Early Morning Thoughts

I took tonight's photo many years ago...October 2001. I titled it "Sunrise Fishermen." It was taken on a trip that I took to Ocean City, New Jersey. Very early this morning when I was trying to go back to sleep, I turned on an app that has "white noise" and chose the ocean waves sound, this is the scene that was brought to mind. This is one of those trips that probably not one of you would expect me to take. At the time I had made friends with many sewers across U.S. and around the world in a sewing chat room. I had met several of the ladies when they were in our area. One of them decided that we needed a long sewing weekend and came up with going to Ocean City, New Jersey. She had a friend who loaned us her shore home that was a block from the beach...and the plans got underway! Seven of us got started making plans of our own to get to Ocean City the second week in October (This was all planned before 9/11 happened and the date for this was one month after that horrible day, but we were able to carry out our plans anyway with just a few travel changes...I had to add a train ride into my itinerary due to direct flights to Atlantic City being cancelled.). One in the group came from Washington state, one from Virginia, two from New Jersey, one from Pennsylvania, one from Canada, and me from TN. I had met two of the ladies before when they came to Alabama for a sewing conference...the others I had just chatted with in our Tuesday night chat room! My mother wasn't very sure about me heading off for this adventure. I think she thought that there might be an ax murderer amongst the bunch! But Woody gave me a "thumbs up!" We had the very best of times getting to know each other, sewing together,eating together, and walking the beach together. I just happened to wake up early the morning that I took tonight's picture, noticed the sun was just rising, dressed quickly and slipped out without awakening anyone and walked the beach taking pictures. This was taken with my original digital camera...many, many mega pixels smaller than the ones I have now, but I am still very pleased with it and the others taken on this trip. So there you have one of the braver, more adventurous times in my life! I had a marvelous time! Now back to the present! I woke up way too early (thus tonight's memory) and never did go back to sleep. I heard Woody head out the door for his early morning walk. He walked six miles in quite pleasant temperatures and lower humidity. I had Thursday school on Friday. Esther had her long time with me today. She is getting very close to finishing the dress for her doll. It is very pretty. She is happy. While I had school, Woody made mini banana muffins. His group in Sunday School is responsible for the snacks this coming Sunday morning. After lunch, Abigail came over and we read together. I had trouble staying awake...just ask Abigail! So after she left, I took a nap. We had leftover Eggplant Parmesan for supper and now we are settling in for another quiet evening. Woody's watching TV and reading and I think that I will go read for a while and maybe cross stitch. By the way another reason to be thinking about this serene beach scene is that it could be affected by Tropical Storm Hermene over the weekend. I'm glad I was there when it was so serene!