I heart Martians and I am a concert Pianist

Mr.Pea took me on a heavenly vacation last month.  Naples and Miami, well Hollywood to be exact.

I decided to give a concert in the convention center of the Hollywood Westin Diplomat.  My circus song and rendition of Chopsticks brought the house down.

Did I mention that I heart Martians?  I do.  I let everyone at Fossil know while Mr.Pea was trying on pants.

Does this make up for my absence?

First off let me just apologize for my annoying chattering but I was so excited I couldn't contain myself. I recorded this a few weeks ago while my sister Neenee was visiting(yes that is a true nikname, when I was a baby I couldn't pronounce 'Denise'). I see dolphins from my windows at least 3-4 times a week, mostly in the morning and at dusk.  I haven't seen any for the past couple days as we are in the thick of a NASTY Nor'easter right now.  The wind, oh the wind.  If only I could find the words to describe how much the wind and all her noises just warms my spirit.  I tried to get some footage of the whitecaps in my building's pool and all the scary foamy washing machine that is the sea but it started to rain really hard, the kind of rain that stings, so I'll try again tomorrow. I've heard the storm will be even worse but I welcome you bad weather.  My mantra du jour is "Me, the sea and a cup of tea."   I usually get cabin fever when it's been like this but oh what a wonderful storm we're having.  If Noah's ark shows up, tell him I'll stay a little longer.  Only St. Augustine, how's it going?  I'm worried about you down there......

Hello You. So ok I'm not dead.......

Are you still there?  Do you still heart me?  Are you mad that I've been gone?  Did you feel abandoned by Pea?  My answers would be yes, yes, yes, and yes if I were you.

 I offer no excuse.  Only that my heart wasn't here.  I found it difficult to write about a beach I loved so much when for so long that beach represented the last place I saw Mai alive and happy.  She loved my beach as much as I did and would always look through all my guide books/shark teeth/fossils whenever she was at my house.  I felt like a faker.  By the time I was ready to come back "life" happened.....my husband and I had to move and it was a stressful Spring/Summer.  I missed blogging here.  I missed my blog pals and I went back to my lurking ways.  I've been wanting to revive things around here even if just for myself.  But I wanted to let you(whoever "you" are) know that I'm still here.

I don't live on my old "secret" beach anymore.  There aren't any shark teeth here nor as many pretty shells.  But  I have this view.  And I'm not giving it back.

We've had a couple visitors lately....and a few surprise photos :o)

I was running around the backyard with Peanut last week when we encountered him.....

Luckily he decided he didn't want Peanut to notice him because I was not strong enough for that to happen.  Peanut was on a leash and all 21 pounds of Jack Russel would have gone into "making friends" with that snake.

Peanut tracked this print for a few feet on the beach before either losing the scent or losing interest.  I can tell it's not a dog or cat print so I thought I would take a pic.  Is it a raccoon maybe?

I've been wanting to post this photo for a while but "my" computer has issues.  I marked it in case anyone could guess what that was.....

Too bad my zoom isn't a pro one but not bad anyway.....

And so here's what the sky looks like when it's all over.  I was worried I would miss it because it was kind of misty all day.  I got the genius idea to go jogging an hour beforehand, telling myself it would force me to push harder since I wanted really badly to get home in time to grab my camera.  Towards the end of my run I was beginning to get worried so I did push harder to get back faster but I pushed myself so hard I nearly lost my lunch.  (I haven't used that expression since I was 12 but, it's fitting)

I'll never d that again but it was well worth it because I got some good shots.  Notice all the people on the beach.  Normally I have this beach all too myself.

I didn't take this picture

But it was taken a couple miles north of where I live at the pier where Mr.Pea surfs. I think this was taken sometime last summer. Pretty cool huh

Finally!

As I mentioned, I really haven't been going to look for shark teeth as much this year because I wanted to exercise more.  Then when I got myself into great shape I twisted my dern ankle and I'm finally beginning to heal.  It still aches, mind you, especially on days when the temperature is really cold(which makes me feel about a thousand years old).  But last week I couldn't take it anymore and decided come hell or high water, I was going to get on the beach at least once and take a look.



It actually took me a while since the beach where I live is not really my "usual spot".  My best finds come from about a mile North and it was way too windy to bike and my ankle is still not in shape for longer walks so I had to stay nearby.  The first tooth I found was this one so I was pretty happy.  I felt like the ocean was welcoming me back by giving me this gift.  It was in the "swash zone"

I came upon this claw that, some poor little varmint lost, probably along with his life......I find these all the time as the birds here are pretty healthy.  Actually, my beach is the only one I've ever been where the sea gulls don't beg or try to steal food.  Just a few miles North of here and the sea gulls are really aggressive or "fresh" as MrPea likes to call them.

