I forgot to publish this post last week and then got another sinus infection-oops

+So anyway here it is.  I've been sick since last Tuesday with yet another sinus infection.  I saw my doc who suggested I might be spending more time outdoors now that I no longer have access to an indoor gym so I should probably take antihistamines more often.  Much as I hate to, I'll have to comply. Last week I noticed this turtle nest and since then about 6 more have popped up plus one new one that Peanut and I found about 30 paces from my house just minutes ago. I  reported it to the Habitat Conservation people in my county who will now get the local Sea Turtle patrol to mark it for protection. So yay me.  SO continue reading this post but just pretend that it's last week instead of this week. Cuz it's all old news by now but you'll enjoy it.+

Click on the photos to enlarge, you'll see the details much easier.


I've been at the beach all week/weekend. Jogging and looking for shark teeth, all that good stuff. My finds have been nothing to brag about. Just a few here and there as I think I need to start riding my bike a mile further north where I used to find all my treasures. But it could just be the tide. Anyway, we've had a couple visitors to our beach and to our house I thought you might fall in love with.

While jogging last Friday, I came upon a sea turtle nest as I have in the past. BTW if by any chance you clicked that link and saw the one from the past I posted, then you'll be happy to know that when I passed  that very spot last Wednesday, there's a nest marked off in just about the same spot which likely means it's either the same Mother turtle or one of her offspring's nest.  Isn't it sweet to hear something like that after seeing all those oil spill dead animal photos on CNN?  It's true-I'll jog by there later and take a pic for you guys.

 But this one's special, not just because it's also marked for protection and 2.5 miles south of the one I was just telling you about . The wonderful thing about this particular one is that I noticed how "fresh" it was.



If you look closely, you'll notice her tracks going back to the ocean.




I marked it with stars for you in case your eyes couldn't find it.

Cheer Up Buttercup

This post is dedicated to a certain little bird who recently confided in me.....remember what I said.  Keep your chin up chickadee, we've all been there.  In the mean time here are some random occurrences to take your mind off the sad thing that the internets would be interested to know as well:


* A week and a half ago my ankles were attacked by yellow flies.  I didn't really feel anything until a couple days later when hellfire  itchy red bumps showed up and nothing would work.  Not cortisone, not aloe, not crying or cursing the air.  So you know, put that in your, "thank God that didn't happen to me" file.  The red bumps are still covering my ankles even now and yes they still itch dammit.


*I finally finished, "The Passion of Mary Magdalen," by Elizabeth Cunningham. Would I recommend it? hmmm.  As a Christian, make that an ex-Catholic Episcopalian, I can honestly say these kinds of stories don't freak me out in the least.   I wasn't  "there" so I don't know what happened and I'm not going to miss out on a good story just because of someone else's uptight issues. But if I do recommend the book it would be because I think this book paints a really good portrait of the times and what life for women was like.  If I don't recommend the book it would be because I thought the writing wasn't as good as it could have been.  I think the author was trying to make the story more current by using a more slangy looser language and the poetry of the story kind of fell out the window by doing so.  I haven't decided if I'll read the sequel or not. I thought the writing in "The Da Vinci Code" was MUCH better but the story in "The Passion of Mary Mag" was better.  I'll just say this and leave it at that:  Take a look at it if you like 'sacred feminine-Earthmother' literature(which I do), stay away if "The Da Vinci Code"  unleashed an urge to burn books.

*Ohoh! Since we're on reviews, I saw Valkyrie yesterday. Yep, 2 years after everyone else did.  It was good.  I vaguely remember learning about this in my high school History class but it was very brief.  This is a story that should have been told.  I've heard many German Americans talk about how they were treated after the war.  I like to laugh at how weird Tom Cruise is but deep inside there's a little 6th grader who still thinks he's cute.

*True Blood starts this Sunday.  That should make you feel better Chickadee.  You love that show.  You heart Bill I know it.


*Whilst jogging this morning I took this picture.  I pass this little cement drawing everyday when I jog and I think it's funny considering the neighborhood it was drawn it.  If your eyes are not accustomed to Socialist propaganda(as mine were not either up until the 4th time I passed this and finally got it) then I'll tell you it's a hammer and sickle with a few paw prints.  This leads me to believe our little artist must have had a pup companion.  (Or should I say comrade?)  Anyway the point I was trying to make is the location.  If only you knew where I lived my friends.  I live amongst the sort of people who's cats have more money than the 98% of the rest of us.  Amongst the Teabagger-Tea Party inclined.  Apparently they have been infiltrated.

