The Essential Beachcomber

If you hear voices and they tell you to "go to Sanibel" - listen to them. The best time to go shelling (if you are not concerned as to whether you find any good shells or not) is "whenever you feel the urge'.  Now, I have to watch my shelling urges as they they break out at some really inconvenient times. Many times I have left work on my lunch break only to return an hour later with soggy squeaking shoes from an impromptu trip to the local beach. More than once my hubby has awoken to a note on his beside table explaining my whereabouts (or lack of) due to a full moon and  an extra low 3am tide.  From my home base in Englewood, Florida, I can easily get to the beaches of Manasota Key, Boca Grande, & Sarasota in 20 minutes.  Sanibel - not so much. It is an hour (depending on traffic and highway construction) south on I-75 to Exit 121 and then another 30 minutes to the toll booth that leads across the causeway to the shelling mother ship.  The shellin...

Here in the south (SWFL to be exact) we have long had a secret for well being that is just now starting to leak out across the rest of the globe. With health conscious companies marketing homeopathic-this and all-natural-that all promising to improve your health and give you a sense of well-being we southerners have had the cure for hundreds of years. Are you having one of "those" days?  You know the kind of day.  It feels like you are slogging through jello.  You are just in a funk with no creative energy or forward inertia. Stuff happens and it is happening to you.  The southern elixir that puts a drawl in your speech and pep in your step is Sweet Tea or just tea as we call it.  The sugar is just a given. Case in point - my niece Pookie.  After a crappy day at work facing all the drama that a typical 25 yo woman has to face in an 8 hour time span she heads for some solace at my house where the washer and dryer are free and the sympathy regarding lif...

I just have to chuckle when I hear people commiserating  about "the good ole days" before computers took over the world.  These poor disillusioned folks  lament how people these days can not do anything without a computer, cell phone, or some device attached to our bodies.  At TEB household we  have tossed our cassette tapes & land line and embraced the 21st Century with a huge cyber bear hug.  The best thing about the world wide web is having a bottomless pit of information at my fingertip (the one I'm typing on my iPhone with).  No longer do I have to call 3 or 4 friends to find out who the missing  Spice Girl is or try to remember obscure song lyrics on my own.  I can google anything, anybody, anywhere, anytime.  My mom even uses me to goggle crossword clues when she is stuck.  Because of Facebook I can keep up with an entire global neighborhood of friends and family.  In almost real time I can view what they are u...

Be shore of yourself. (Credit:  www.iLoveShelling.com) Come out of your shell  ! (My sister Kelly on Honeymoon Island, Florida) Take time to relax & coast . (New friend Gina with her beach cruiser ala Lily Pulitzer on Englewood Beach, Florida) Avoid pier pressure. Sea life's beauty. Don't get tide down. (Credit:  Mary Engelbriet) Make Waves ! Thank you to  Your True Nature  for this wonderful advice.

It's time to shuck off those sneakers, take off those Tom's, & kick off those flip flops.  Summertime is here and it's time to go barefoot.  Being a Renaissance woman with some redneck inclinations - going barefoot is  a regular event for me. I love the feel of soft grass under my bare feet.  I like the feel of sand between my toes even better.  One of my  shell sistahs has the best of both worlds.  She can kick off her flip flops and head to to her local beach - Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs, Florida any time she wants. Congratulations Carla on finding your first junonia. (Credit:  Carla Barone)   Barefoot Beach  is located on Bonita Beach  just north of Naples, Florida. (Credit:  Carla Barone) You'd be sporting an ear-to-ear grin too if you'd  have found this rare highly-prized junonia.  My shell sistah Carla from Bonita Springs has just joined the elite club of junonia finders. (Credit:...

It's Raining Shells!  Hallelujah!!  The rain that rolled over Englewood on Wednesday night rattled some pretty shells loose that washed up Thursday afternoon. The turtles have started arriving. The yellow stakes are placed on fresh turtle nests each morning as the  local turtle patrol make their way up the beach looking for recent turtle tracks.  This seemed like a popular spot.   I had a newbie sheller with me.  Green Pea hollered that she had found a "pretty Shell".  She scored a perfect lion's paw. My beach buddy was on the look-out for shark's teeth and had to switch brain grooves to spot shells instead. Our 2 best finds of the afternoon - a juvenile horse conch  & a lion's paw  (3 inches from top to bottom) Manasota Key is the kitchen sink of shelling.  You find lots of shark's teeth, fossils, shells, & beach bling. We chillax'd on a bench to watch the boats sail by. Thinking of singer ...

(Credit:  Royal Palm Marina) The winner of the 2010 Seawall Art Competition at Royal Palm Marina in Englewood, Florida was local artist Diana Davidson.  Her mural will be the only section not painted over for the 2012 contest. I am certain that Englewood has more artists per capita than any other gulf coast town in SWFL. We do have our fair share of doctors, lawyers, teachers,  realtor's, construction guys (who double as fishing guides),  retail workers & restaurant people but most of them are artists in their spare time.  We have an art center ,  an Artists Alliance ,  an artist's retreat .  Englewood abounds in  local shops & galleries that carry the work of area artists. Painting virtuosos will add their creative magic to anything in Englewood that stands still long enough.  If it has aesthetic potential some would-be artist will beautify or decorate it with their imaginative skills.  No bench , outside business ...