Here's another claw, well a piece of one. Obviously this claw, when intact, was much bigger. I thought it would be interesting to show how different these two are.  Plus I wanted to show off the daisies I painted on my nails.

I was freezing that day.  Ok I realize 50 degrees is not freezing but it is when all you've got on is flimsy jeans, a teeshirt, and a light wind breaker that does not break  wind(insert laughter).  So as much as I tried, when the sun started to play peek-a-boo with the clouds, I went home.  I only stayed about 40 minutes but my find was pretty decent.   That large piece on the right is some kind of bone fragment that I'll try to identify on my own and those two round pieces on the upper left are puffer fish jaws that I always pick up for some reason.  I have about a million scallop shells but I can never resist a pretty shell or two.

It's been raining all week but when the sun comes back out, I'll be back out there for more!

January sleep

I couldn't think of a better title for this post but I'm not quite sure what I'm even going to write about today.  Well maybe I should start off with a couple of updates.

-This Christmas was a sweet one.  I feel really really awful about the Tiffany bracelet that my husband bought me.  Why do I feel awful about it, you wonder?  Because I had it for all of 5 days before losing it while shopping for jeans.  I wasn't upset so much because of the cost, when I told him about it, he could see that I was truly sad and offered to buy me a new one at the end of this month.  I felt so awful because I had lost something that he gave to me with all his heart and I knew how much it meant to him to be able to give me something like that.  He was really sweet about it and it wasn't the only gift he gave me.  Still though, I wish I could have found it.  Trust me, I looked everywhere and called every place I went the last day I had it on.  It must have fallen off because it was one of those T shape-loop clasps.  And like I said, it's not because of the cost or the fact that it was a peice of jewelry, it's because it was a gift and I loved it. sigh....

-On an up note, my ankle is beginning to feel better.  I twisted it in October and it hurt for weeks.  It's finally healing although the cooler weather hasn't helped but I'm glad to be able to take longer walks without feeling like my ankle is going to fall off.  Ok I'll admit that the real reason I'm happy is because I can wear heels again.

-I haven't been shark tooth hunting in a LONG time but I did find a few today with Peanut.  The weather is going to be nicer this week so I'm going to go so I'll have some beach pictures up soon.

-I visited my OBGYN last week to discuss my future baby plans....while in the waiting room I thought to myself, "Good Lord I need to find someone else to deliver my future hypothetical child if I need to listen to this hellforsaken heehaw country music everytime I come here.  I'm here for a yearly pap not a hoedown."

-I tried to look for a school to enroll in so that I could acquire an Aestheticians licence.  I went here and I swear I felt like I was at a car dealership or some kind of cult.  I went in to tour the facilities and ask questions about tuition and I left feeling like I had just made a deal with the devil.  These places take advantage of people .  They expected me to pay $24,000.00 for the same certification that would cost around $6000-$8000.00 if I just went to a beauty school.  I also found out that if I went to a local community college, I could get a lower interest loan and tuition was half the price. I had to go in person the next day to let them know I wasn't interested in enrolling because I was afraid they would out in a loan application before I had the chance to tell them no.  I'll write a post about it in the future but it would take too long to tell the hilarity that went on in my experience with those people.  I still would like to get some training in that field but as long as I live in such a small town, there really aren't any schools for me.  I'm looking to see if I can find some kind of apprenticeship situation.  

-Remember her?  She reared her ugly head recently and I'll have to post about that too.  She's not ugly, actually she's a good looking person.  On the outside.  I don't like that expression but it was the best one I could think of.  That post will come soon.....

-I still have insomnia.  It started around the time I twisted my ankle, got worse after sweet Mai passed away and then just sort of continued into the Holidays.  It's been better and I thought about seeing an Occupational Therapist for it since I feel like my doctor would only be able to just give me pills.  But I'd really like to get over it on my own.  I went through something similar during my 8th grade summer and again during senior year of high school and both times I got over it after visiting my Grandparents.  Unfortunately(for a million reasons other than sleep of course) my Grandparents are no longer on this Earth so I can't hop on a plane and visit the most beautiful farm in West Virginia so I'll have to just suffer a little longer.  I'm getting a little better now that the Holidays are over and the days are beginning to get longer though.


I'm glad to be back on this blog.  I'm still doing my beauty channel and blog thing but I've missed my little blog  here too. I just felt like staying away a while since I only had sad things on my mind in December.  But things are better now and I appreciate the comforting comments.  I can't wait to catch up!