those up and hang them on the wall. The furniture is something to be seen but it can be worked around until we can get better stuff.

We've only been here about two months and sometimes it feels like forever. Other times, it feels like we just left. Regardless, it's beginning to feel like home.

We try to fill our weekends with fun since we're spending all of our time together. We took the boat out with my parents Memorial Day weekend. Fished for a bit up the Cooper River but didn't really catch anything we could keep. Mom hooked an eel and a tiny stingray but we threw those back. Then we headed out into the harbor and towards Fort Sumter. The water was really choppy and we kept hitting these swells head on so it was a fun ride. Mom was getting scared though, which kind of unnerved me a bit. I grabbed my life jacket and put it on and Steve grinned at me.

"Scared?" he asks.

"No," I said, grinning back. "I just don't swim very well."

All in all it was a long day that produced very tired and sunburnt people. I was ridiculously burnt because I wanted to be brillant and get a tan by putting on SPF 4 dark tanning oil. I still have burns on my chest, like hardcore burns that stretch the skin and hurt like crazy. I'm peeling like I've got some skin disease. But that's OK, because underneath all that, I'm still tan.

This weekend we headed out to breakfast on Sunday morning then drove from one of Folly Beach to the other just to explore, because Steve hadn't been to that beach yet. It seeemed really crowded but I think that was more because there was no structured parking or as many lots as there are on Isle of Palms.

I suggested that we go to Magnolia Plantation because Steve wanted to see some alligators and I heard that's where they're fairly visible. We walked the entire garden path, which took us about four hours and it was gorgeous! I got tons of pictures of the flowers and trees and the Ashley River. It was neat to watch Steve get excited because there were so many plants and flowers and animals he hadn't seen before. We then made our way over to the petting zoo and made friends with some goats and sheep. And finally, we walked the Audubon Swamp Garden, which was really cool in itself. I'll post pictures soon!

Here's a crazy sight. We're in the petting zoo, where there are animals just roaming around. Farm animals, goats, pigs, donkeys, ponys, and the like just shitting and pissing anywhere they want. And there's a little girl roaming around in the petting zoo WITH NO SHOES ON! I was so grossed out. It fit every stereotypical "redneck" story I'd heard.

We rounded out the weekend fishing off of Remley's Point and watching the sunset over the Cooper River. I fished for a bit but we didn't really catch anything. It was relaxing in itself just to sit on the pier with the breeze blowing off the water and the new bridges sparkling in the background.

We're getting into a comforting rhythm. I'm loving the new life we've started down here.