Post #988

Welcome From Carolyne

Hi!

I hope you enjoy reading Through My Eyes as much as I enjoyed living it. Here are photographs of the people, places, and things I wrote about in the book. You can see some of my arts and crafts and needlework in the pictures corresponding to Chapter 8, “Creatively Coping With Retirement.” As a special treat, I invite you to take a trip around the world with me through the pictures corresponding to Chapter 12, “The Greatest of These.” Now, here is yet “Even More About Me!”

Living on a farm in the low country of South Carolina didn’t keep my father from wanting his newborn baby girl to be named after a famous queen of France—unfortunately, the one who was beheaded! My mother had her mind set on naming me after her childless sister, Clifton Carolyn. This is how my name became Carolyne Antoinette.

I was born in the small, small town of Ridgeland, South Carolina, the third of six children. I quickly learned to be on time for meals if I didn’t want to miss having my share. Just before I was six years old, we moved from the farmhouse with an outdoor privy to our newly-built house less than a mile away— the first in the county with electricity and running water. My entertainment was walking in the nearby woods, riding horses, and playing basketball. I became an avid reader and an “A” student. In school, geography was my favorite subject, which later led to my interest in world traveling.

After marriage, I began extensive community and church volunteer work. My entertainment then became gardening, flower arranging, and continuing to be an avid reader. After having three children, my family and I moved to Atlanta. When my youngest child started school, I started school too—business school. Then, I didn’t even mind having to go to work because I chose the field of accounting.  I love puzzles of all kinds and accounting was kinda like working on those puzzles.

I was a corporate accountant for more than 30 years. After retiring, I took weekly classes in creative writing, painting, drawing, cryptograms, cooking, ceramics, and anything else I enjoyed. From my home in the shadow of Stone Mountain in Georgia, I also continued to volunteer, play bridge, read, write, travel, and enjoy showing off the souvenirs from my trips to strange, exotic places.

From living in the low country of South Carolina where I was born a country girl, to living in the big city of Atlanta where I became a Southern Lady, to my trips all over the world as an International Traveler, come the special tales I want to share with you just as I remember them—Through My Eyes.