*And if that hasn't cheered you up my sad friend try this: This is my cheer up mug.  Purchased from Pottery Barn a couple months ago.  I had to use it all winter for tea and such because I was sick and I'm telling you, it's the cure for depression.

How could anyone be greeted by this face over a cup of tea and still be depressed? Not me.  But then I'm always a sucker for a little friendly face.  Even if it is a ceramic one.

And I bought two,  there's one for you Chickadee so don't be a stranger anymore.  And don't be sad.

Confession: I was mean yesterday

I should confess something.  I was in such a bad mood yesterday and so full of evil feelings towards my neighbors that I did something, or well refused to do something and I need to get it off my chest before I continue with my day.  Because the minute I realized I truly DO NOT love my neighbor as myself and I'm acting like it, I felt a little bad.  But just a little-hey I said I was a Christian but I never said I was perfect.  As I mentioned last post my neighbors keep me awake just about every weekend with their loud parties and it's not seldom that I wake up to find beer cans and cigarettes on my porch.  No need to mention the beautiful throw up I found on our common stairway the morning after our "discussion" on Friday night wherein one of her "guests" got smartassed with me.  I really should just tell you guys everything but I'm just so disgusted over the whole thing that I don't want to poison my blog with it.  I really do want to tell  but time needs to pass so that I can laugh at it instead of wrath over it, which is what I've been doing.  I had some other things on my mind yesterday that contributed to my bad mood as well but anyway, back to what I wanted to confess:  Yesterday at around lunch time, there was knock on my door and when I opened it there stood a flower deliveryman.  I knew it was for my neighbor and he asked if he could leave it with me.  I told him I didn't feel comfortable accepting their deliveries and I was probably pretty terse with him.  (oops it's not his fault)  The minute I closed the door I knew how petty I was being.  But that's just how disgusted over the whole thing I am. I don't want anything to do with them right now.  I don't want to accept their deliveries and I don't want to knock on their door with a fake smile and a vase of flowers. For just a couple days I just want to pretend that they don't exist.   It probably would have been a good opportunity to make peace, even though there really is no negative energy between us that I can feel.  It's really just my negative energy towards them. She at least had the decency to act apologetic, I'll give her that.   But like that Dixie Chick song, I'm still "not ready to make nice."  Eventually I will.  I still do wave to them when we see each other in our small parking lot so it's not like I'm zapping eye-lasers (as I've been known to do) or flipping them off everyday.  I just want to not have anything more to do with them for right now.  It's Memorial day weekend and I'm already anticipating another Frat party, thus my anxiety over the whole situation. Anyway yeah, so I was mean yesterday.  I used to post confessions on Tuesdays and then somehow forgot about it, I guess I should do this more often.

 I wanted this post to be a list of things that cheer me up, since I am in a happier mood today but I think I'll do it later.

Pet Peeves

I didn't sleep last night so I'm not in the best of moods today.  So today's posts are list of a few things I loathe.

-Animal print and Pointy toed shoes.  yeah yeah I've posted this before but the repetition should be a sign of my loathing.  No offense to all you folks who love them.  I just think animal print either ages a woman or makes her look desperate if it's not done right.  And I don't have enough time on the Earth left to list all the reasons why I hate pointy toed shoes.

-Finding plastic on the beach but I've already told you guys about that.

-When people pronounce Florida as if it's spelled "Flahr-duh."  I'm not sure why but it just drives me insane.

-When people make comments about how wild my dog is.  Stuff like, " You should train him."  No you should just not come over to my house, he lives here-you don't.

-When sales people try to help me.  I know this sounds odd, we all need help when we shop don't we?  I'm not talking about opening the fitting room door for me and getting the correct size.  I'm talking about the ones who know I'm going to buy stuff, so they try to maximize by making suggestions. For example, MrPea recently bought me a new pair of sunglasses for our anniversary and I was in the store trying a bunch on and the saleslady kept trying to make me try on a bunch of stuff that I hated because we have different taste.  She's just being helpful but I don't trust other people's tastes because I hate trendy things.  I always have to tell them to stop because I will automatically hate anything they show me.


-My neighbor(s).  They seem like nice people, but they are the loudest mf's I have ever had the misfortune to live next to.  I had to go over there(as non-confrontational as I am) last Friday night because she was having a loud party and there were people hanging out on my porch smoking and drinking.  I decided to forgive her because she was really apologetic until the next morning when I woke up to find PUKE on the common stairway. Yeah.  She's in the I hate you club. I'll have to post this story one day when I'm feeling more humorous over it.

