Oh My Aching Cankles! (con-tain-it)

Oh my...went off with my Darling Hubby for a few days and now my ankles have turned into cankles...

...as Cosmo Kramer use to say on Seinfeld, "look away, I'm hideous!"

It was a lovely trip to the Inn at Middleton Place located just outside of Charleston, SC. We try to get away here, for at least a weekend, either in the spring when the azaleas are in full bloom or, in the fall when the weather has cooled off a bit and we can enjoy the gardens. This year, however, time has just slipped by so darn quickly that before you knew it, fall is here! All thought with all this heat it's been hard to tell :]

Here you see me eyeballing my hammock that sits under the trees (I call it my hammock ;) I watching and waiting for the sun to get off my hammock so that I can catch up on my reading/napping.

That was on the first day...where we spent the entire afteroon just relaxing and admiring the veiws of the Ashley River. Then after the wine reception at the Lodge (oh yeah...they have it daily and it's wonderful), we walked along the path through the woods for dinner at the Restaurant at Middleton Place. Always such a romantic experience having the best dinner over candlelight on the restaurant's porch (don't worry it's a finished porch w'air conditioning ;)

The next day, we toured the entire plantation and enjoyed the amazing landscape and wildlife. Here's one of the old rice paddies that has been filled in and it has turtles, cranes, and even gators...see...

We must have sat here for a couple of hours, just enjoying the nice breeze that was coming off the water...because, to be honest...the minute you stepped away from the water's edge...the heat was unbearable. We spent most of our time dodging the sun and running from one shady spot to the next ;)

Later, we headed back to the Lodge for the wine reception where we could enjoy spending the evening watching the sun set over the river...something we just can never get enough of!

However...this is where my cankles came from. Because as the sun sets...the mosquitos come out in droves...and for some reason they just love me ;) So Kevin headed into the Lodge to get a bottle of wine for us to take back to our room and I tried to snap a picture of the full moon...

But we should have headed inside sooner...because I swear in a matter minutes I got bit over 25 times! My feet were so swollen and red (and they still are ;) that I felt like my toes were gonna POP!

I ended up taking a benadryl because I had trouble sleeping because my feet itched so badly...I even have some bites on the bottom of my feet...those are the worse ;{

My word...why do they have to go for the TOE JOINTS..these are just as bad as the ones on the bottom of your feet. I've had these toe rings for over 10 years and they NEVER come off my feet...I've worn them so long that I don't even know that they are there anymore. BUT I sure do now because the bites around my joints have made my toes swell so much that I thought for a minute (just a minute mind ya ;) that I'd have to take my toe rings off all together. Thank goodness that the Inn provides you with a spa scrub (loaded with epson salts) in your room, because it helped keep the itch at bay when I soaked my feet. Now I'm just dabbing the bites with alcohol and calamine lotion...which I washed off to take these lovely photos of my feet to share with you all. Cause inquiring minds want to know ;)

Do you believe that my DH didn't get ONE SINGLE BUG BITE!!! AND that he actually had the nerve to ask me, "Why didn't you swat them off if they were biting you?" Of which I retorted..."cause DS, by the time I felt the sting from their bites...it was too darn late!"

This reminds me of the comedian Bill Engvall, when he says..."Here's Your Sign!"

How about you folks...anyone else have any sign stories they'd like to share?

Fondly, Roberta

houzz