Beached

Guess how much The Great Fundraising Act raised yesterday in a single day?

$26,432

Yeah, you read that right.

If you didn’t believe in the power of social media before, or you were losing faith in kindness and charitable giving, you were wrong.

$23,210 came from winning bids on auction items, and another $3,222 came from straight monetary donations. It’s so impressive it blows me away. I’m so proud to be a part of community that has both the thought and power to do something this amazing.

If you didn’t get a chance to bid, or you didn’t win an item, don’t worry- you haven’t missed your chance! Stayed tuned for “After the Act” details on how to buy items at a set price.

Now on to significantly less important things. Like taunting you with beach pictures.

Imagine my surprise when the temperature increased about 20 degrees on the drive home. It was actually cooler at the beach than it was in the middle of the state. Thank goodness the ridiculous heat wave hadn’t yet reached the coast, because it was certainly hot enough for me to be hiding in the shade all day, every day.

We stayed right in the middle of two beaches: Oak Island and Caswell Beach. So much in the middle that the beach was zoned as Caswell Beach and the condo was officially in Oak Island. They were a dune and a parking lot apart.

Either way it was a quiet, un-crowded beach that was so safe everyone left their awnings and beach chairs out in the sand every night. Let me tell you what a difference it makes to lug all your stuff to the beach day after day when you don’t have to carry a chair or giant tent!

I spent most of my days curled up under the awning with one of my 13 books {shame on me, I only made it through 8} and periodically running into the progressively rougher & rougher waves when I couldn’t stand the heat. Or had to pee. You know.

After the husband talking about going fishing every single day of the trip, we finally made it over to the pier for some night fishing on the last evening of our vacation. Of course we chose to stay by the pier with the NC record for largest tiger shark catch. Oh my.

It’s not as easy as it looks to tie hooks to a clear line in the windy darkness, but eventually everything was all set up.

There was a lot of sitting…and only one fish caught. I really don’t relate to the appeal of fishing for fun…

As much as I love vacation and the beach, I’m happy to be home. Technology was not my friend on the trip {my family will likely tell you this doesn’t surprise them in the least} so I have lots of catching up to do!

Posts were sparse on the trip, but here’s what you missed:

- Ready to Ride?

- Crab cakes at the Dead End Saloon

- My 7 Links of beautiful, controversial, and surprise posts…aka my rare participation in a meme. If you haven’t done 7 links yet considered yourself tagged in my post because I’m having fun reading them.

There’s also some fun things coming up over the next week or so:

- An insanely delicious {yet messy} treat. Hint: Lesson learned- don’t attempt to make caramel during the hottest week on record.

- A HUGE bike ride. Please everyone cross your fingers that the forecasted 98 degrees for Friday and Saturday is extremely wrong. I’m thinking 70 sounds good…but I’ll take something in the 80s.

- Some fun news that I will now make you wait in suspense for, because that’s really the only way to make it fun.

- Surely I’m forgetting something…

What exciting things do you have going on this week?

Caswell Beach on Dwellable