-People who scoff when I complain about the cold in the winter.  Usually it's because said person comes from a colder climate and thinks no one else has the right to be cold because it's colder somewhere else.  It's not the Olympics of who has a worse winter it's just me saying I'm cold.




-Sorry New Yorkers but I might piss some of you off because I have to say this:  when people from New York move here(cuz you all know they end up in Florida one day) and every conversation starts or ends with,"Well, in New York it's done this way" or "That doesn't happen in New York,"  Or  "If this was New York...", or "I've never seen anything like this in New York"   Etc. It's always said in that nose turned up tone that they think we Floridians don't understand.  Not everyone does this but the ones who do have no idea how rude this is in any region.  We get it ok?!  You guys love New York!  New York is your standard.  But guess what, there are some of who don't give a flying f*ck how the perfect people in the perfect city of New York or Cairo or Timbuktu or anywhere else do everything better than everyone else.  If it's all so wonderful there, why are so many people moving here where everything is so awful and we Southerners are so slow and stupid?  exactly.  I promise you, I love Florida and I love Hawaii. I could live and die in either of these places, never see New York or any major city and have no regrets over it.   But I don't go around telling everyone how everyone else in Florida and Hawaii "do" everything.   Because I was raised to be polite.  This doesn't mean I don't heart NY, I heart NY very much, I just think it's obnoxious behavior. No one else does this in my experience.  I've met people who move here from all parts of the country and not one has started out a conversation with me by saying, "I'm from Vermont so naturally I'm not used to seeing all the blah blah blah that you guys here must be used to"  or "Oh well, in Arkansas we don't let our kids blah blah blah because we have higher standards than you all"


yeah I'm in a bad mood.  I was confronted with this last night for the billionth time.


 For the record my loud, rude, trashy neighbor is from Tennessee.  So my wrath today is evenly spread around.  Feel free to disagree and  add your own pet peeves.  It might make me feel better.

Stuff I do while I convalesce

I've been reading some.  After reading "East of Eden," by John Steinbeck for a book club, I decided to skip the next book that was chosen because it was too "non-fictiony" for me right now. Not that I don't like non-fiction, mind you. I just wasn't in the mood for this one and the kind of divisive conversations the last book we read like this brought out. Someone suggested I might like this one("The Passion of Mary Magdalene" by Elizabeth Cunningham) so I'm about half way into it.  I can't really call it great literature but it's a decent story.  If you got all hot and offended by Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" then I would tell you to steer clear of it.  Actually the exCatholic in me is a little squeamish myself.  But I read the Da Vinci Code, it gave me a lot to think about as I have an  open mind but things are put in the "fiction" section for a reason so there's no reason in my opinion to get all 'fire and brimstone' over a book.  If one has a strong faith what is there to freak out about?  Fear?  My faith urges me to question but I won;t get into that here as this book is not the sort of book that would conjure up a discussion about faith.  It's just a story.  It's not very well written I don't think.  But it's an easy read and after the past couple weeks I've had, I needed an easy read.  If you think I'm a heathen for reading it then you need to look under your own beds for the boogieman......


Oh I watched the "Lost" series finale.  Yeah I was "one of those."  Give or take a few episodes because I didn't have a DVR back then, I've been watching since the pilot.  I love "Lost."  It was a bit of a kiddie rollercoaster the past couple seasons.  I say kiddie rollercoaster because I don't want you to think it was all that emotional for me, even when I was irritated with the characters/writing, I still loved the show.  I was just always left thinking,"What???!! Oh what the hell now??!" And it started to get on my nerves.  I could even be caught telling my sister how ridiculous things were getting.  I was actually thinking it was a good idea to end it because of how ridiculous it was getting.  Because I was expecting all the i's to be dotted and all the t's crossed so I looked forward to some answers finally dammit!  And I didn't get any answers.  But I may be the only one who really liked the final show.  Because I don't care about the "answers" I cared about the characters.  And this show gave me closure.  Does that make sense?  The only other series finale that did that for me was "Six Feet Under."  Remember that show?  Best finale ever in my opinion.  So I can honestly say that I loved the "Lost"  finale. I truly did.    It took me a few hours to realize that I loved it though.  I still hate the "Soprano's" ending I don't care what anyone says.   Anyway, yeah.  "Lost" is over we can all go back to our lives....


I've also been working on this drawing.  Two happy kool aid colored hibiscus flowers I happened upon while laying by the pool last year.  I took a photo thus resulting in a color pencil drawing.

I took this with my cell so excuse the bad lighting but as of this post I have one petal left to do before filling in the leaves and background.  If you look closely, you'll see that I wasn't able to erase my pencil outline.  My eraser sucks.  I'm trying to get a "collection" together so that I can start showing and maybe selling(although that would be hard, I have a hard time parting with my work) some of my stuff.  It's just a thought, I'll keep you guys posted on how that turns out.

