When I was 17 and trying to decide where to go to college, my mom and I visited half a dozen schools up and down the southeast coast (I was going to be a marine biologist, so was focused on schools near the water)(Also, BEACH. Duh.) But when we got to Charleston, South Carolina I was done. The Spanish moss hanging from the old bent trees, the houses squished sideways, the low-tide-pluff-mud smell. It’s fantastic, all of it.

We’re back in South Carolina for a few days, to serve as margarita and cake makers for one of my oldest friend’s 30th birthday celebrations. We’ve crashed a relative of a friend’s beach house that is only a “beach house” in the sense that it is on the beach – it’s like an HGTV Dream Home except I AM IN IT.

So please excuse the bloggy silence for a few days, while we’re busy doing lots of this: