The Essential Beachcomber

There is no holiday of higher expectations - or disappointment when those expectations are not met - than Christmas.  Starting well before Thanksgiving these days,  we are bombarded from all sides with commercials on the television selling the perfect, must-have-or-your-kids-will-need-therapy Christmas gifts.  Home decorating magazines, blogs, and now Pinterest all captivate our fantasies of having a Hallmark-perfect holiday. The perfect table scape, candle-laden-garland-festooned mantle, & hand-crafted-from-re-purposed-whatever ornaments are just a mouse click away.   Gone are the days of a simple  Walton's Mountain Christmas where John Boy and his siblings exchanged a whittled toy out of wood or a handmade baby doll.  Now, we leave our homes on Thanksgiving evening before the second helping of pumpkin pie has had time to digest to go stand in a massive line at the mall to get $10 pajama pants at Old Navy. Oh.  Holy.  Night. Fo...

No Black Friday shopping for me today. I opted for a walk on the beach instead of the mall.  I saw these black skimmers swirling in the sky off Boca Grande today. (probably to stay warm - it was chilly for Florida). After warming up with a thermos full of steaming hot citrus green tea, my friend and I finished off yesterday's leftovers with a turkey, stuffing & Hellman's mayo sandwich.  No good meal would be complete without dessert - pecan &  pumpkin pie.  Nice to have a table with a view. I picked up a rainbow of calico scallops. Check out more of my beachy fotos on Instagram.                                                                     

About a 1/2 mile walk north of the Blind Pass Beach on Manasota Key is a little place I refer to as my Chapel-by-the-Sea.  It's not fancy.  There are no padded pews or air conditioning.  Just bare bones sand, sea and salty wind blowing against my face.  There are no choirs or instruments.  Just the melody of the waves rolling in to shore with an occasional Osprey singing harmony from a nest high in an Australian Pine tree.   The parishioners are feathered and are not paying any attention to a sermon.  They are more concerned with the schools of white fish moving across the surface of the water.  There is no collection plate passed but my shell bucket receives many gifts from the sea. As my thoughts and words of praise & thanksgiving go up, I feel my Heavenly Poppa's love come down and invade my heart in this sacred space.   It was, after all, His invitation for me to join Him and I simply said Yes. ...

WHAT DOES..... This Beach Belle The rocks and these shells  have in common? The lovely beach belle is my niece Pookie .  She is not really a shelling enthusiast but she hangs around alot of people who are.  The shells she finds are collateral damage.  She's not really looking, just along for the ride really.  But she manages to score some pretty nice finds for all her ambivalence towards the hobby of shelling. Pookie spent the day at Honeymoon Island State Park   hanging out with her mom who is a passionate sheller.  She came home with a whole box full of olives, Sunray venus Clams, &  agatized coral .  What looks like ugly rocks are actually full of geode-like crystals when you break them up with a hammer.  Enter GeeGee (my mom - Pookie's grandmother) The shells and agatized coral get cleaned up and sorted.  Of couse someone has to make something.   Ta Da!  Check out t...