Also even though I've been living like an indoor cat again I have been making a point to walk to the beach as much as I can when the day heat starts to subside and the sea breeze  actually feels like a sea breeze.  I took a couple pictures with my cell because the clouds rising were so pretty and I've been depressed about that effing oil spill.  I pray for Louisiana and the Gulf Coast to get through this as quickly as possible.  And I beg that this doesn't happen to my beloved beach.  I won't know what to do with myself if this beautiful picture turns into an ocean of greasy brownblack sludge and dead animals.  NO I do know what I would do.  I would put some boots on and help clean, broken heart and all.  But I'm praying for the protection of this place, I really am.  Look at it, how could I not?

Looks like someone had a good time on their vacation!

I live near a really expensive, fancy hotel and country club so naturally I encounter a lot of "weirdness" as tourists and country club people tend to be.  I was walking Peanut on the beach this week and came upon this wonderful evidence.....A towel and an empty condom wrapper. Not quite sure if this couple realized they were doing it right in front of a row of townhouses.   Fun.

At least they had safe sex.

Sick Pea again, not to worry though. Pea will be ok

I don't like complaining about being sick and I'm just about to so I posted a picture of this washed up dead tree I took with my cell phone this past winter. That way anyone who doesn't want to hear about my being sick can still enjoy a pretty picture and then skip the rest.   I wish I had taken more to use for a drawing but I didn't know it was to be removed. Anyway, enjoy.  Isn't the winter sky just beautiful?  And the cold ocean so blue?  Ok now skip the rest if you're as bored as I am from all my health issues.  Go on, I won't be hurt.....don't be shy with a comment though.

So here we are again.  I have tonsillitis.  My doctor has me on penicillin and a mild steroid 4 times a day and told me to give myself and my  throat a rest. Talk only when necessary and no yelling for a few days.  I thought, "ummm Yeah. ok.  Easy as pie doc."  No talking and no yelling.  He must not know any Filipino women.  First thing I did when I got out of that office was call my best friend and then my sister.  After I got off the phone Mr.Pea said to me in his smartass voice, "I thought you weren't supposed to talk a lot?"  I said, "I know but I had to get it out of my system." Truth is I really don't like talking on the phone but I love my sister and my bff and they live so effing far away from me.  So today begins the silence............so far so good.  I think.


I'm also supposed to stay out of the sun because of the antibiotic and he said not to do too much physical activity until at least 48 hours after my last dose. I need more rest and I have to stay away from spicy & salty  foods and citrus.  Ok I can deal with the no talking.  I can even deal with the no yelling(I hope). I can ween myself off salt and I don't drink juice anyway.  But no beach and no jogging?  WTF!? There's a conspiracy against me I know it.   He's right though. Normally I take really good care of myself.  I mean I was sick for over a month this winter but everyone in Northern Florida was sick.  It was the worst winter I've ever seen in Florida and then pollen season snuck up on us all and tried to do us in.  But other than that I really do live a healthy lifestyle.  I jog 2-3 miles at least 3-4 times a week.  I have a healthy diet, I don't have to do manual labor and I don't have a lot of stress. For a girl my size, I'm pretty strong.  I don't get worn out that easily.  What's funny is that it wasn't physical activity that exhausted me, a person did.  I let a negative energy in my life and it exhausted me and distracted me from the most important thing to me which is my health.  And being exhausted effed up my immunity.

 I wish I could go into more detail about those "incidents" I was bitching about a week and a half ago.  But there's so many little tedious details that happened over a long period of time and I didn't start this blog for that kind of gossip or to complain endlessly about my health. But I was really forced into reevaluating and then redefining all the relationships in my life.  And I have only myself to blame, I'm the one who who wasn't taking care of myself  so I hold no negative feelings against this person.  BUT When I found out I had cancer, I had surgery to cut it out.  We should all be able to do the same with all that other stuff.  When there's something negative in your life, CUT IT OUT.  Or you'll end up with infected tonsils like me.  Stuck inside on a beautiful day.  No jogging so you'll feel crappy about your body.  No salt, so all your food will taste like crap. Not talking and no yelling so you can't yell at your husband(oh actually I guess that's a good thing oooh but that's so hard) or talk to your sister.  Take my advice peeps.  If there's anything or anyone in your life causing you stress, wearing you out, sucking your energy--- you can't get rid of it fast enough my friends......

At least with the no talking means I'll have to blog more.