Wendi {at random}

I'm a glutton for punishment. We spent the day at the point again - from 11 this morning till 4:30 this afternoon. The only real damage we did was a light burn to Eaglescout's back. I'm nursing it, though. No worries. But I have to tell ya, the sand on my skin all the live-long day was more than annoying. Turns out, I am really and truly OCD. I kept trying to wipe sand off of my hands, my face, my legs I had to cover up with a towel just to read my book. That's just sad, I tell you. I came back to the cottage ready to soak in rubbing alcohol just to feel clean again. Cleanliness is next to godliness, they say. So I showered, washed my sandy bleached hair, clothed myself in my favorite St. Jude's tee shirt and star-dotted pj bottoms, and hit the bed. From 5:30 till 7:11 I slept. I was O.U.T. OUT. The sun and surf and waves and shells and what-not will do that to a girl. I woke up, was served fresh steamed shrimp by my favorite Eaglescout, and then suffered from gas for an hour. Life is good, they say.

Going out to the point takes a significant amount of planning on the part of OCD people like me. I have to know when I'll return, so I can plan to be clean again. I have to know if there are enough Diet Cokes in the cooler. It's necessary to know that I'll find conch shells. On this occasion, I was in search of the queen mother of all conch shells. The one Sponge Bob himself would have celebrated. We were not disappointed. The boys and I walked out to tip of the point early to find several. Camden swam the entire way. Benjy loved every single broken shell he found. My bucket was overflowing with imperfect, broken shells. But, hey, I'm an imperfect, broken shell, and God still loves me, so who was I to object?

So I lugged my bucket of imperfect broken shells from Timbuctoo to our very own ocean-front property for the day. It was heavy, but, hey, I'm a mom. I could handle it. By the time I waded back to my beach chair, my lower back was aching. My sea legs needed to rest on solid ground. That building-a-house-on-the-sand is for real, I tell you. Don't do it. But I was happy. My boys were happy. Eaglescout was happy, especially when he rigged up his circus tent and hoisted the pirate flag. We were a sight. You could see us from the top of the Hatteras lighthouse. We lit up the point, people. We were the beautiful people today. And the tired ones. And now the clean ones.