Semi-Wordless Wednesday... March Photos of the Day

So, I left off at WINDOW... I can't promise I did these in order but I did them.

RED... ZZ Top /?concert at the rodeo

LOUD... New York City

Someone I talked to today...

FORK... in the road.

SIGN... and yes, that's THE Mystic Pizza.

CLOUDS... and beach in Glen Cove, NY.

Car... and Miss LuLu, the GPS that steered us all the way through the Northeast last week.

Sunglasses... and an awesome friend I hadn't seen in 20 years!

Green... Sweet Son on the United States Naval Academy Campus

Semi-Wordless Wednesday - If You're Lucky Enough To Be At The Beach...

You're lucky enough.

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday...

Sunrise over central Texas...
(taken driving 75 mph down the highway through the car window with my iphone.  really.)

Almost Wordless Wednesday

You know, I have a hard time with the whole wordless thing...

Can't you hear it calling your name?

Ballerina Girl...

Off this morning to watch Dear Daughter perform on pointe for the first time... 8 years of ballet to get to this moment.  Took this pic at rehearsal yesterday with my iphone and the Hipstamatic app, so cool, it makes me feel like a professional photographer!  Now, time to apply make-up and create that perfect bun... 

Happy Sunday!

Awesome Amelia

I know you probably think I went nowhere on my recent trip to Amelia Island but here... 

Despite the hours I was forced to spend conferencing with my beach chair, I did, indeed, sneak in a day in town.  The Historic District of Fernandina Beach is a 50 block area LOADED with amazing historic Southern buildings, restaurants, and shops (yes, I said shops!) tucked right next to the docks and surrounded by huge trees dripping in Spanish Moss.  

It is truly a magical little place... from the docks you can take a cruise over to visit Cumberland Island, (where JFK, Jr. held his super secret wedding) and watch the wild horses that live and play along the shoreline.  I didn't make that trip this time, but here we are (Curly Ruffle Butt is my niece) on a sunset cruise to Cumberland last summer... 

I had a great time taking pics with my Hipstamatic app of all the cool buildings...

Last stop... my FAVORITE shop for great secondhand finds, antiques, vintage furniture, jewelry, and more, Trailer Park Collectibles.  Once you go in, you may never come back out... and if you do, you certainly won't come out empty handed.

Just looking at this picture puts me in my happy place... 

Just another day in paradise...

Last day to enjoy the beautiful and relaxing island of Amelia... Boo! I sure could use one more day... or maybe ten. The weather has been perfect and I just never tire of sitting by the ocean. Don't my feet look happy?


They should be, they stayed pretty much in this same spot for about 6 hours yesterday...

I'm chilling right now in an old barnwood adirondak chair waiting for the shops to open so I can pick up some souvenirs for the munchkins... staring at this...


There's a lovely breeze and birds chirping and I'm starting to feel like I'm in a Disney movie and one of them is going to land on my shoulder and strike up a conversation...

Trying out a different blogging app today, curious to see if it has better results, it does seem to have more functionality so far...

I have taken about a million pics with my hipstamatic app, so I will leave you with one more this morning before I head in to do a little more shopping damage...



-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Good Morning Sunshine...

If you're lucky enough to be at the beach, you're lucky enough...

Sunrise at Amelia Island, Florida...

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Took a trip this weekend to Enchanted Gardens ... Handsome Hubby and Dear Daughter needed to pick up plants and seeds for their spring garden.  Note, I was not included in that last sentence, and I am normally not included in the trips to pick up plants.  Gardening is their domain... mommy and Sweet Son excluded.   They plan and shop and plant and tend and we just get to enjoy the fruits of their labor... and they are awesome fruits! Tomatoes SO yummy I can no longer eat them from the store. Last year I took a bowl of cherry tomatoes to our neighbor with instructions to bring it back when it was empty for a refill... my doorbell rang 10 minutes later and there she stood with her empty bowl.  

This trip they allowed me to go to take some pics with my favorite iphone app, Hipstamatic... love this place!  An old beater truck with plants stacked all over, goats, chickens, free popcorn, and beautiful flowers...

Shell Shock

Thought I would share another easy peasy project we did for Dear Daughter's big girl room... this room has been in the PLANNING stages for two years, but Mommy failed to get off her duff and get it done.  That said, we had lots of time to gather ideas and this was one of them...

Vacationed this summer at the awesome Amelia Island, Florida... now, I am a Gulf Coast girl going WAY back in my childhood, but that blasted oil spill put a damper on our usual trip to Gulf Shores so we had to regroup and discover a new beach on the "OTHER" side of Florida.  Blasphemy.  I want the sandy white beaches of my youth, but I put on my big girl undies and endured the very LONG drive to the Atlantic side.  What a surprise treat Amelia turned out to be!  Different beaches for sure, but LOADED with shells, awesome waves, and just a delightfully sleepy southern town vibe.  Actually THINK my handsome hubby is taking me back there with him on a business trip soon... yippee!  Here is Sweet Son skim boarding on the Amelia beaches... taken with my iphone and the WAY cool Hipstamatic app...

Of course, Mimi and I always have to take at least one day away from the surf, sand, and skim boarding (JUST KIDDING, I tried to skim board ONCE... not pretty)  to visit the local antique shops, and Amelia was a GOLDMINE.   Wandering through one great eclectic shop I came across this:

Pardon the poor picture quality... it was dark in there and I was using my phone camera.

Ok, so I LOVED this... perfect for Dear Daughter's beachy, vintage theme room... but seriously, the price was HIGH at around $100.  Remember how I mentioned there are millions of GREAT shells on the Amelia Island beaches?  My kids spend literally HOURS scouring the beaches for shells... and then there was that day I made Handsome Hubby walk about 6 miles down the beach with me collecting shells in his shirt... oops, forgot to bring a bag.  I decided to snap a pic and HOPEFULLY remember when I got home to try to recreate this idea...

I have been keeping my eye out for the perfect frame.  In my favorite thrift store one day I found 2 matching framed pieces of art... sort of that 70's Home Interiors style... ugly, dreary looking "fake" paintings in some really scrolly french provencial plastic frames.  One dollar each... JACKPOT.  I didn't even need to get canvases for the shells, they could go directly on the old "paintings"...

Dear Daughter picked out a shade of purple acrylic paint for the frames, to match a surfboard we painted in the same color. Got to work painting the frames... no primer, just slapped a couple of coats right on... because these are some form of cheap plastic, without primer some of the old frame peeks through, giving them exactly the vintage look we were going for anyway.  Next I grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and went to town with those million shells we collected... very little time and about $3 later... voila!

Dear Daughter is in heaven!  These are perfect for the "collage" of stuff above her bed (will blog on that later) and they are very special to her because the shells were collected by her family during her favorite week of the year... Mommy loves them because they were fun to make, turned out cuter than the inspiration (in my humble Mommy opinion), and saved me about 97 bucks... yea me!