Scenes from the Neighborhood

Buttermilk Bay

Cooling off her hot paws.  Pepper's first dip in east coast waters.  She wasn't interested in going for a swim.

Am currently accepting donations so I can purchase this house.  ;P

Clever  use of an old wheelbarrow.

Of the 3 bridges, I love the Railroad Bridge the best.  I have to get down there to shoot photos when it's being lowered for trains to cross the Canal.

This goofy old stove was on a dock behind Buzzards Bait.

I always have the uncontrollable urge to sing "Ride of the Valkyries" every time a helicopter flies overhead.

Was glad the owners of this house weren't at home when I trespassed across their front lawn to get this shot.

Flora and a couple of Fauna

Some of the pretty flowers that bloomed this summer in my neighborhood.

There are a few of these trees in the area but I don't know what they are.  Their flowers are all pink and 'fuzzy'.

A close up of the flowers and leaves on that tree.

And a couple of Cormorants paddling around in Buttermilk Bay.

Phoenix Rising

Even though I unpacked and set up the house fairly quickly, the only thing I had yet to do was make crafts.  For me, it brought that final sense of normalcy in my new surroundings.  Now I'm truly home.

Here's the craft room all set up and decorated.

Pepper supervising, as always.

Note my doggie helper under the table.  All that beading tuckered her out.

I made one card, 5 necklaces, a bracelet and pair of earrings.  I'm keeping the one with the Orca whale pendant since I got it in Victoria.  And I'm tempted to keep the blue one because it was inspired by the Cape Cod Canal.

Birthday card for my friend Autumn.  

The angel wings on the left cover the dragonfly prongs.

Tahoma Beadworks is back baby!

Be the Change You Want to See in the World

I'd taken a walk down to the little beach at Buttermilk Bay, near my house, in early August.  I was horrified to see this trash.  Litter is unacceptable to me.  If you can pack your stuff in, you can pack your trash out again.  But it's not enough to simply be "horrified" by it, and then go home and grumble about what pigs people are and how repugnant the human race is.

So the next morning I grabbed a trash bag and my groovy pink gloves and headed back down to the beach.  

It took all of 10 minutes to clean up that litter, plus the bits of trash I found in the park next to the beach.  It was August 9th, the 16th anniversary of Jerry Garcia's death.  I think he would have approved of how I observed it.

What looks like white paper are actually clam shells, bleached wood and rocks, and the green thing in the center is a sprinkler head.  All the trash is gone.

I didn't post this for an 'attaboy' or pat on the back, but to show that one person can make a difference in a short amount of time.  Think globally, act locally.

Morton's Toe

Please ignore the pasty white, sickly Pacific Northwest skin tone.  Legal Disclaimer:  I take no responsibility, or assume any liability, for your eyes being blinded by the brightness.

I posted this picture on Facebook of my feet cooling off in Buttermilk Bay, near my house.  One of my friends commented about my second toe being longer than my big toe.  A few people have mentioned it in the past when they saw me barefoot, but all I could tell them was that it's hereditary on my mom's side.  I decided to look it up and it's called "Morton's Toe".  It's not that the 2nd toe is longer, the 1st one is shorter.  It's also known as "The Greek Foot".  Having the great toe longer is known as The Egyptian Foot.  I was pleased to read that the Greek Foot is associated with royalty, is an idealized form in Greek sculpture, and "persisted as an aesthetic standard through Roman and Renaissance periods and later."  Apparently the Statue of Liberty has the 2nd toe longer too.  See? I told you I was Queen of the Entire Planet!! *she says smugly*

I also learned that people with Morton's Toe are more prone to musculoskeletal pain, by lowering one of the hips.  This leads to a forward-leaning, head-forward posture, which is one thing with which I've always had a problem.  My mom was constantly after me to stand up straight and quit leaning forward.  This also causes hip pain, low back pain, shoulder and neck pain.  Anyone who knows me and grew up with me knows that I have never been able to straighten out my legs due to horrible hip pain.

On a side note, I found that silver ankle bracelet in the parking lot at the local Evil Empire....erm....I mean Wal-Mart.  Nothing like a good Ground Score!

Friendship

This photo was taken 29 years ago, in early September 1982, of me and Martha in my dorm room at Saint Joseph's College in Maine.  Martha lived across the hall and we became fast friends.

And here we are in early August, 2011, at her family's cottage in Dennisport.

Where did the past 29 years go?  I still think of us as teenagers just starting out in life.